THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 134, July 17, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
TAXING & REGULATING THE JOY OUT OF LIFE
By Alan Caruba
EXPANDING GOVERNMENT CONTROL & SHRINKING CIVIL LIBERTY: INCREASING INTRUSIVENESS OF THE U.S.
CENTRAL GOVERNMENT INTO THE PERSONAL & PRIVATE LIVES OF INDIVIDUAL AMERICANS -- USE BY CONGRESS OF ITS
TAXING & REGULATORY POWERS TO ENACT LAWS THAT SUPPRESS PERSONAL PLEASURES, DESTROY U.S. INDUSTRIES, KILL
AMERICAN JOBS, ERODE THE PRIVATE ENTERPRISE SYSTEM, & RESTRICT THE BASIC RIGHTS & FREEDOMS OF THE
INDIVIDUAL CITIZEN
FULL STORY:
With exquisite irony, the box in which my favorite cigars arrive has a picture of the White House emblazoned on its cover
and, underneath, the words, “Casa Blanca.” I smoke Presidentes, a Dominican Republic handmade cigar. They are
identified as a “luxury cigar.” Given the current cost of the two boxes I enjoy every month, that is an apt description.
Reports out of Washington, however, indicate that Congress has proposed raising taxes on premium cigars. The increase
would be 20,000 percent. No, that is not a typographical error. 20,000 percent! It would raise the cost of a cigar
astronomically.
The justification offered by the Democratic Party-controlled Congress is that it needs to waste --er, raise -- an extra $35
billion to $50 billion for --
“... the state children’s health insurance program. The program
distributes payments to the states to help buy coverage for kids
not poor enough for Medicaid.”
This is yet another costly social welfare program among the others currently broke or shortly to be utterly bankrupt.
Watch out for Congress to go after “Big Candy” as a threat to the health of “little children” who must be “protected”
against “excessive sugar consumption” (while insuring that the U.S. sugar industry continues to receive a subsidy that
requires Americans to pay more for sugar than any other nation on earth.).
Before someone begins to assail me for smoking cigars, let me note that my Father smoked a pipe until he died and his
father smoked a pack or more of cigarettes per day before he died. Both were well into their 90s at the time of their
demise, and it occurred to me when I began smoking in college that I probably would not be adversely affected if I
smoked as well. I took up cigars while serving in the U.S. Army. They are probably the only indulgence I have left as I
verge on the seventh decade of my life.
There is a reason we celebrate living in “the land of the free,” and that reason is, presumably, that the government
designed by the Founding Fathers was supposed to leave us alone. The U.S. Constitution does not grant Congress
the power to determine what or how much we eat, whether or not we become obese, whether we smoke, whether
attending too many rock concerts can harm one’s hearing, or any other aspect of our presumably private lives.
But the government interferes everywhere it can, often to our detriment and even death. The demand for higher mileage
from a gallon of gasoline completely ignores the fact that there is a finite amount of energy to be secured. The only way
to get more is to lighten the vehicle and that leads to people in tiny cars getting squashed like bugs if they encounter
an 18-wheeler truck or just a telephone poll.
The government mandates how much water your toilet is allowed to use, and that has resulted in a new generation of
toilets that, as often as not, must be flushed twice in the interest of sanitation. The government is throwing millions at
solar and wind power research, despite the fact that the U.S.A. has hundreds of years of coal reserves, as well as oil
and natural gas reserves, that the same government keeps off limits from development.
Not long ago, the U.S. government decided to slap a big tax on yachts, thus forcing yachting firms to move their
businesses offshore and throwing the workers who made yachts out of a job. Now, cigar manufacturers in places like
Tampa, Florida, will be forced to close and the importers and sellers of fine cigars coast to coast would suffer a
disastrous loss of business.
The same thinking behind slamming the rich for wanting a yacht is behind an insane tax on cigars; obviously only rich
people smoke them, it’s bad for their health, and we’re only doing this to help “the children.”
Meanwhile, Congress is also considering empowering the Food and Drug Administration with authority over cigarette
and other tobacco products, allowing the FDA to regulate the levels of tar, nicotine, and other components of tobacco.
The justification for this is that cigarette smoke contains 4,000 chemicals, “more than 40 of which are known to cause
cancer.” But how does one explain all those smokers who do not get cancer?
How do you protect health-conscious people with a history of cancer in their family, i.e., a genetic likelihood that a
family member will develop cancer? How do you protect such people against the endless chemicals and other
substances that exist in the environment? The answer is that you can’t.
If it seems to you that the federal government is totally out of control and detached from any sense of reality or common
sense, you’d be right. It just keeps getting worse. A single phrase in the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, “promote the
general welfare,” has been so totally misappropriated and distorted that the central government is now able to justify
any idiotic, job-killing, industry-destroying law it wants to pass.
Government as carnival sideshow has become the order of the day. The posturing and pandering that occurs in the
chambers of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives would be laughable, if it did not lead to the hectoring of
the public for every pleasure they enjoy. Smokers are already treated like lepers. This tax is shameless and indicative of
the increasing intrusiveness into our right to make private and personal lifestyle choices.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Social Welfare Policy
Science, Ethics, & Human Health:
Human Health & Public Policy
The U.S. Constitution & the American Economic Order:
Civil Liberties -- Private Property Rights
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The American Political & Cultural Left:
Liberals, Statists, Socialists, & Other Leftists
-------------------------------------------------
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT
American Government -- Constitutional System
The Constitution of the United States of America
The American Political System -- Politics &
Government in the U.S.A.: Political Science Course
The American Constitutional System -- Origins:
English Antecedents
The American Constitutional System -- Origins:
Colonial & Early American Antecedents
The American Constitutional System -- Origins:
The Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787
The American Constitutional System -- Origins:
The U.S. Constitution -- Ratification & Adoption
The American Constitutional System -- Origins:
The U.S. Constitution -- The Scheme of National Government
The American Constitutional System -- Principal Characteristics:
Constitutionalism, Republicanism, Separation of Powers,
Checks & Balances, Legislative Bicameralism,
& Balanced Government
The American Constitutional System -- Principal Characteristics:
Federalism -- Fedural Union of States
The U.S. Constitution -- Underlying Political Theory:
The Federalist -- Selected Essays
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2007
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity