At the end of the day, everything somehow comes back and gets connected to supporting the Haredim, and the Arabs. As if our tax money doesn't get used for anything else beside supporting the Haredim.
As part of the planning stages for the upcoming budget, and supposedly the first of what is going to be a number of economic decrees for the government to raise money in advance of the upcoming years budgets, The Finance Ministry ordered an immediate tax increase on cigarettes. The taxes were raised another 1.5-2 NIS per package. As well, a 10% tax on all current stock of cigarettes already in the stores was added. This move is expected to raise about 700 million NIS for the government.
In addition, it was also announced that the price of gasoline is going to be going up in the near future as well another 30 to 50 agorot per liter..
Ron Kaufman, a journalist who is a smoker, said in an interview on a financial program protesting "as a smoker and as a driver" that he has to support the Haredim and the Arabs. he said further, "Why does the smoking community need to finance the Haredi community who chooses not to work? Since when is not working a commandment from God?.. it is time the Haredim and the Arabs went out to work".
It is interesting how the best way to shock the public is by connecting things to the Haredim. You don't like something, blame it on the Haredim. Does the government not waste any money on anything else that the only thing to complain about in the budget is the Haredim?
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This would be a good opportunity to point out that there is an alternative to smoking cigarettes that is much cheaper (in the long run) and still gives you your nicotine and a pleasurable experience. They are electronic cigarettes produced by Green Smoke, the leading manufacturer of electronic cigarettes in the world. They don't contain all that bad stuff found in cigarettes - the tar, carbon monoxide and smoke, they are much cheaper, they can be smoked, legally, indoors as it is not smoke but vapor, they don't leave that lingering odor on your clothes or on your breath.
Check out the alternative, the new way to smoke. Much healthier, much cheaper, and much better.
Of course there's waste in every nation's budget, and there's a certain inevitability about it, for better or for worse. It's the price of cutting deals so that the budget passes.
ReplyDeleteBut the voluntary economic unemployment of entire able-bodied segments of the population is a phenomenon doesn't exist in any other country, and it strikes people as a lost source of potential revenue that is particularly treatable and reversible.
As a tax-payer, I'd like to register my protest against Ron Kaufman. My taxes go to underwrite the additional health-care costs his smoking will cause the State to incur, since he chooses to smoke. Since when is smoking a commandment from God? It's time Ron Kaufman quit smoking.
ReplyDeleteRon,
ReplyDeletehere's another option..STOP SMOKING!
p.s. other than that, I agree with GlennGulliver's concise statement on the issue. just to add a quick note, not only is it a lost source of potential revenue, it is a lost source of technological and medical advancements in untold fields!
We are talking about Jewish brains after all....imagine what could have been.
yoni r. - actually, Ron costs you less than the average nonsmoker does, because he dies younger and you don't underwrite any healthcare costs in his nonexistent old age.
ReplyDeleteFor a chareidi smoker it's not so clear cut.
but a haredi smoker costs less because he is subsidizing it himself, by paying the extra tax on cigarettes. Actually, according to Ron, the haredi smoker is paying his own kollel salary.
ReplyDeleteRon should be encouraging all haredim to smoke.
Why does Israeli society"scapegoat" the haredin? Two reasons, and we all know them: 1)voluntary, state-subsidized unemployment and 2) lack of service in defence of the country.
ReplyDeleteGiven the difficulties of just making a living here, in addition to the burden and danger of army and reserve service, I'd say that these are a a constant reminder of the unequal diatribution of responsibilities in Israeli society.
We carry these burdens all the time, often at a high price in all senses of the word.
That's the problem with building a socialist state - its citizens are then free to either produce or collect bituach leumi.
ReplyDeletetesyaa
ReplyDeleteassuming that he does die early and assuming that he dies quickly and doesn't get subsidized treatment for years on end. i worked with plenty of people who were ill from cigarettes who lasted forever.
Thanks Ben, that's what my mother used to say.She enjoyed smoking for years until she got emphysema. Decline in healt, decline in independence necessitating leaving the home she loved for a bet avot, less and less mobility and independence over a period of a few years, nasal cannula oxygen, repeated pneumonias, brain damage due to hypoxia, and finally death by suffocation. Her last words before she slipped into unconsciousness were "I don't feel so good", and a few hours later, she was gone. Ten years of feeling more and more like shit and being able to do and enjoy and understand less and less. She had planned on being one of those people who smoke and live on forever, but it didn't work out that way.
ReplyDelete