Help Wanted: Cigarette Smokers

Do it for the kids

Iowa Congressman Steve King is in trouble with just about everyone (except the president) for his no-SCHIP vote, i.e. State Children's Health Insurance Program. He apparently noticed that it will cost a lot of money and that it's another incremental step towards socialized medicine.

According to the Heritage Foundation Congress plans to fund the SCHIP increase by raising the tobacco tax 61 cents per pack. What with smokers quitting, dying off or unable to afford higher priced smokes, twenty-two million new smokers will need to be recruited to insure that the kids have health insurance, not to be confused with health care which they already have.

Don't criticize Congress and their bifurcated sense of political correctness. Better that you get on down to the convenience store and pick up a couple packs. And don't leave them laying around the house. $1.22 towards SCHIP isn't going to help much. You'll have to smoke them every day for the rest of your life if you really care about the kids' health insurance.

You'll have to listen to a lot of crap from people who think smoking is bad but at least you'll know you're one of the few who is really doing something to get some insurance out to those kids.