Democratic Congress raises taxes on poor and middle class for health care for the rich

This is my personal blog at townhall.com today. I contributed to the debate on this issue because I care so much about it. Enjoy here:

Brian Thacker
10/1/2007

Recently the House of Representatives and Senate passed a bill about the federally funded children's health care program SCHIP. This program was designed to pay for health care of people who make too much money to qualify for medicare, but 'not enough' to pay for health insurance themselves. The President is going to veto this bill because it will tax the poor and give to the rich. Since the Democrats knew the President was going to veto this bill, over the weekend, they had a 12 year old sick boy deliver their radio address to the nation. I thought that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were the only organizations who actively hid behind children for propaganda purposes. Apparently the Democrats think using kids for propaganda is a good idea too (recall the child of the illegal alien paraded around recently).

Since Congress now follows 'paygo' rules, they have to figure out how they are going to pay for legislation before they can pass anything. Generally you would think that they would look at cutting some of the fat that would have to be in the budget for less important programs in order to afford something important. The Democrats would likely think that the military would be the best place to cut funds (as Clinton did and will if she is elected president). However Congress chose the age old boogie man of 'Big Tobacco' to foot the bill for this new program. Congress will include a 61 cent per pack of cigarettes federal tax to pay for this bill. I assume they figure that nobody will complain if it is a tax on evil awful bad tobacco.

However this idea misses the point. It isn't the 'Big Tobacco' companies that are going to pay for this program. It is the people who tend to smoke more than others. The people who smoke more than others would be the poor and middle class working American. This tax does not discriminate based on how much money you make. Even if you don't make enough money to pay any federal income tax, this tax will cost you. Generally the well off Americans don't smoke so they won't feel a tax increase at all here. If someone is a pack-a-day smoker, this tax will cost them $222.65 per year more no matter how much money they make.