Did I vote for Orly Taitz?

Lisa Simpson said:
Big Tobacco spent millions and millions telling us:

OH NOES!!! THE MONIES WON'T BE SPENT IN CALIFORNIA!!!

The pro side didn't push back as hard as they could've, IMO.
Click to expand...
It's funny how you get to vote on every tax increase. Illinois just raised it by $1/pack, thus ensuring millions of dollars in new tobacco tax revenue.

For Indiana.
 
Olowkow said:
50 million, is what I heard. Even more than it took to keep Walker in office. Just a short while ago, it seems that 67% were in favor of the tax, and after the tobacco companies did their magic, it is now 50-50, from what I hear. What's happening to politics?
Click to expand...
Isn't it terrible that people and groups can just say whatever they want? This wouldn't happen in progressive places like Cuba and China.
 
I guess it you like to smoke, it's a good thing to keep the price low. I noticed that in Canada cigarettes are around $100/carton. I used to smoke and never minded price increases, but I think $10/pack would have caused me to think twice about dealing with the addiction.

I don't care what California does, to be honest, but I was curious why the tax was defeated. I sort of know now, I guess.
 
Olowkow said:
I guess it you like to smoke, it's a good thing to keep the price low. I noticed that in Canada cigarettes are around $100/carton. I used to smoke and never minded price increases, but I think $10/pack would have caused me to think twice about dealing with the addiction.

I don't care what California does, to be honest, but I was curious why the tax was defeated. I sort of know now, I guess.
Click to expand...

I think that it had to do with a bit of common sense. The state now gets X number of dollars per year in cigarette taxes (plus sales tax). That's a pretty constant number that is dwindling down at a slow but predictable rate (which is why some people wanted to increase the price of a pack by about 15-20%).

The pro tax people tried to sell it as only a positive on the tax income side but they didn't tell people about the downside of the equation. Namely that as the price goes up either people quit smoking reducing that particular tax revenue to zero, they start to go to black market cigarettes with no tax on them at all or they cut way back on smoking and keep their monthly price at about the same levels. They didn't account for any of that but went on as if the price change wouldn't change peoples habits. Many people saw through that.

Just an opinion of course.
 
Sam.I.Am said:
I think that it had to do with a bit of common sense. The state now gets X number of dollars per year in cigarette taxes (plus sales tax). That's a pretty constant number that is dwindling down at a slow but predictable rate (which is why some people wanted to increase the price of a pack by about 15-20%).

The pro tax people tried to sell it as only a positive on the tax income side but they didn't tell people about the downside of the equation. Namely that as the price goes up either people quit smoking reducing that particular tax revenue to zero, they start to go to black market cigarettes with no tax on them at all or they cut way back on smoking and keep their monthly price at about the same levels. They didn't account for any of that but went on as if the price change wouldn't change peoples habits. Many people saw through that.

Just an opinion of course.
Click to expand...

Thanks. That's more than I have found in my surfing. It's interesting just to try to figure out what the rationale was that could change the opinion polls so much. There is this, of course:

But Prop 29's opponents have been tapping into a related concern, charging in one TV ad the measure would create a huge new bureaucracy. That echoes claims of wasteful government spending which helped defeat a 2006 statewide measure that urged a $2.60 tax on packs of cigarettes.
Click to expand...

The constant mistrust of government, not that they don't deserve it. At least I can see both sides now a bit better.
 
Puppycow said:
Why for Indiana? :confused:
Click to expand...

Indiana is right next door and close (25ish miles from Chicago to the border) to a good chunk of the Illinois population and their cigarette prices are substantially lower if you buy by the carton. Enough to cover the gas plus a bit more.
 
Last edited:
Sam.I.Am said:
Indiana is right next door and close (25ish miles from Chicago to the border) to a good chunk of the Illinois population and their cigarette prices are substantially lower if you buy by the carton. Enough to cover the gas plus a bit more.
Click to expand...

Ah, naruhodo.
 
Olowkow said:
California is very anti smoking. I believe it is the second lowest smoker state, next only to Utah and the Mormons. I'm just curious why anyone would vote no on a tax that would raise a lot of money for cancer research in your state.
Click to expand...

My reasons were this:


  • I thought the increase was exorbitant. $1 a pack more was just too much to ask for in my opinion.
  • Cigarette users tend to be in the lowest income bracket locally. As far as I was concerned it was a tax that would primarily hit poor people.
  • I think it is not a good idea to tie important research to a sales tax on one particular product.
  • We already have a huge problem with counterfeit tobacco products and this would make this worse.
 
Travis said:
My reasons were this:


  • I thought the increase was exorbitant. $1 a pack more was just too much to ask for in my opinion.
  • Cigarette users tend to be in the lowest income bracket locally. As far as I was concerned it was a tax that would primarily hit poor people.
  • I think it is not a good idea to tie important research to a sales tax on one particular product.
  • We already have a huge problem with counterfeit tobacco products and this would make this worse.
Click to expand...
Makes sense to me. I guess the debate about how to get people to quit is for another thread.
 
Puppycow said:
Why for Indiana? :confused:
Click to expand...

