What smoking does for you, Mr. President

Makes you cough.

Makes you stink.

Makes you short of breath.

Makes you feel more stressed, especially if you can't get to a cigarette.

Burns up your discretionary money--$4.00 a pack, so if you are smoking 2 packs a day, that's a huge chunk. A trip to Europe after you're out of office.

Puts you more at risk for preventable diseases

heart disease
stroke
cancer of the larynx
cancer of the mouth
cancer of the bladder
cancer of the cervix
cancer of the pancreas
cancer of the kidneys

Opens you up to respiratory problems

bronchitis
emphysema
asthma attacks

to say nothing of yellow, stained teeth, periodontal disease and wrinkles.

And smokers tend to die 7 years earlier than non-smokers.

That said, and obviously I think it's a horrible, life diminishing habit, I think you guys in the government are going too far. "Promoting Health Through Tobacco Taxation" JAMA, Jan. 27, 2010. The very first tax you imposed in office was primarily on lower income people, by raising cigarette taxes.

Republicans--hopeless or helpless?

Although I never voted for George H.W. Bush, I thought Republicans were silly to toss him over for the "no new taxes" broken promise. Obama started breaking promises from the get-go, and our brave, proud media have scarcely batted an eyelash, nor his loyal supporters. Was it Jan. 21 that he raised taxes on the poor with that huge cigarette tax increase? Do you know a single rich guy who smokes hurt by that? Everything he's done in the last 7 months has either intentionally, or unintentionally hurt the economy. The rich can just ride it out. Republicans in Congress still look like idiots. If they can't make a difference because of their small numbers, they could at least stand on principle.

Yesterday I read in our local paper about a closing of a small bakery business--53 years old. Not only that, but the owners have also lost their home. I feel badly because I used to go there all the time when we lived on Abington, but I've probably only stopped in once or twice in the last 7 years. Their cakes, cookies and bread were to die for. The line to get things before an OSU football game went outside the door when my kids were little. The number of times I'd call my husband at work about 4:45 and ask him to swing by there and bring a dessert home--ah, I'm salivating.

The savings rate is up; that's good. But when people don't buy those little extras, and in this case the business employed about 20 people, everyone in the local community is hurt, the city gets fewer taxes, the state gets less, and the U.S. gov't, which thought the owners were "rich" will really get less. So then Obama will raise our taxes to make up for what he can't get from the "rich."

"When's the last time a poor person gave you a job" may be a cliche, but it is oh so true, and investment came to a screeching halt last July when the business world could see who would be the next president, a man very hostile to capitalism.

The smoking violin

Each week in the Lakesider (our weekly newspaper) there's a notice about smoking in "public areas." By next summer you won't be able to step outside a shop, restaurant or auditorium to smoke, because you'll be on public grounds. Depending on how that's interpreted, everything here belongs to the association except your cottage. An oldtimer told me last week (because we've only been coming here since 1974 we aren't oldtimers yet) that when he was a child, the cars and luggage were searched carefully before visitors were given a gate pass to be sure no one was bringing in alcohol. Not sure what they'll do about the smoking violinist I've been seeing for 30 years. Every day during symphony season, he walks the streets when he's not performing or in rehearsal. This man probably walks 4 or 5 hours a day and looks no different than the first time I saw him.

Smoking is rather rare these days among the educated middle and higher income group. It's just not reinforced among your peers, the way it was in high school, or the working place of blue collar workers. Obama's first tax was on the poor, less educated and lower income people. His plan to tax the middle income is buried with the health care premiums combined with the tax code in his single payer plan. The Lakeside violinist is probably not wealthy, but the new tax didn't defer him. I imagine his wife, mother, colleagues, doctor, pastor, friends, everyone has told him to stop. I don't think Lakeside rules or the President (who hasn't stopped smoking himself) with higher taxes, will stop him. It's a mind altering drug, and terribly addictive, particularly if started young when the brain is still developing.

April Fool--first new tax on the poor

As I noted yesterday, I have little sympathy with smokers, but Obama's new cigarette tax which will impact low-income smokers the most with an average of 13.3% increase and a decrease in state services which depend on those taxes, is really regressive. The SCHIP increase isn't helping those who don't have health insurance, it's pulling most enrollees off the insurance of the working parents' companies, which will cause other insured rates to go up, or companies to fail, so the government (Democrats and clueless RINOs) can further increase SCHIP to include 50 and 60 year olds not yet ready for Medicare. What a plan our great leader has for our low-income families.

This sin tax now is up from $.39 to $1.01 and the cigarette smuggling business is booming. See Brad Schiller article in WSJ. It really is a throw back to the days of FDR, taxing anything that was enjoyable like candy or movies, which hit the unemployed the hardest, and then enroll them in the WPA. Obama's new mandatory "volunteer" act to keep millions from working and on the dole just passed a few days before his April Fool tax--do you suppose they are related?

Also, the duplicity is amazing. Stop smoking programs and drugs have been shown to do nothing, but they are still funded by the government. Even the "quit help lines" which may be private and non-profit, use government grants. Then the researchers get grants to study the drugs, to whine about how the drugs aren't getting to the low-income, and then to do studies on how they don't work anyway. See JAMA, March 11, 2009, "Setting the National Tobacco Control Agenda."

There are now smoking cessation quit lines in every state, but because there are few resources, they can help only 1$ to 2% of smokers quit."

Notice, it's always the money and not the method that fails? And then in the front of that issue you find,

"Emerging evidence suggests the smoking-cessation drug varenicline is among a growing list of medications that might cause serious psychiatric adverse events."

To say nothing of the weight gain problem that often results from the non-smoking programs.