Change We Can Believe In??

What happened Obama-ites? Your man made the Oval Office, yet nothing has changed. The same pork-barreled spending packages have been passed through Congress. Banks are still being bailed out despite many American citizens hating the idea. And the budget deficit is at an all time high of a projected $3.6 trillion dollars. To pay that off, the estimated U.S. population of 303,824,640 people (according to CIA factbook) would each have to pay a manageable $11,848.94 in taxes. And that includes the children who have no income, the people living on government-paid welfare and unemployment, and the retired who are collecting government Social Security checks.

So where is the money coming from? Obama just signed the $789 billion dollar stimulus plan into law, which includes $507 billion in spending programs and $282 billion in tax relief. What better way to jump start the spending in the economy than to create 282,000 millionaires? If the government just randomly selected 282,000 citizens and gave them one million dollars, instead of overall tax relief to everyone, investments would soar, new jobs and opportunities would spring up, and the recession would be curbed.

Oh, my bad. I forgot humans are greedy, self-centered people, and ideas such as trickle-down economics don't work. If we suddenly had 282,000 new millionaires, they would just hoard the money and not reinvest it, or use it to buy real estate, or share it with their friends. Better that we have this brand of Obamanomics, where the government can best decide who deserves money, and how much they receive.

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake… We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

- George Orwell, 1984, Part III, Chapter 3

Economic Stimulus Plan: Smoke More

News Alert America: The government wants you to smoke!!!

Despite what clever campaigns like "Truth" want to tell you (and I haven't figured out yet how hallucinogenic musicals is a good anti-smoking campaign), smoking cigarettes is good. Sure, there are carcinogens, so it's undoubtedly bad for your health. But it is good for the country because of the taxes imposed on cigarette sales.

Cigarette packs are subject to state taxes ranging from 17 to 257.5 cents per pack¹. And in 20% of the states there are additional taxes for counties, cities, and administrative fees. That means that for every pack of cigarettes not bought, states do not get this money. And when states have low revenues, they have to request money from the government, who either decide to borrow more from the American citizenry (through increased federal taxes) or other countries, increasing our national debt.

From 2000 to 2007 the U.S. median tax increase on a pack of 20 cigarettes was $1.00². So for every pack not bought in 2008, state governments are losing a dollar.

According to research done by the American Cancer Society, the decrease of smoking has reduced lung cancer deaths in males by 40% from 1991 to 2003³. This twelve year span is often viewed as a great period of economic growth. Through deficit deductions, budget cuts, and tax breaks, the economy surged during the majority of Bill Clinton's presidency.

But during that same time period, more people were learning of the health risks of cigarette smoking, and "theTruth" campaign was formed in 1998 out of Florida. Because of its youth-oriented campaign style, many young people were not beginning to smoke as they entered adulthood, as had happened over past generations. This led to less cigarette packs being bought, leading to less taxes off cigarette sales, leading to more federal lending to state budgets, which finally led to the economic meltdown during the Bush Administration.

While it is a large leap to say that a decrease in cigarette consumption was the only thing that caused our current economic crisis, it can certainly be viewed as a contributing factor. In an attempt to alleviate some of the economic woes our country is currently facing, anti-smoking campaigns should be abandoned. These advertisements have served their purpose of warning of the dangers of smoking. Parents are now raising their kids with this knowledge; children are encultured from birth with the idea that smoking is bad for one's health. It is now necessary that people choose for themselves which is better: preserving one's health or preserving one's country?

As John F. Kennedy so famously said in his inaugural speech, "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."⁴

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1. State Excise Tax Rates on Cigarettes, http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/cigarett.html
2. Cigarette Tax Increases 2000-2008, http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/cig_inc02.html
3. Thun, M.J. and Jemal A. "How much of the decrease in cancer death rates in the United States is attributable to reductions in tobacco smoking?" Tobacco Control 15: 345-347 (2006). Online: <http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/15/5/345>
4. Kennedy, J.F. Inaugural Address, Washington D.C. 1961. Online: <http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03Inaugural01201961.htm>