TAMPA - Tampa will lose part of its cigar heritage in August when Hav-A-Tampa shuts its factory near Seffner and lays off about 495 employees, closing a factory that has been operating since 1902.
Courtesy:Tampa Bay Online
The company announced the closing today.
Many employees there make Hav-A-Tampa’s iconic Jewels, inexpensive machine-made cigars known for their birchwood tips. [...]

On April 1st the LARGEST federal tobacco increase in HISTORY took effect. The tax collects $32.3 billion in new tax revenue over the next 4.5 years and it’s Obama’s first step in socializing our healthcare system.
The tax was included in the bill tp expand State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The [...]

When I first heard about the tax increase on tobacco that will go into effect on April 1, 2009, I thought this just affected those who smoke.
When the tobacco tax increase for child health care went into effect here in Arizona on January 1, 2007, Arizona became the fourth highest state in the nation for [...]

Thanks to President Barack Hussein Oteleprompter’s promise to not raise taxes on any family making under $250,000 a year (or $200,000 as an individual), some friends and I have decided that it’s a good time to quit using tobacco products. Because, after all, the new tobacco taxes only affect the rich. Or at least they will, because now only the rich can afford them.

Care Enough To Smoke?

You’ve cowered in dark out-of-the-way smoking areas, hidden in the shadows, and tried to grab a quick smoke while standing in the rain for too many years!! You wish you had a dime for every time someone informed you that smoking is a filthy habit and is bad for your health. You’ve spent a small fortune on breathe mints to avoid offending others. We know, it’s been rough out there on the minority of smokers like you.

One of President Barack Obama’s campaign pledges on taxes went up in puffs of smoke Wednesday.
The largest increase in tobacco taxes took effect despite Obama’s promise not to raise taxes of any kind on families earning under $250,000 or individuals under $200,000.

Thanks in part to the largest-ever federal cigarette tax increase — a nearly 62-cents-a-pack hike that starts Wednesday but was reflected in many prices earlier — Jukes on Tuesday paid more than $58 for a 10-pack carton at the Cigarette Store in Denver, Colorado.

Democrats have decided to pay for their proposal for a massive SCHIP expansion, which dilutes the focus on poor children, with tens of billions of dollars in additional tobacco taxes.

Short of finding at least 22.4 million new smokers (the number required to adequately fund SCHIP) Democrats will be forced to either kick millions of children off of health insurance

President Obama on Wednesday signed into law a bill (HR 2) that will reauthorize and expand SCHIP to an additional four million children, the AP/San Francisco Chronicle reports. Obama said that expanding the program is “the first step” to achieving universal health coverage in the U.S. (Freking/Elliot, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 2/5). The House cleared the final version of the measure by a vote of 290-135 earlier in the day. Forty Republicans voted in favor of the bill, and 133 voted against it. Two House Democrats voted against the measure (Lengell, Washington Times, 2/5). The Senate approved the legislation last week.

President Obama on Wednesday signed into law a bill (HR 2) that will reauthorize and expand SCHIP to an additional four million children, the AP/San Francisco Chronicle reports. Obama said that expanding the program is “the first step” to achieving universal health coverage in the U.S. (Freking/Elliot, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 2/5). The House cleared the [...]