Duncan Faircloth: “while we may all agree that teenagers should not be smoking, this bill goes well beyond reaching that goal. We should…”

“while we may all agree that teenagers should not be smoking, this bill goes well beyond reaching that goal. We should all be deeply concerned about the ``tax and spend'' approach that the bill takes to resolving a social problem. The bill reaches right into the pockets of hard-working low- and middle-income adults who, even tobacco's most staunch critics acknowledge, have every right to smoke if they so choose. And, it takes their hard-earned dollars to create yet more federal programs and to pay trial lawyers billions of dollars. We're literally grabbing money from the poorest Americans to buy trial lawyers more Learjets. To what end? There appears to be uncertainty as to whether price increases really have the effect of getting kids to stop smoking or to never start in the first place. And what is the real motivation here? If it were really to cut smoking, we wouldn't phase it in, we would drop it right at once. But we're not doing that because the tax-and-spenders want the revenues. I know they're not doing it for the tobacco companies. We all know that this isn't about smoking--it's about money. What unpopular product or industry is next--now that we, our nation's lawmakers, have decided that ``and justice for all'' really doesn't mean what it says. First, let's discuss the taxes imposed by the bill. Lots of people are jubilant at the prospect of this legislation passing.…”