Obama’s (Baucus)Tax on Tampons

[Vegan Joe]

As the brother of 2 sisters, the father of 3 daughters, and grandfather of 3 granddaughters. I think this is rediculous. I think the government should provide tampons for free for women, not tax them.

 

Why are politicians stupider than both you or me?

 

 

EDITOR’S FOOTNOTE: If you’re wondering whether the Baucus healthcare overhaul outline really does tax tampons, condoms, etc, you can check for yourself. Here’s how you can find the hidden tax on tampons by following these complicated steps:

 

1. Look up the section of the Baucus bill outline that places a tax on medical devices, which the bill refers to as “fees”. You can find it on page 215. Click here to find a copy of the Baucus outline.

 

2. This section of the bill entitled “Annual Fee on Manufacturers and Importers of Medical Devices” has the following language on what is covered under the taxes on medical devices: “covered domestic sales would include U.S. sales of medical devices regulated by the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] as a medical device [FOOTNOTE 103] and subject to premarketing and post marketing regulatory controls. The term would not include sales attributable to Class I products (as classified under the FDA product classification system)”

 

3. So now you have to look through the FDA web site section on medical devices, which you can do here. Then, you can conduct your own search and find out what Class of device a given medical device falls under by going to this search page. If you search “Tampon”, you will see that the FDA characterizes it as a Class II medical device and is therefore covered by the Obama tampon tax. You can also look up the following medical device terms and find out the same thing: like contact lenses and solutions, hearing aides, thermometers, oxygen bottles, wheelchairs, condoms and tampons.

 

4. In his press conference announcing his healthcare bill outline, Senator Baucus said this: “This is probably one of the largest pieces of social legislation in American history since the Depression. It affects everybody in our country. It affects everybody in many different ways. it is comprehensive. It is complex. It’s just takes time to fully fathom. To put the pieces together. To understand and then to make a suggestion to make it better.”

 

“Complex and comprehensive and affecting everybody..takes time to fully fathom …to put the pieces together.”

 

Baucus wasn’t kidding.

http://townhall.com/blog/g/4115cee5-ad00-4e97-a782-9496f101c19c

[Addai]

That's ridiculous, and yet not surprising. Although, if I were a woman, I also wouldn't want government sponsored tampons. Doesn't that phrase just make you giggle? You mentioned condoms too. If Obama sent you a pack, would you seriously use them?

[VeganEssentials]

This is exactly the sort of thing that I anticipated

 

Why, oh why, has it been so difficult for so many people to understand - we're in heavy debt, we're throwing billions out on boondoggles every day, but somehow we were supposed to believe that we could create a public health option WITHOUT increasing our costs somewhere? Too many people fell for the "it won't increase your taxes" line, never stopping to ponder the fact that, if it didn't fall into your general federal taxes, it would come up to bite you somewhere else. Just like this, slipping taxes on to plenty of small essentials or "vice" items SEEMS like it's not a heavy tax, but it's still added taxes nonetheless. And, with vice taxes, it's a greatly polarizing situation - it's singling out those who they want to guilt into feeling some sort of remorse for being regular consumers of non-essential goods, and then there are the rest who say to themselves "Good, because I don't use that crap anyway". I can envision a beautiful scenario right now - even more massive taxes on tobacco, causing tobacco famers to go belly-up, then we can have more gov't issue bailouts to save them. Ah, you've got to love how things work these days (disclaimer - I'm not saying that I love tobacco or support it, but just pointing out how silly it is the way things work and using it as an example).

 

EVERYTHING has a cost, nothing is free, and anyone who would believe that somehow we can create greatness with no added expense and under massive national debt...well...I just don't know what I could say to anyone who would fall for such a line

 

The money's got to come from somewhere, folks. If it isn't tampons, it'll be cigarettes. If it isn't cigarettes, it'll be beer. If it isn't beer, it'll come from somewhere else. I guarantee, it'll come from something that is either essential and will never go without constant use by millions, or, it'll be put on something that the gov't wants to make you feel guilty about buying, so they'll claim "sin" taxes on it as some sort of justification. But, let's not kid ourselves to think that something costing a trillion dollars isn't going to come at an added expense to us, because it just isn't going to work that way.

[Addai]

Indirect taxes are everywhere. In New York they're soon going to require every resident to buy a new license plate for $25. Just because.

 

You sort of almost touched on something related that is one of the most insidious things of all. The "inflation tax" as it's known. It's like adding to national debt but sneakier. Whereby congress [basically, for simplicities sake] delegates to the Federal Reserve that they print money to pay for programs. Covering the expenses like this is brilliant for congressman, because then they get to go back to their constituents and say "Hey, look what I did for you! X, Y, and Z, and I did it all without the need to raise taxes or add a penny to the national debt!" Meanwhile the value of the dollar declines, effectively stealing peoples savings as the worth of their funds decrease. Which is all particularly evil as it not only discourages savings in a country that has long had a negative savings rate, but it attacks senior citizens worse than any other group who often have fixed incomes.

 

I think that was on topic.

[HCPinGviini]

Menstrual cup wins tampons. One last for years and years and doesn't give you TSS.

[thendanisays]

Menstrual cup wins tampons. One last for years and years and doesn't give you TSS.

 

+1

[HCPinGviini]

Menstrual cup wins tampons. One last for years and years and doesn't give you TSS.

 

+1

Dani, I love you even more now. <3