FreedomWorks

The Vermont legislature is currently considering a tobacco tax hike under the guise that it will "pay for health care reform."

TAKE ACTION

This proposed increase is nothing more than the “bait” in a bait and switch tactic designed to put Vermont on an irreversible path toward government-run, taxpayer funded health care.

Supporters of Green Mountain and now Catamount Health Care are fully aware that once Vermonters see a genuine, realistic price tag for the kind of taxpayer-funded heath care system they’re proposing, it’s “game over.” Vermonters will never go for it. This is why the democrat controlled legislature specifically instructed consultant Kenneth Thorpe NOT to do a cost analysis of a single-payer system. They’re intentionally hiding the real numbers and hoping a tax hike saves the day.

The problem is, increasing tobacco taxes to fund health care reform won’t work, and they know it.

Rep. Tom Koch (R-Barre) summed up the situation best, "The fact that [the tobacco tax] is a declining source of revenue makes this very complicated. This [healthcare] bill is not adequately funded. It is bound to collapse." Tom is right. And when Vermont’s government-run health care scheme does collapse, all hard working Vermont taxpayers will be on the hook to clean up a very expensive mess.

• Here are some facts Vermonters need to know about tobacco taxes:

This tax (H.663/S.287) would increase the cost of cigarettes by 60 cents to $1.79 per pack.
• Cigarette taxes are regressive, hitting the poor hardest.
• Cigarette taxes cause revenue to leave the state.
• Cigarette tax increases are notorious for pushing customers into the black market, which hurts small business owners from grocers to restaurateurs.
• UVM economist Art Woolf calculated that Vermont border counties already lost $432 million in retail sales – and Vermonters have 3,120 fewer jobs -- in 2002 alone because of taxes and regulations. “Those jobs and sales went to New Hampshire…,” according to Wolf.

Rep. John Tracy (D-Burlington) chairman of the House committee on health care, admitted, "[Catamount is] a first step to universal coverage." Tracy and others hope that the 78% of Vermonters who don’t smoke will bite on this tobacco tax as a funding mechanism for “free” health care reform. But, when the initial tobacco-based funding system collapses and the next steps to universal health care need to be paid for, too… all Vermonters will end up paying a very heavy price.

TAKE ACTION NOW! Click on this link to send an email to your state senator and the governor urging that they reject this tax hike scheme: TAKE ACTION

Call your State Senator at: 802-828-2231

Call Governor Jim Douglas: 1-800-649-6825

Tell them to Vote Against the Tobacco Tax Increase!

Sincerely,

Dick Armey