More Taxes on Blue Collar Americans in the Works

Great. While the suits on Wall Street who ruined our economy are getting bailed out to continue their lives of luxury, working-class Americans may be getting extorted for even more cash from Uncle Sam. From Americans for Tax Reform:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The 111th Congress is less than a week old, and already the first tax increase has been put on the table.

What:
A 61 cents per pack, or 156 percent, increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes
to fund a proposed $35 billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance
Program (S-CHIP).

Who Will Be Burdened?

The middle- and low-income Americans they said they will not raise taxes on:

• 55 percent of smokers are “working poor”
• One in four smokers live below the poverty line
• On average, smokers, whose median income is a little more than $36,000, make about 30 percent less than non-smokers.

Most "progressives" will jump onboard with this idea because it's a tax incentive to promote "public health" or some nonsense. Well, yuppie culture is contributing to the wussification of America, and I don't hear anyone in Congress talking about slapping yoga mats with an excise tax to fund S-CHIP. Quitting smoking is no fun either (as I'm learning from personal experience). It makes you act like an idiot and withdrawal can even make you lash out unexpectedly (e.g. at the hospital staff in Bremerton). Is this the type of behavior we are trying to promote?