Congressional Democrats are looking to raise taxes by $35 to $50 billion dollars.

The Democrat controlled Congress has sought an extra $35-billion to $50-billion for the state children’s health insurance program. The program distributes payments to the states to help buy coverage for kids not poor enough for Medicaid.

Cigarettes, which accounted for more than 95 percent of tobacco tax collections last year, are the main focus of the bill. Federal taxes on a pack would jump from 39 cents to $1.

But the legislation has dragged cigars along for the ride. The industry operates under a 4.8 cents-per-cigar tax cap.

Under the proposed bill, taxes on “large cigars,” a category that includes all but the tiny cigars sold in 20 packs like cigarettes, would rise to 53 percent.

A U.S. Senate version of the bill under consideration today in the Finance Committee sets the maximum tax per cigar at $10.

Hey, it’s for the kids!  That cigar tax increase would amount to a 20,000% increase, by the way.

Close your eyes and imagine what will happen to our taxes if they extend their majority in each house and take the oval office.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 2:35 am and is filed under Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.