Our minority President socks it to minorities

We all heard this new populist President claim that he wouldn't increase taxes on anyone earning under $200,000. That means that anyone even close to being considered poor should have been able to look forward to no higher taxes. Obama has, from the beginning, declared that he will help the "poor" and "hard-working" Americans. He has been idolized because he's clearly a "minority" President, which might have caused one to expect him to respect the rights of minority groups. If that's what you expected, dream on, fool.

On April 1st, our federal government BLASTED one small, poor minority group almost beyond belief. Most of you are not in that minority group, so you'll have a tendency to either stop reading or to hem and haw, thinking up excuses for the liar that has taxed beyond even a dictator's imagination.

A 2000% increase in tax! Precisely, it was an increase of 2,252.7%. Yes, take the old tax and make it 22 and a half times larger. That's not an increase... it's a nuclear tax bomb!. Nothing else comes close. That increase means that this product is now taxed at OVER FIFTY PERCENT! The Federal tax is higher than the retail cost of the product itself, including product, packaging, marketing, distribution, etc. Everything that goes into putting the product out there for sale costs less than the Federal tax.

Have you guessed what the product is? What minority group could a "minority", "poor-favoring" President attack so viciously? Oh yes, the group is cigarette smokers, who were already paying grievous taxes, but this incredible tax increase REALLY targeted what is probably the poorest segment of cigarette smokers; those who buy loose tobacco and make their own cigarettes.

Those of us who have been making our own cigarettes (I've been doing it for most of the past 10 years) go to that trouble for one reason only; to save money. Making cigarettes is laborious and time-consuming. Nobody would do it if it weren't cheaper than buying ready-made cigarettes. So naturally, the poorest smokers are the the most likely to be buying loose tobacco. Based on 2006 figures, more than 36.5 percent of adult smokers had incomes of less than $25,000 annually, and I'll guarantee you that if you included only those who make their own, the poor percentage would be much higher.

Since 1998, federal, state and local governments have collected more than $284 BILLION in cigarette taxes and payments. That $284 BILLION came out of pockets of only 19.7% of our citizens. The U.S. population is about 304 million. Subtract out the kids who don't yet pay taxes, and you're left with, at most, about 240 million adults. 20% of that group is 48 million. That means that the average smoker paid aboutt $6,000 in taxes and payment since 1998.

Most of that $284 BILLION was spent, after all the normal government waste in handling it, for programs that had absolutely nothing to do with smoking, cigarettes, or the smokers who paid the taxes. Such obscene taxation is nothing other than ripping off a minority because the majority doesn't give a damn. In fact, we have a lot of people here in Minnesota who, at the same time they claim to fight for the rights of minorities, APPLAUD the soaking that smokers have taken. I have news for those so-called liberals... a high percentage of smokers are also RACIAL MINORITY FOLKS, so you're really blasting them. Another large segment of the population of smokers is VETERANS... you know, those of us who "served our country" and "put our lives on the line"? Unfortunately, my experience with liberals is that they don't in fact give a damn about minorities... they just want to APPEAR TO CARE about them... no more than politically-correct pompous, pretentious posturing.

The American Revolution was begun because of taxes, but the tax on tea and those of the Stamp Act were miniscule compared to the taxes on smokers. Another huge irony is that, without the introduction of tobacco as a crop, the American Colonies would have failed, and none of what we know as American History would have occurred. While our President and Congress are granting mammoth bailouts to large corporations, they are ripping off poor and hard-working Americans. These are the people you voted for? Is this the sort of "CHANGE" you thought they meant?