Sam.I.Am said:
Indiana is right next door and close (25ish miles from Chicago to the border) to a good chunk of the Illinois population and their cigarette prices are substantially lower if you buy by the carton. Enough to cover the gas plus a bit more.
Click to expand...
Indiana isn't 25 miles from Chicago, it's the other side of the street in some parts. Same for Cook County. So the most populous city and county in Illinois border Indiana and its low cigarette taxes. And the price difference now is about $4-5/pack, lots of smokers will make a trip across the border to stock up once a month. It's well worth it.
 
Last edited:
WildCat said:
Indiana isn't 25 miles from Chicago, it's the other side of the street in some parts. Same for Cook County. So the most populous city and county in Illinois border Indiana and its low cigarette taxes. And the price difference now is about $4-5/pack, lots of smokers will make a trip across the border to stock up once a month. It's well worth it.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I was going by downtown(ish). My bad. I've only been through there once (not counting the airport or the trip to and from Great Mistakes). :o
 
Sam.I.Am said:
Sorry, I was going by downtown(ish). My bad. I've only been through there once (not counting the airport or the trip to and from Great Mistakes). :o
Click to expand...

Don't worry, you're basically right. Obviously not everyone in chicago (or it's suburbs) lives right on the border with indiana. I live around 15-20 minutes away from the border (it's not really that far but all the "quick" paths are a bit out of the way) but I'd consider hopping across the border for shopping* unreasonable - of course I'm not a smoker so those economics are unfamiliar to me.

* I am tempted, sometimes; I believe there is a Meijer not to far into IN and as a native michigander I miss having one nearby.
 
elbe said:
Don't worry, you're basically right. Obviously not everyone in chicago (or it's suburbs) lives right on the border with indiana. I live around 15-20 minutes away from the border (it's not really that far but all the "quick" paths are a bit out of the way) but I'd consider hopping across the border for shopping* unreasonable - of course I'm not a smoker so those economics are unfamiliar to me.

* I am tempted, sometimes; I believe there is a Meijer not to far into IN and as a native michigander I miss having one nearby.
Click to expand...

Well an easy way to explain it would be what if you knew that you were going to buy lets say 30 pieces of whatever a month and it was a non-perishable item. It's in your budget and you assume a standard price of $5 per piece. All of a sudden it went up to $6 a piece everywhere in your state but just 20 minutes away it was still $5 a piece, so once a month you take the 40 minute trip. So for that 40 minute round trip you end up spending $30 a month less (minus gasoline of course) than if you bought it 1 mile away. That's $360 a year that you "Saved" just by driving that extra 40 minutes per month. Of course you would probably try to do other shopping as well as long as you were out and about so the cost of the gas would be mitigated to some extent if you did. Now then, if you and your neighbor both car pooled for that trip the costs would be cut in half.

$360 a year essentially pays a car payment or a couple of months electric bill or even some disposable cash for movies or a night out or whatever. Sure the extra money that the state was going to get from the new taxes pretty much stays in the state as you spend it on whatever closer to home but the original taxes that were there before the new taxes were added on top of them now goes to another state resulting in a net loss in your states revenue meaning that they essentially just shot themselves in the foot by raising taxes in the first place.
 
Sam.I.Am said:
Well an easy way to explain it would be what if you knew that you were going to buy lets say 30 pieces of whatever a month and it was a non-perishable item. It's in your budget and you assume a standard price of $5 per piece. All of a sudden it went up to $6 a piece everywhere in your state but just 20 minutes away it was still $5 a piece, so once a month you take the 40 minute trip. So for that 40 minute round trip you end up spending $30 a month less (minus gasoline of course) than if you bought it 1 mile away. That's $360 a year that you "Saved" just by driving that extra 40 minutes per month. Of course you would probably try to do other shopping as well as long as you were out and about so the cost of the gas would be mitigated to some extent if you did. Now then, if you and your neighbor both car pooled for that trip the costs would be cut in half.

$360 a year essentially pays a car payment or a couple of months electric bill or even some disposable cash for movies or a night out or whatever. Sure the extra money that the state was going to get from the new taxes pretty much stays in the state as you spend it on whatever closer to home but the original taxes that were there before the new taxes were added on top of them now goes to another state resulting in a net loss in your states revenue meaning that they essentially just shot themselves in the foot by raising taxes in the first place.
Click to expand...

I meant that I don't understand the addiction part of the equation, from a personal perspective. For many things the inability to easily buy a product, or it's pricing exceeding my budget, would force me to just stop buying them, but the addictive nature of smoking is one of the driving factors of why significant tax increases exist. I just can't know that same urge a smoker would have.
 
Thank you for a small insight into American voting and electoral practices! We on this side of The Pond (i.e. the side with the history but without the money) tend only to get details about Presidential-level events.

As for Peed and Kreep, why of course those are silly names! A sensible surname would be more along the lines of Pine-Coffin or De'Ath.
 
Bump!

So a year after Illinois' $1/pack cigarette tax hike and the revenues aren't living up to expectations.
Illinois’ one-dollar-per-pack cigarette tax increase that took effect a year ago this month is expected to fall $130 million short of initial estimates, meaning it won’t raise quite as much as projected for school capital projects because of the way the funding formula is set up.

The increase, which hiked the state’s 98-cents-per-pack tax to $1.98 last June, is expected to bring in about $212 million in additional revenue for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.

That’s well short of the $350 million in additional revenue originally projected, according to a monthly report released at the end of May by the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.
Click to expand...
So a $138 million shortfall means 138 million fewer packs of cigarettes sold in Illinois. And I doubt it's because smokers are quitting.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom