Missouri Amendment 3: Just Say No

John Kennebec of Camdenton wrote this wry letter to STLtoday.com concerning the the tobacco tax amendment:

The tax envisioned in Amendment 3 is wonderful. This remarkably forward-looking tax is all that a truly progressive tax measure should be. Since it is primarily a tax on the poor, who smoke in far larger numbers than those who are better educated and compensated, it provides a number of advantages that largely have gone unmentioned:

— The poor are unlikely to raise any meaningful complaint about being disproportionately taxed. 

— It gives the elite, educated, wealthy and politically correct an opportunity to control the behavior of their fellow citizens.

— Instead of addressing the health concerns of smokers, the tax can replace health care money, which will be directed into the general fund to avoid increasing the taxes of the elite, in the exemplary manner of state lottery moneys.

All in all, a perfect tax.