Social Security and Medicare already account for nearly 40 percent of federal spending. With a surge of Boomers about to sign up, it is more important than ever to ravage the surplus. A tax credit for abusing your health could do the trick. It would kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Rather than discourage the use of tobacco products, the tax code should encourage it.
Smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States.
It is true that smoking tends to raise health-care costs of younger people. However, these are costs are worth absorbing if smoking will cut 15 or 30 years off a retiree's benefit package. And smokers are something of a double bargain. They die younger, saving taxpayers money that would have gone to entitlements. But during their productive smoking years, they pay a tremendous amount in tobacco taxes.