That give you a clue?
Of course, it is all right to toss money at rich Hollywood folk or corporate and lottery favorites, as well as Wall Street, while we have SCHOOLS SHUTTING DOWN and BRIDGES COLLAPSING!
"Lawmakers work to finalize 2009 budget
As the fiscal year winds down, Massachusetts lawmakers are scrambling to wrap up debate on a new state budget. The budget will not be in place by tomorrow, the start of the new fiscal year, but lawmakers hope to get the spending plan to Governor Deval Patrick's desk this week. House and Senate budget negotiators were working over the weekend to try to come up with final compromise version of the fiscal 2009 budget. Lawmakers are also trying to agree on a plan to raise as much as $500 million in taxes, including a dollar-per-pack increase in the state cigarette tax (AP June 30, 2008)."
And what are we going to do when the smokers quit (either willingly or...)?
And look at this; Massachusetts isn't the only one with the "great" idea:
"N.H., Vt. raising cigarette taxes; Rates are a boon to state revenues" by Associated Press | June 30, 2008
WEST LEBANON, N.H. - Cigarette taxes are on the rise in Vermont and may be in New Hampshire, too, though the Granite State will remain a relative bargain compared with states around it.
Vermont's cigarette tax rate climbs by 20 cents to $1.99 per pack effective tomorrow, a jump that follows a 60-cents-per-pack increase in 2006. Both of the increases were pegged to pay for the state's new Catamount Health insurance program.
Maybe Ron Paul is right about national health care after all.
New Hampshire's cigarette tax, now $1.08 per pack, is slated to jump to $1.33 in October if it doesn't generate at least $48 million in revenues between July and October. While both states like the revenue, both also are encouraging and welcoming the gradual decline in the numbers of people lighting up.
"Certainly, raising taxes on cigarettes is good public policy if you are trying to curb smoking," said Dennis Delay, deputy director of the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies.
But not if you are trying to find revenue, huh?
"But I think the state is stuck between wanting to discourage smoking in public places and still relying on cigarettes as a revenue source, and I think that source will become perhaps not as stable as it has been going forward," Delay added.
Jim Reardon, commissioner of Vermont's Department of Finance and Management, is more in the business of managing revenues than protecting public health, but he says he does not mind if higher taxes lead to fewer smokers.
"If there is a revenue decline in tobacco, that has a correlation with less people consuming tobacco products. That is certainly a revenue problem I'd like to have, because that's a positive outcome," Reardon said.
Even with Vermont's increase, Reardon said merchants along the state's border with New York may see an increase in cross-border traffic. That's because the Empire State recently raised its cigarette tax to $2.75 per pack, the highest in the country.
The federal government takes a tax bite, too, at 39 cents a pack.
And then turns around and SHIPS it off to Iraq into some war contractors pocket!!!!
In New Hampshire, a rate of $1.33 per pack would leave that state's tax easily the lowest in the region. Massachusetts charges a cigarette tax of $1.51 a pack and is considering raising it. Maine's tax rate is $2 per pack.
The result is a boon to New Hampshire state revenues, but any increase may be dampened a bit by the high cost of driving to save money on smoking.
"We sell a lot more cigarettes than we smoke, and the question is how far we've gone down on that curve because of the price of fuel," said Representative Susan Almy, Democrat of Lebanon and chairwoman of the House Ways and Means Committee."Excuse me, readers, I gotta go light up!
And I DON'T EVEN SMOKE!!!!
