Now the combination is called excessive. The industry wonders in its ads whether blunt instruments such as these are what this Congress was elected to wield, and warns that tobacco is only the start down a slippery slope. The alarm is commercial as well as philosophical, an effort to enlist all manner of other industries on grounds that they too have freedom and income at stake. But that's the wrong lens. This isn't and ought not be converted into either a political or ideological issue, and not a budget issue, either.
Tobacco is a unique product.
Its disastrous effect on public health and the duplicitous history of the industry both make it so. What happens to it is not a threat to other industries. The question concerning the McCain bill is whether it will bring sufficient pressure on an unrepentant tobacco industry. The tax increase it envisions would likely not be enough to achieve the reductions in smoking it seeks, for example. The tobacco companies' goal has been a deal in which the government would use its influence for their benefit.