Kass at the Tea Party

John Kass column. He gets it.

More: Byron York, DC Examiner, on the meaning of the tea parties.

More on taxes. The Daily Herald:

One of Bill McCloskey's gas stations used to sell 110,000 packs of cigarettes a month before a $2 Cook County sales tax kicked in three years ago. Now it sells 17,000.

Then the cost went up again, thanks to a 62-cent federal tobacco tax increase April 1. That's dropped McCloskey's cigarette sales another 12 percent from last April.

Now, with a pack of smokes topping $9 in at least one city, state lawmakers are considering another tax hike of $1 over two years.

Advocates say it could raise nearly $1 billion for health care and reduce the number of smokers, thus decreasing the state's health services burden. But others say cigarette prices already are too high and people wanting a puff will travel across state lines to get it.

"When you lose that sale on the cigarettes, you lose that sale on the gas, you lose that sale on the merchandise," said McCloskey, general manager for nine Minuteman Convenience Centers in the Chicago area.

HT The New Ledger.