Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Impeccable Logic
Via Mark Binker's N&R reporter's blog, we learn that the reason our new Senator Kay Hagan is opposing the bill that will allow the Federal Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products is because people already know how dangerous tobacco products are.
Huh?
Saith the senator, "We need to have FDA focus on monitoring our food, our drug safety, rather than taking on a product that I think people know is inherently unsafe."
Okay. If it's inherently unsafe, no need to regulate it, right?
Would that logic also apply, Senator, to heroin, say, or to a certain hallucinogenic salvia that the N.C. Senate intends to ban? Or to 12-year-olds getting their hands on vodka?
The actual logic behind her political decision might have a good deal more to do with not bucking a huge (and ruthless) N.C. industry, which peddles (incidentally) an inherently unsafe product.
Huh?
Saith the senator, "We need to have FDA focus on monitoring our food, our drug safety, rather than taking on a product that I think people know is inherently unsafe."
Okay. If it's inherently unsafe, no need to regulate it, right?
Would that logic also apply, Senator, to heroin, say, or to a certain hallucinogenic salvia that the N.C. Senate intends to ban? Or to 12-year-olds getting their hands on vodka?
The actual logic behind her political decision might have a good deal more to do with not bucking a huge (and ruthless) N.C. industry, which peddles (incidentally) an inherently unsafe product.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Richard Burr Is a Dick
Sen. Dick Burr has received $355,000 from tobacco groups and employees. He's second only to Sen. Mitch McConnell for having his hand out to Big Tobacco.At this precise moment, Burr has teamed up with Sen. Kay Hagan to try to forestall tougher legislation aimed at tobacco.
Burr spokesman Chris Walker says the campaign donations don't influence Burr's policy agenda. Riiight.
"It's not something that comes into any equations here," Walker said. "It doesn't really affect what we're doing legislatively."
We're not supposed to believe our lying eyes.
Labels: Kay Hagan, Richard Burr, tobacco
Friday, January 23, 2009
Picayune
NC Senate Grandee Marc Basnight is calling for new state taxes on booze and tobacco to help make up the expected short-fall in state revenue.Currently, the state taxes cigarettes at 35 cents a pack. According to the N&O, the taxes on tobacco products raised a mere $241 million in 2007, or 1.3 percent of general fund tax collections. In other words, current tobacco taxes are a mere drop in a very large bucket.
According to the N&O, each 1-cent increase in the cigarette tax is projected to raise only an additional $5.35 million. With the projected budget gap now growing to near $3 billion, according to some estimates, Basnight would have to raise the cigarette tax, say, $14.00-a-pack to make a dent in that deficit.
The tax collection figures for alcohol are even worse. Each 1-cent increase per gallon on beer, for example, would generate a measly $1.9 million annually.
Mark Twain might suggest that this state has been neglecting its vices outrageously.
Labels: Marc Basnight, North Carolina sin taxes, tobacco
