Cigarette tax

So, I have outlined the idea of the society becoming rusty in a few forms.  In this post I will talk about one of them.  Cigarette tax.  I am a smoker.  Washington State has the second highest cigarette tax following Rhode Island.  Currently at the rate of $3.025 per a single pack of 20 cigarettes.  Of that $3.025, $.51.6 is used for a State education fund.  The rest ($2.509) is used for general State funding which supports most of the State Services.  In fiscal year 2009 cigarette taxes generated $392.4 million dollars and that was before the $1 increase in May of 2010.  So if looking at our comunity right now with unemployment rates and poor paying jobs that are tough to find (a rusty comunity), where would that leave us without our smokers.  I get harassed and put down by people on the street corners now.  As if not smoking indoors wasn't good enough for them.  What would happen if my fellow smokers and I all quit at once.  State funding takes an over 4 million dollar hit.  Where would they tax it then?  Food, alcohol, or maybe a "fat tax"?  I think without the smokers and there outrageous taxation without representation Washington State would rust through until someone else got taxed heavy.  Basically the State would shut down like Minnisota did.  So next time you see a smoker you may want to say thanks for your tax contribution to the State instead of imposing on thier rights.

http://dor.wa.gov/Docs/Pubs/CigarTax/CigaretteTax.pdf