Tax Non-Smokers!

So, I'm driving home from work when some anti-smoker commercial comes on the radio, and it's talking about second hand smoking. Apparantly this is when a non-smoker inhales the smoke from a cigarette being smoked by another person near them. Research shows that second-hand smokers inhale about 10% of what the actual smoker inhales. What the fuck is this? Why do they get to smoke for free, while us real smokers have to pay through the nose? Well, I for one have had enough of you moochers, and I want to start getting some money back!

Okay, let's look at the evidence. A pack of cigarettes, on average, costs around $5.00 (I live in NY state, we tax everything to death in these parts). Around 31% of that is all taxes going to the state. Now, $1.55 of my pack of smokes goes to the state. Let's say I smoke a pack a day, that's $565.75 in a year.

Now, let's look at non-smokers, A.K.A., Mooches. They smoke 10% of my smokes for free. However, the actual cost of smoking 10% of my cigarettes comes out to around $182.50. Thus, I propose the following:

1. Non-smokers are taxed $182.50 per year, while smokers like myself only pay $383.25 in taxes, which comes out to 21% instead of the %31.5 we have now.
2. Non-smokers are forced to pay retribution for the years of theft they have been doing. I've been a smoker for around 10 years, which comes out to around $1,825.00. This money is to be taken from the incomes of non-smokers over the next 5 years.

Do you have any idea what would happen if everyone quit smoking? Would it be a beautiful world to live in? No, quite the opposite in fact. All the money that we're paying to the state on a yearly basis would be gone, and the state doesn't like to lose money, so that means they start taxing other things. There's a proposed tax increase on cigarettes now with which they seek to increase the states' tax revenue by around $175,000,000.00. How? By increasing the cost of a pack of cigarettes by $0.45. This, assuming that my math is correct, means that they're already getting over $600,000,000.00 from cigarettes alone. Now, can you tell me with a straight face that Big Brother would wave good bye to that money and not go digging elsewhere? Increased gas prices, sales tax, income tax, etc? If you can, then you my friend are either the best liar I have met to date, or you need to be bludgeoned with a stick until you stop moving, because such stupidity deserves the death penalty.

"But the state would save money on hospital bills!" you say? Okay, let's look at more facts ...

Proposed fact by anti-smoking propaganda: Smoking will take 10 years off your life expectancy.

To quote Dennis Leary, "Well it's the ten worst years, isn't it folks? It's the ones at the end! It's the wheelchair kidney dialysis fucking years. You can have those years! We don't want 'em, alright!?"

Funny, but there's some truth to it as well. How many Senior Citizens do you know that contribute to the economy? Beyond retirement, not a whole fucking lot of them. That is, of course, unless they're forced to get a job because the money they do get from Social Security is a joke in itself. Don't get me wrong, I think old people are great, and I feel no need to ship them off to labor camps in the Ukraine, but facts are facts.

Now, let's say for a moment -- hypothetically speaking, of course -- that every smoker quit smoking now, and added 10 years to their lives. That's 10 years for around 46 million people. How much does a non-productive citizen cost this country in a year? Around $12,000.00? Well, the numbers are in, and we're talking about $552,000,000,000.00 (Five Hundred and Fifty Two BILLION DOLLARS). Now, compare that to the amount supposedly spent on hospital bills by the state.

Okay, so we know how much quitting smoking will cost us, let's go digging for some numbers ... how much is the annual health care cost for smoker's? Well, per a report back in late 1998, $72,000,000,000.00. Let's add some inflation, and let's be generous, shall we? We'll add $28,000,000,000.00 to that, adding up to a total of One Hundred Billion Dollars! Wow, that's a lot! Well, if you compare it to the $552 billion that quitting smoking would cost, we're still missing $452 billion. Add to that the loss of taxes, and suddenly this whole quitting smoking thing isn't looking so cool, is it?

Well, what do you say? More than double your taxes, or stop your fucking whining and propaganda, and let us smokers kill ourselves if that's what we wish to do? It seems fair to me.

Oh, and I expect my check for $1,850.00 in the mail by the end of the month. Fucking mooches.