Smoke and Mirrors

Government's capacity to muck up our otherwise orderly world is beyond mind-boggling.

Consider the State Children's Health Insurance Plan, which imposes a tax on cigars.

The rationale follows that smoking increases health risks, so make the risk-takers pay for the expected drain on resources.

Fair enough.

But fallout from the tax actually gives smokers an incentive to inhale more deeply.

"The punitive tax increases on little cigars resulting from SCHIP legislation caused some companies to increase the weight of their little cigars in order to make them large cigars," says a Cigar Assn. of America bulletin.

Translation: the tax on small cigars is more onerous than the levy on large cigars. Want more bang for your buck? Light up a Gran Corona.

Move now to the auto industry, whipping boy for foreign-oil dependence and all the ills that go with it.

In a sober bid to retard oil consumption, politicians have long eschewed fuel-tax hikes in favor of fuel-economy standards.

Talk about blowing smoke.

The European experience has seen graduated gas tax increases (and exemptions for diesel) generate a shift to smaller, thrifty vehicles that contribute to reduced consumption.

But in the U.S., where politicians seem to bask in the glow of fossil-fuel fires, cheap gas created an insatiable demand for thirsty land yachts. And even now, as pump prices tick upward, that desire lingers like the aroma of a Don Diego Churchill.

Retired car guy (and cigar aficionado) Bob Lutz warned Washington of this outcome ages ago.

What are these guys smoking, anyway?