Posted by
Michael Goodell on Tuesday, March 03, 2009 12:56:46 PM
When I stopped by my local tobacconist yesterday to pick up another carton, Sonny warned me that beginning April 1, cigarettes will go up 61 cents a pack. “It’s that new tax,” he explained. “For children’s health care.”
This got me to thinking. If they raise tobacco taxes too much, people will quit. How will they fund the program then? Possibly, something like this:
Dateline: March 3, 2011
President Barack Obama stunned reporters today when he lit a cigarette during a press conference. It was his first press conference in six months, ending speculation that he had been ousted by a junta consisting of former President Bill Clinton, his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice-President Joe Biden.
Obama dismissed his absence from the public by saying he had been “busy with the kids, you know, Parent-Teacher conferences, things like that.”
The President lit up when answering a question from Rush Limbaugh about growing deficits in the National Health Service. The following is a transcript of that exchange:
OBAMA: Mmmm, now this tastes good, like a cigarette should. The problem started when we funded the S-Chip expansion with a dramatic increase in tobacco taxes. This worked for awhile until ACORN filed that lawsuit.
LIMBAUGH (follow-up): Whoa, ACORN sued you? Why didn’t we hear about this?
OBAMA: Because once we pushed through the Fairness Doctrine, and you lost your job, there was nobody left to report it. By the way, how do you like your new gig in the White House Press Corps?
LIMBAUGH: It’s alright, I get on TV now and then, and the food’s pretty good in the White House Mess. But what about that ACORN suit?
OBAMA: Oh, right. I was hoping you’d overlook that. ACORN sued, claiming that the cigarette tax was discriminatory against poor people and minorities, because they smoke more heavily than wealthy, educated white people do. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found in their favor, and directed us to use funds from S-CHIP to help poor people pay for their habits.
LIMBAUGH: Wouldn’t it have made more sense to just rescind the tax?
OBAMA: We considered that, but we needed the money to help wean middle class children off their reliance on private medical insurance. So we raised the tax another 50 cents.
LIMBAUGH: How’d that work out for you?
OBAMA: (Crushing out cigarette, and lighting another one). Not so well. You see, being mired in a depression the way we were, poor people were the only ones who could afford to smoke. Everyone else quit. So we had no revenues coming in, and we were paying out so much in smoking subsidies that pretty soon children were once again going without health insurance.
LIMBAUGH: So now you’re–
OBAMA: One of the great things about being President is being able to use the “bully pulpit.” Incidentally, do you know where that phrase came from? I didn’t until just the other day when Joe Biden explained it to me. It started with Teddy Roosevelt. It seems that once he came back from the Spanish-American war he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and he started preaching sermons in local churches. If he ever caught anyone sleeping or otherwise not paying attention, he would yell at them. He would bully them until they woke up.
LIMBAUGH: Er, are you sure about that?
OBAMA: Hey, if Joe says it, it must be true. I mean, you don’t mess with Joe.
LIMBAUGH: Okay, but what’s with the smoking?
OBAMA: I’m trying to set a good example. We need Americans to start smoking again. We need the tobacco tax dollars to help fund necessary health care reform. So I’m asking all Americans. Please start smoking. Do it for the children.