The Democrat’s Reverse Robin Hood
It's kind of amusing when even the Associated Press has to note the hypocrisy of the Democrat's SCHIP funding plans. Because it is nothing more than robbing the poor to pay for benefits for the relatively rich, so to speak. But the Democrats don't mind. They have an unpopular minority to scapegoat and they are crowing about it.
WASHINGTON - Congressional Democrats have chosen an unlikely source to pay for the bulk of their proposed $35 billion increase in children's health coverage: people with relatively little money and education.
The program expansion passed by the House and Senate last week would be financed with a 156 percent increase in the federal cigarette tax, taking it to $1 per pack from the current 39 cents. Low-income people smoke more heavily than do wealthier people in the United States, making cigarette taxes a regressive form of revenue.
Democrats, who wrote the legislation and provided most of its votes, generally portray themselves as champions of the poor. They do not dispute that the tax plan would hit poor communities disproportionately, but they say it is worth it to provide health insurance to millions of modest-income children.
All the better, they say, if higher cigarette taxes discourage smoking.
"I'm very happy that we're paying for this," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in an interview Friday, noting that the plan would not add to the deficit. "The health of the children is extremely important," he said. "In the long run, maybe it'll stop people from smoking."
It's all for your own good, don't you see? Harry knows best. Trust him. This is not to say that there are not Republicans that are more than willing to tax the heck out of the poor, too, there certainly are. Demographically speaking, a solid majority of smokers are the least wealthy Americans:
By most measures, the average smoker is less privileged than the average nonsmoker. Nearly one-third of all U.S. adults living in poverty are smokers, compared with 23.5 percent of those above the poverty level, according to government statistics.
The American Heart Association reports that 35 percent of people with no more than 11 years of schooling are smokers. Those with 16 or more years of formal education smoke at a 12 percent rate.
Non-Hispanic black men smoke at slightly higher rates than do non-Hispanic white men. But the reverse is true among women.
The demographics of smoking and taxation received scant attention during last week's House and Senate debates, perhaps because many Democrats and Republicans agree that cigarettes are the best target for tax increase if the insurance program were to grow. A few lawmakers, however, took a swing.
"I know there is very little sympathy for smokers these days," Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., said during the House debate. "But it is still a tax increase on the backs of the smokers. And in order to get enough money to pay for this, it would require 22 million new smokers."
In addition, as the revenues fall - and they will - other sources of taxation will need to be found. They've already demonized and scapegoated one group. They will have to find another to victimize so they can gladhand to the middle class. The precedent is set. They will find another group to make unpopular and to tax to death. Maybe this time it will be a legal activity that you enjoy. In fact, I'd count on it.
If you step back a bit to get some perspective, you might notice something. The Democrat's older rhetoric was to continually revise downward the amount of money that defined the "rich" - at least for ruinous taxation purposes. Now they are steadily trying to raise the amount of money that defines the "poor" - at least for gladhanding purposes. Between those two positions they define the real agenda.
