It takes nothing to slap a band-aid on a growing problem and hope to be promoted before the effects can be seen.

On the other hand, being Conservative in your daily life and being Conservative in your governance is much more difficult. Sometime you have to say “No”. Some times you have to be the adult in the argument. It sucks, but we do it because it is the right thing. It builds our character and our fortitude.

But being a squish sure is easy. If we would just stop rewarding it we may just have a chance.

I have an idea for Florida and all the other states that are facing budget deficits because of their relentless and heedless policy of expansion:

Cut The Services.

and if you won’t do that, find the inefficiencies in the services, and cut those. I simply cannot and will not believe that the governments of our 50 states are not wasting a significant portion of the money they spend.

One of the things Republicans should be doing during these next four years is really getting involved in investigating the costs of government programs and services in terms of their expenditures, and publicizing them. I’m sure we’ll find a lot of waste, certainly on the order of 10%-30% of the budget, that could be eliminated without drastic service cuts.

The point is, if our economy has just taken a massive hit, in the other words, a sinking boat, if you will. So, our economy is filled with excessive water and a big hole. Thus, it is up to us to seal the hole and throw out excessive water, correct? The hole is credit crunch, and excessive water is a ton of bad programs and unwise spending that’s not needed in the first place.

Therefore, we have to pump up credit somehow, prehaps by buying out all “bad” assets that one day will mature and give us a good ROI. Actually, I really have no idea what’s the best solution, as I’m no economic expert. In addition, federal government will have to cut some programs and reduce some spending in some places in order to throw “excessive water” out of economy.

I only took one course on basic economics as part of general course requirements for graduation. It was only for a semester, and truthfully, I didn’t understand it much until I read Thomas Sowell’s excellent book on explaining basic economics stuff. I do highly recommend buying that for your library….

You’re making a basic mistake, Erick. When prices change, it’s not demand that changes but the QUANTITY demanded. The demand curve is the relationship between prices and quantity, and thus price changes are movements along the curve rather than movement of the demand curve itself. Demand changes, and the demand curve shifts, when the relationship between prices and quantity changes, such as changes in income or in the prices of related goods.

$ 1.00 per pack among a host of other taxes. Tax revenue a year later from cigarette sales was 50% lower.

The MD budget deficit continues to grow. I see waste every day, but complaints fall on deaf ears. The legislature is so happy to see Obama as president.

I have a lot of doubts about the future right now.

Saying that politicians “forget” all about basic economics assumes that they understood basic economics in the first place.

Any time the government imposes a tax, it either decreases the demand for something (labor for income taxes, products for sales taxes) or decreases the supply of something (capital for capital gains taxes). Deadweight loss is an unavoidable feature of taxation and, since taxation is an unavoidable feature of civilization, unavoidable in general.

Given that deadweight loss is unavoidable, however, a government must decide which products will have their demand artificially reduced by taxation. It only makes sense to choose a product that causes harm to both the physical body and the body politic (in increased healthcare costs among others) rather than something like, oh say…baby formula.

In addition, just because demand is reduced as the result of taxation does not mean that demand is reduced by the same percentage as the tax is levied. The numbers you cite in your second block quote clearly demonstrate this. If your numbers are right, the state will take in more revenue with the higher tax on cigarettes than without it, more smokers will stop smoking, and fewer people will begin smoking. Whether the new revenue is enough to close the budget gap depends on the size of the gap and the current percentage population that smoke, but new revenue will be generated nonetheless.

The idea that deadweight loss is an argument against any particular mode of taxation, though, reveals the lack of a grasp of basic economics.

when they can demagogue with 1/4 the effort and maintain “good politics”?

So much for the wisdom of Wall Street wizzes as Gov. Corzine found out the hard way.
The key issue is where you stand on the yield curve when increasing taxes. In NJ’s case, taxes were already painfully high, so any increase would result in modified behavior (buying cigs over the internet, driving to DE, or buying unstamped cartons from the back of a van, and perhaps even quitting). The danger when you start playing in the high end of the yield curve is that you can get a huge behavior swing with a only a modest tax increase and end up netting far far less taxes.

“Being no fan of smoking, I’ve got zero problem with that.”

So being a fan is some kind of criteria for taxation? There are plenty of people that are not ‘fans’ of the car I drive or the gas I purchase, maybe I need to reevaluate my hostility toward higher gas taxes. Maybe everything I do that becomes popular should just have ever-increasing taxes on it unless we can find more fans.

Let’s get this pesky Constitution gone and do everything by popularity contest.

This year is especially worse. With the dems in charge of both houses they would like to raise the sales tax 1.75% which would make California the highest in the nation. Along with a hike in income taxes. God only knows what else they would like to increase. And then in a year or two they wonder themselves why people and businesses are leaving the state.

The only thing holding them back is the fact that budget and tax matters require a 2/3 majority and the dems fall just a bit short of that. Thank goodness we have at least a few Republicans in this state. And I am not counting our RINO governator.

“While the tax may not be popular among smokers, studies show that for every 10 percent increase in the price of a pack teen smoking drops seven percent and four percent fewer adults pick up the habit. ”

While the price necessarily rises when a $1.00 tax is imposed, it doesn’t necessarily rise by $1.00. Because of the way the (somewhat) free market functions, retailers will compete to increase their price by the smallest amount, a rough estimate is that a $1.00 tax increase will lead to a price increase of about $0.50. My understanding is that a pack of cigarettes costs about $25.00 in Florida, which means the price will only increase by 2%.

While I understand the advantages of arguing the practical effects of conservative economics, I think it’s more important to emphasize the ideological underpinning, which is a respect for personal freedom and a desire to keep the government as far from the peoples’ money as possible. This has the double effect of helping us reclaim the title of the party of personal freedom in the public eye, as well as providing a rock-solid foundation for other arguments about personal freedom we want to make.

opposing forced societal change? If raises taxes on cig is a good thing, why not raise taxes on donuts and pie? Maybe the government could give tax credits to everyone who eats two vegetables a day or calls their mom once a week?

Amen Doc! Isn’t New York getting ready to institute a tax on sodas because they help cause obesity?

By the way, as a resident of Florida, I have become increasingly disappointed with our weak Governor. And, I am very disappointed that there is talk of him running for Mel Martinez’s senate seat. There was talk that Jeb would run and all of a sudden he says he is not running. Very disappointing, as Jeb was the best governor this state EVER had.

Are there no decent republicans out there anymore?