Business: Cigarmakers in a panic

Eric Newman punches the numbers on his calculator and gapes at the results one more time.It’s no mathematical error: The federal government has proposed raising taxes on premium cigars, the kind Newman’s family has been rolling for decades in Ybor City, by as much as 20,000 percent.

As part of an increase in tobacco taxes designed to pay for children’s health insurance, the nickel-per-cigar tax that has ruled the industry could rise to as much as $10 per cigar.

Aren’t we getting close to a mutiny here somewhere? Does a cigar maker throw up barricades, arm themselves to the teeth, and tell the revenuers to come and get the fooking tax? Black market, perhaps?

Or is America just a land of sheep, content with their lot? Extremely healthy sheep, with no vices. But then — sheep don’t have vices, do they? Neither are their parents expected to be responsible for keeping the kids healthy - that’s someone else’s job. That guy that keeps shearing them, that’s whose job.  Who’s that, these days?

Here’s the source of the controversy: The Democrat controlled Congress has sought 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.

If that last sentence doesn’t compute for you, like it doesn’t for me — well, you’re a heartless bastard to question why the federal government is helping kids not poor enough for Medicaid.  Which seems to me, if you do the math, that now the Federales are responsible for every kid, every where, all the time.  Either you’re poor enough for Medicaid, or…you’re not, right?

Well, this is what you get, America — a good, hard screwing.  Shut up and take it like a sheep.