Tobacco Taxes and Child Healthcare

Tobacco kills a lot of people a year, maybe this is one of the reason that president bush is trying to raise the tax on it. I would agree with president bush, tobacco is a drug and if people need it that bad, they should pay the price for it. In a way I think the government does it to make more money, but they also raise the prices hoping that Americans will stop the habit of smoking, so In a way they are looking out for the ones who smoke. That statement is actually a proven fact, a study showed that raising prices will decrease the use of tobacco. The campaign for tobacco free kids estimates that the 61 cent increase in tax would result in a 9.1 percent decrease smoking in the youth community. On the other hand the government is trying to raise the taxes in order to provide better healthcare to American kinds. This argument sort of contradicts itself, because they are raising the taxes to raise money for healthcare and so that young Americans can quit smoking, but if a big sum of people stop smoking because of the price, the government would not raise enough for the child healthcare program.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/16/AR2007101601817.html