The Rabid Conservative

Well, that didn’t take long.

In Kaukauna, Wisconsin, June 12, 2008, Barack Obama made the following statement while campaigning:

"If you are a family making less than $250,000, my plan will not raise your taxes – not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." (emphasis added)

But yet, on Wednesday, February 4, 2009, President Obama signed the so-called SCHIP bill which, buried within this legislation that while supposedly ensuring that every kid has health coverage is a…

…a tax increase of 61¢ on tobacco products, upping the Federal excise per pack to $1.

Now I’m not a fan of tobacco and I don’t have anything against helping kids.  However, despite the fact that SCHIP is already a bad idea because it allows for health care for kids up to the age of 25 and creates additional government dependency by creating a way for people to not procure health coverage for their kids (instead deferring to SCHIP), I look at this and say, since the greatest amount of smokers in the US are also making less than $250,000/year, putting an excise of 61¢ on tobacco products increases their taxes.

Liberals seem to have a big problem with the tobacco industry in general, attacking it at every turn on moral grounds, even though they don’t seem to afford the same moral laissez-faire attitude that they do to the gay movement, but I digress.

While this doesn’t directly affect me, since I’m not a smoker and my kids don’t need SCHIP, the thing is, since the value of a campaign promise is equal to that of a used tissue, it means that all the promises of hope, change, etc etc are now on the table.  The Bible is pretty clear about its inference that if one can’t be trusted in little things, than why should one be trusted in big things.

The thing is, Obama said, “not any of your taxes”, that also means a federal excise tax on tobacco.  To me, the word ‘any’ is one of those absolutes that can come back to bite one in the posterior region if used carelessly.

How many broken promises and lies does it take before one becomes a liar?