01.03.2007

Smoking Ban in Abilene - A ban on public smoking, passed by city voters during the last go-round in a non-binding referrendum and consequently morphed into an actual city ordinance went into effect today in Abilene, Texas.  I'm unsure as to the image the city's movers and shakers are trying to portray for the city, but I feel that a measure like this is wasted in a town where the day's rallying battle cry has to do with how to stop the residents from parking their cars on their front lawns...

01.01.2007

Bend Over Texans - (well, just the ones we say...) As of today Texans who light up will be  asked to pony up some extra money for Gov. Rick Perry everytime they run down to the corner store to pick up a pack of smokes.  Texas State tax on cigarettes, which until December 31 of last year was $0.41 per pack, has jumped to a punishing $1.41 per pack!   For the numerically challenged, that's over $14 per carton in state cigarette tax and that doesn't include the state sales tax that gets tacked onto the top of that figure.  Hell, that's not a tax, that's a full frontal assault.  One has to wonder about the thought processes that lead to a tax increase like this because this isn't really so much an increase as it is a slap in the face with a big message that says "We don't give a damn what you think." 

I might have it wrong, and I probably do, but I seem to have these vague recollections from an educational instititution I once attended where we talked about distinctly identifiable classes of people - Classes of people whose history demonstrates a pattern of being subjected to different treatment because of their membership in that class.  Ring any bells?  Smokers' Rights groups would probably be quick to point out that smokers are easily identifiable as a separate class of people and also that they have been subjected to an array of shoddy treatment as their "rights" have been eroded over the years.