Word: taxing
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...many of us in medicine smoke cigarettes any more. Few who live in the fancy zipcodes do either. Cigarettes, to an extent, have become an indicator of lower socioeconomic status. This week public hospitals were handing out free nicotine patches as the federal cigarette tax more than doubled, to $1.01, which means that in places like New York City a pack costs more than $9, sometimes more than $10. Like the lottery, this is exactly what Democrats should hate - a tax on the poor. (Do Dems stay silent on cigarettes because the government needs the money?) Certainly, in this economic...
...While I'm not sure I agree with every moral dimension of the tax, I do know that far fewer people will die from cigarettes because of it than are dying now. Past tax hikes have showed that smoking is price sensitive: Fewer kids start smoking and more smokers quit with each increase in the cost of a pack. Government "quit lines" got record numbers of calls on April 1, the day the current tax took effect. Restaurant smoking bans have also helped; so have ad campaigns about the dangers of smoking. Finding any and every way to deter...
...appearances inadvertent - such as U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk's failure to count as income speaking fees that he subsequently donated to charity - are being made public. "This is a new procedure on [the Senate's] part," complains one official, "and it has created an incredible anxiety on tax issues." Adds a prominent tax attorney who has experience in the confirmation process: "In the past, if something like that happened, an amended return would show up a couple of days later, and that would be it. It wouldn't be the public torture that is going on today." (Both sources...
There is at least some precedent for going public with these kinds of embarrassing mistakes. It is true, for instance, that O'Neill's minor tax transgression was made public by the Finance Committee in 2001. But it didn't cause nearly the stir that has surrounded the more recent nominees with tax problems. And Grassley has little sympathy for that argument. "The tax issues of the nominees considered by the Committee this year came to be public only because the nominees chose to proceed. Chairman Baucus and I agree that if a nominee chooses to proceed after tax issues...
...course, there may be a solution here for everyone to consider. If so many smart and talented officials are getting tripped up over their tax returns, perhaps it is time for Washington to make the tax code simpler for everyone...