Forget all of the public service announcements you’ve heard for the last three decades, the children of this country need you to smoke We’re referring, of course, to the current proposal to fund the State Children’s Health Insurance Program through increased taxes on cigarettes. The tax increase on cigarettes (1$ per pack) is nothing compared to what cigar smokers face: up to $10 of tax per cigar. You read correctly ââ?¬â?? per cigar, not box of cigars. A study from the Heritage Foundation found that, among other problems with the proposal, to produce the revenues that Congress needs to fund SCHIP expansion through such a tax would require 22.4 million new smokers by 2017 Earlier, we reported on how this proposal actually hurts the poor more than it helps them. Here’s Reason’s report on why tobacco taxes are a terrible idea.
