Oh good grief! Some DB - a misguided woman columnist for the New York Times - named Gail Collins, wants us to lobby our Congressional people (can we do that?) for higher taxes on cigarettes. She says the money could be used to finance quality early education aka pre-schooling, also aka mommy’s little babysitting service, for children.
Excuse us lady, but Sam and I think you must have gotten hold of a bad bunch of Washington Bud and smoked a toke too much. Did you inhale or something? Do you not know how much tobacco and cigarette products already are taxed? How do you figure that smokers deserve to pay for early education when they can barely afford their $6-a-pack coffin nails now? Yeah, yeah, you think smoking is a sin therefore no tax on cigarettes can be too high, but guess what, you’re WRONG.
Sam and I are not smokers, chewers or any other kind of tobacco-product addicts, and we’re so-o-o glad they can’t smoke in restaurants or on airplanes and that sort of thing. Smokers are their own worst enemies because they too often are totally oblivious to people around them - as bad as cell phone yackers - and they throw their butts around like they think they’re seeding ground outside your home or church or shopping mall with Beyonce golden booty bits.
Still, it’s time to quit picking on smokers and cigarette companies. Sam and I have never been convinced that nicotine is as habit forming as lawsuits suggest. Statistics can lie. Scientific data can lie. The real problem with smokers is not their addiction to nicotine, but their addiction to doing something that they think is cool and somewhat publicly defiant. The harder we push them, the more they’re going to resist. Besides, how is an addiction to nicotine any different than, say an addiction to blue jeans? Some people pay hundreds of dollars to wear holey jeans. Are they that addicted to denim?
Some people insist on wearing cowboy hats and/or boots even though they’ve only see horses and cattle on TV or in a Billy Crystal movie. Why? Because they are so addicted to looking cool. How is cigarette smoking worse than that? A lot of people are addicted to riding Harley Davidson motorcycles. Why? Because the Harleys are so danged noisy and publicly defiant that makes their riders cool, is why?
Why do we do anything we do? Because it makes us feel good about ourselves, that’s why. We’re living life OUR WAY as the TV commercials like to say. The idiosyncracies we adopt as our personal habits comfort some deep seated need in us. Figure it out. It’s a no-brainer.
And as far as throwing more sin tax - or any tax - dollars at education, let’s figure out first how to spend less and wring more quality out of what we are spending. Good grief! You want statistics? Look up how much money states and cities are spending on education now. The figures are eye popping. You want to know why kids in other countries or kids who come here from other countries are beating the pants off American kids education-wise? Because those other kids are MOTIVATED. Plain and simple, they and their parents want them to get ahead.
Instead of lobbying your Congressional leaders to raise taxes on cigarettes again, first ask yourself if you are motivating your child or just expecting more tax dollars to do the job for you. Three bags of poop on shirking your responsibility. May your child someday become head of a big multi-national oil company and continue to rob us blind while Congress does nothing.
Excuse us lady, but Sam and I think you must have gotten hold of a bad bunch of Washington Bud and smoked a toke too much. Did you inhale or something? Do you not know how much tobacco and cigarette products already are taxed? How do you figure that smokers deserve to pay for early education when they can barely afford their $6-a-pack coffin nails now? Yeah, yeah, you think smoking is a sin therefore no tax on cigarettes can be too high, but guess what, you’re WRONG.
Sam and I are not smokers, chewers or any other kind of tobacco-product addicts, and we’re so-o-o glad they can’t smoke in restaurants or on airplanes and that sort of thing. Smokers are their own worst enemies because they too often are totally oblivious to people around them - as bad as cell phone yackers - and they throw their butts around like they think they’re seeding ground outside your home or church or shopping mall with Beyonce golden booty bits.
Still, it’s time to quit picking on smokers and cigarette companies. Sam and I have never been convinced that nicotine is as habit forming as lawsuits suggest. Statistics can lie. Scientific data can lie. The real problem with smokers is not their addiction to nicotine, but their addiction to doing something that they think is cool and somewhat publicly defiant. The harder we push them, the more they’re going to resist. Besides, how is an addiction to nicotine any different than, say an addiction to blue jeans? Some people pay hundreds of dollars to wear holey jeans. Are they that addicted to denim?
Some people insist on wearing cowboy hats and/or boots even though they’ve only see horses and cattle on TV or in a Billy Crystal movie. Why? Because they are so addicted to looking cool. How is cigarette smoking worse than that? A lot of people are addicted to riding Harley Davidson motorcycles. Why? Because the Harleys are so danged noisy and publicly defiant that makes their riders cool, is why?
Why do we do anything we do? Because it makes us feel good about ourselves, that’s why. We’re living life OUR WAY as the TV commercials like to say. The idiosyncracies we adopt as our personal habits comfort some deep seated need in us. Figure it out. It’s a no-brainer.
And as far as throwing more sin tax - or any tax - dollars at education, let’s figure out first how to spend less and wring more quality out of what we are spending. Good grief! You want statistics? Look up how much money states and cities are spending on education now. The figures are eye popping. You want to know why kids in other countries or kids who come here from other countries are beating the pants off American kids education-wise? Because those other kids are MOTIVATED. Plain and simple, they and their parents want them to get ahead.
Instead of lobbying your Congressional leaders to raise taxes on cigarettes again, first ask yourself if you are motivating your child or just expecting more tax dollars to do the job for you. Three bags of poop on shirking your responsibility. May your child someday become head of a big multi-national oil company and continue to rob us blind while Congress does nothing.
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