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Originally Posted by Paddy1
So what's quoting reams of ASH funded research?
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... and that's another fallacy: ad hominem.
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This may be true if the government has enough money to run the country (in which case where's my rebate?) but otherwise it still has to be replaced. Add to that that its 400000 so far, say another 200-300k people stop in the next year, and the year after that... The hole in the finances gets bigger.
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You're still not taking adequate account of the relative size of the amount compared to the overall budget. £48 million is absolutely tiny. Such an amount can be saved by shelving a couple of initiatives here and there, that very few people will ever notice. It is far, far away from the "oh no we can't afford to build that hospital!" scale of budget cutting.
A £48 million hole doesn't have to be plugged, they can just rearrange the furniture to hide it.
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So they ramp up tax on tabacco causing the black market to soar (even more) until they've effectively priced legitimate smokers out of the market.
All that tax will have to be replaced and eventually it won't be just by smokers.
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Yes, the tax revenue from smoking will eventually need to be found from elsewhere. And it will be. The key thing is, change is happening at a gradual enough pace for it to be planned for.
Unless you're suggesting that it's beneficial that we let a few hundred thousand people needlessly kill themselves in order to help keep the country afloat?