SCHIP Destroys American Cigar Industry

"Sure, it will", sneers the liberal politician, when warned that their punative tax-raising will destroy businesses and put people out of work.

But yes, Virginia, their is a law of cause-and-effect, and you can tax people right out of a livelihood, or, in this case, work towards destroying an industry completely:

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.

...the company couldn't cope with a steep drop in consumer demand, brought on by the recession and a large new tax on tobacco products....
Work that had been done in Tampa will now be performed in an Altadis plant in Puerto Rico, where it has extra manufacturing capacity...

...the company attributed much of its trouble to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, a federal program that provides health insurance to low-income children. It is funded, in part, by a new federal tax on cigars and cigarettes.

So what hath SCHIP wrought? Loss of corporate and indivdual tax revenues fron Hav-A-Tampa and it's employees, and additional government expenses (unemployment, mortagage relief) for the 500 (predominately minority) now-unemployed workers at the Tampa plant.

And the carnage has only just begun....

Keep this in mind, when Obama and his Democratic Congress try to sell us on how "Cap-and-Trade" will be a boon to the economy....