Bully -- I'm very glad you can afford those prices and get to have yer pipes and tobacco -- and if you're fine with it more power to you but. . .there are just so many things wrong with it.
When I personally started buying RYO cig tobacco for instance the tax on a 16oz bag was 1.10 -- today (and indeed the change officially happened over night just a few years back) it is 24.78 per 16oz. And the tax on a pack of cigarette is up to 2.50 here in Tx -- which is more than the pack even cost when I first started smoke 2 years before the tax change, at least for my brand.
So now, as opposed to the 20 USD I once paid for RYO cig tobacco I would have to pay 43.68 (plus sales tax in both cases). A tax that puts the cost of an item at 278% of it's MSRP (presuming an object not falling into a additive tax bracket) is in any world excessive.
Sure, a few of the less enjoyable "dual-use" brands re-labeled as being strictly pipe tobacco, and I now buy those -- thank god for loop-holes and all that it still doesn't fix the fact that my old-time favourite Midnight Special is now 30 USD for 6oz of tobacco (obviously, as my previous example showed. . . not all of this was due to consumer taxes). The 6oz bag used to be roughly 8 dollars after sales tax, and the 16oz bag was only 20! I'm getting 3/8ths the tobacco for a 50% higher price tag.
Of course, I did move down to the "Pipe tobacco" (formerly 'dual-use') blends which run about 13-18 USD for 16oz. Well they're a little cheaper then the old premium blend Midnight special was (because they aren't premium by any standard) despite the fact that the tax per 16oz is now 2.83 even for pipe tobacco, vs. the 1.10 even cigarette tobacco used to be. But, that could easily change very soon -- because of the TTPA which may very well pass that is aimed to tax pipe tobaccos at the same rate as RYO cig tobacco (due to the perceived 're-labeling') That means 16oz of pipe tobacco that would normally run . .. say 25 USD on average? Would rise to 48.68, plus any additional company-based and retail/wholesale-based tax increases (which I do not know if will even occur, much less the amount of them if present)
And of course, and I realize many of you couldn't care less about cigarettes specifically, but I do -- and being forced into the situation first presented to me with RYO tobaccos would be the biggest kick in the groin imaginable to me.
What's more, if my experience with Midnight Special is anything to go by -- pipe tobacco won't just increase by the tax increase, even if you do account for taxes on the production/wholesale end of things assuming they even increased. And this didn't just go for my Midnight Special -- all premium RYO blends I knew of before the change either ceased production, or rised by an equivalent ratio. Presume pipe tobacco companies did the same? We could be looking at budged bulks at 50 USD per 16oz and premiums of up to 80!
Greanted the bill might not pass, and I hope to hell not, but the idea that they even considered it IS insulting.
But now that I've tied pipe taxes in the U.S. (or possible taxes) to a insane taxes as a current reality. . .. I've got to say that I do not see any perspective from which this kind of. . .extortion. . . is at all acceptable.
Forget the reasons they claim are behind it, forget the cynical view of "rampant governance" --- just for a moment let us only considered the simple idea of fair exchange -- for everything received, something of equal value must be exchanged -- and as a two-way street.
At 2.xx USD per 16oz on top of the sales taxes (which we aren't including) -- the government makes more than enough money (dispursed properly) to cover any incidental costs of the tobacco industry, or unpaid medical bills accumulated by smokers (pretending for a moment the government foots that bill). Fair trade I say.
At 24.78 per 16oz? A 20 USD increase in taxes -- to me -- should mean a per-person equivalent (or collective good sum value) of what that 20 USD came to.
Did we see an upturn (on the whole) in the end-result budget balances of the U.S. after the tax increase? No. Did we see an increase in social services of any kind to any EFFECTIVE ends? This one is debatable on the over-all since the increase, but even those who would argue we have could not argue the 20 USD increase in tobacco tax had anything to do with it, and I myself would NOT argue that the EFFECTIVE ends have increased in any respect since then. --- By increased benefit the tax is an unfair trade, and therefor unjust.
Did the operational, or even opportunity cost allowing the tobacco industry to operate increase? No. Did the instance of underage smoking increase prior to this tax increase -- or fall after it? again, debated issue here -- in my experience -hell no- . . .but no unbiased group has done a credible study (meaning nobody has done a credible study) --- By increased detriment (or reduced detriment) the tax is also an unfair trade, and therefore unjust.
And lastly, specific to the U.S. -- I defer to McCulloch v. Maryland in the U.S. Supreme Court (1819) . . . which may seem very odd at first, but what I wish to focus on here is the following
Webster, in arguing the case, said: “An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy,” 17 U.S. 327 (1819).
In his decision, Chief Justice Marshall said: “That the power of taxing it [the bank] by the States may be exercised so as to destroy it, is too obvious to be denied” (p. 427), and “That the power to tax involves the power to destroy … [is] not to be denied” (p. 431).
Change the words in the brackets of John Marshall "the bank" to "tobacco use" and you have what I am getting at. Excessive taxes have been repealed, deemed unconstitutional, and otherwise met with vehement opposition throughout this nation's history, and this case is no different. The nation is (seemingly and otherwise, potentially, regardless of intent) seeking to destroy the free trade of (and thereby the use thereof) tobacco products, specifically cigarettes, but consequently, pipe and likely cigars as well, and perhaps eventually smokeless forms.
The power to 'destroy' is to be excised by out-right prohibition, which may only be achieved through a true amendment to the U.S. constitution itself, and other attempt (actual or effectual) to prohibit a substance is unconstitutional by its very nature -- and once again we find (at least in the U.S.) the very laws and morals of the land dictate. . . These taxes are unfair, unjust, frankly Draconian, and down-right un-American.
Need I remind you fine fellows that one of the principal causes of the Civil War was indeed Tariffs? And Tobacco among them.
I flat-out reject the notion of simply "accepting" this occasion. which I realize isn't the word, you for instance Bully, used. But I feel outrage and anger are perfectly entitled -- and quite different from panic or hysteria. If nothing else I hope I proved some of us have actually calculated their position on this matter.
