Kicking and Screaming

When Fort Lauderdale Republican Ellyn Bogdanoff, chair of the House Finance and Tax Committee said she’d “go down kicking and screaming” to protect someone, can you guess who she was talking about?

Working families facing foreclosure?

No.

Students struggling to pay for college?

Nope.

Seniors who can’t find the money to pay for their prescription drugs?

No, that's not it either.

Any of these would have made sense.  Working families, students and seniors are all worth protecting, and each one them deserves legislators who will “go down kicking and screaming” to defend them.

But Bogdanoff wasn’t talking about any of these worthy Floridians.  She was talking about Big Tobacco.

She thinks a cigarette tax increase (and remember Florida has one of the lowest cigarette tax rates in the nation) would send a “very, very bad message.”

What message would that be?

That in a time of economic crisis instead of cutting funding to schools that state should consider a reasonable tax rate on Big Tobacco?

And let’s not forget, Big Tobacco produces probably the only legal product that used it properly will eventually kill you.

So what’s the “very, very bad message?”

Posted by Bernie Campbell on Thursday, March 12, 2009
Permalink: Kicking and Screaming