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Her Excellency The Governor Christine Todd Whitman Executive Castle PO BOX 001 TRENTON, NJ 08625
Your Excellency,
My name is Gary Mosher, I am 40 years old, was born in this state and am a 27 year smoker. I am also an honorable, decent person who gives generously of my time and skills and asks for very little from anyone (except maybe the privilege of being left alone). As a decent, ethical person I am a straight talker and don’t like liars. Regretfully, I believe you are a liar, because I believe you have been informed by staff that cigarette smokers do, in fact, save the national economy billions of dollars annually in uncollected benefits. I also believe you are aware that people can only die once, and that the younger they die the less expensive the death will likely be. In spite of these known facts, you used the lie that “cigarette smokers cost more money” to justify a ludicrous tax on cigarettes and a totally unfounded sham lawsuit against producers--which you know consumers are paying for. You should understand that I find you a despicable person for this action alone. To add to this transgression against decency you also used the profoundly important issue of “teen smoking” as a shield to protect your true intention from being exposed. There is no doubt that staff informed you that there are many far superior ways to prevent the true evil of teen smoking. Swift harsh punishment of anyone selling to a minor, for example. (We both know that sellers will not risk imprisonment for the small profit possible on cigarettes.) Cigarettes aren’t a $60 dollar bag of grass, and you know this.) You manipulated the public with the lie that pricing cigarettes out of teen affordablity would fix the problem when you knew that it wasn’t the best or even a good solution. You did all this to create a regressive source of state income to finance your favors to the rich, which makes you the worst kind of political despot. I don’t like any of this, but I accepted it as the price we all must pay for a citizenry that will accept government polluted by puke politics. But like our founding fathers I have a breaking point, there is a “last straw,” and you’re poking it in my eye.
To be brief: back in March of this year I received a letter from the State Treasury Department informing me that I owed tax on cigarettes purchased on-line in August of 1999. The fact that I was not informed until 7 months after my first on-line purchase that there would be an additional tax liability I found totally unacceptable. I first called the seller to inquire of them why I was not informed that the State of New Jersey was going to be informed of my presumably private transactions. They explained that by federal law they were required to inform the government. I told them that it should be against the law for them not to have informed me of that fact, and that this made their disclaimer stating that “purchaser MAY be responsible for their own state tax” a deliberately misleading perversion of the actual truth, which as you know (but couldn’t be bothered informing your subjects) is “purchaser will certainly be responsible for state tax”. I then accused them of waiting 6 months to inform the state because they knew that once I knew the truth the scheme would be over and I wouldn’t be buying cigarettes from them anymore. They assured me they complied with the law within a week and that the State was responsible for the delay. I wished the phone representative a horrible life and slow miserable death and proceeded to call the State “technician” who signed the letter. Mr. Tolloch was not at his desk (letter signers never are). I eventually (after 3 calls) spoke to another technician and asked him why I wasn’t informed sooner of the tax liability. He first attempted to blame the seller but eventually conceded that the State may have known months sooner, but that the person who was responsible for doing the necessary paperwork was out for maternity leave so the records were not processed. This totally unsatisfactory excuse elevated my temper and heated our conversation. I explained that:
This explanation got me the traditional: “Life’s tough; the law’s the law; I don’t make the rules,” and my favorite, “We could have waited ten years to send you a bill.” How proud you must be. This arrogance in the face of a $600 or $700 tax liability on a below poverty income put a pretty good crack in the “camel’s” back. So I made it clear if the State isn’t going to be reasonable, then I wasn’t going to be cooperative and assured the “supervisor” that I would use the courts, the media, and every dollar I could borrow to ensure that the state would have to pay at least $10 dollars for every dollar it would collect from me. I ended the rude and abusive conversation with the well-deserved “drop dead as soon as possible salutation.”
In the days that followed I did some ranting on the Internet and waited to see what kind of stuff was going to hit the fan. When weeks passed without another letter (bills are sent individually for each individual purchase, so I was expecting between 10 and 20) I assumed that better judgment had prevailed and that the matter for me, personally, was closed. Although I still empathized for the others who would be victimized by this insidious State tax trap. Five months have passed, and I have just received a tax bill for cigarettes purchased in January 2000. I called the Treasury Department and believe spoke to the same supervisor (Paul Leestma) as before. (The letter signer was not at her desk, of course.) I made my case, again, (got hung up on for talking over his interruptions) called back and asked for a supervisor. Mr. Leestma informed me that he was the supervisor, and then I told him that hanging up the phone was not acceptable behavior from a public servant and that these phone calls cost me money. He proceed to lie and say I was “disconnected,”--but that lie changed when I told him I had recorded the conversation. After some conversation concerning human rights and revolutionary wars, I was again informed that the State can send the bill whenever it wants and that knowing the law was my responsibility.
[ This commonly used bureaucratic excuse seems a strange contradiction coming from a State that spent millions of dollars to inform its subjects of a seat belt law that got tremendous media exposure and for which you instated a grace period. No warnings regarding the law also seems pretty imbecilic in light of the inane health advisories you oblige be posted. I wonder just what percentage of the population knows the federal government passed a law requiring cigarette sellers to notify the government of people’s presumed private purchases. If it’s under 3%, not counting people who learned as hard a way as I did, I think you should give yourself 50 lashes for letting you soldier whip me with that old “ignorance of the law is no excuse” crap.]
Again, how proud you must be! In no doubt colorful language I informed Mr. Leestma that hell would be frozen over before I would voluntarily pay and that I was going to make the biggest stink possible if this misguided, unethical, and petty state harassment does not stop. I attempted to convince him through descriptive visualization that the court case would not make him or his Queen look good, and that his bureaucracy was risking a lot in light of the fact that I would insure that the best possible outcome would be the booby prize of the lost State resources and lost respectability. He suggested I “do whatever I want” and we ended our conversation.
So that’s where things stand. What I want is just, honest government for all. What I will accept, not to have to “do what whatever (I) want” is a letter signed by an appropriate authority exempting me from any unpaid cigarette tax liability for purchases prior to April 2000. I expect a response within 3 weeks, or I start writing my shackle-removing declaration of independence and become a hostile, civil disobedient, rebel of your creation. Besides severing ties with some other government organizations which are surprisingly dependent on my volunteer contributions, I will do my Thomas Paine best to shove the stench of your tyranny up as many nostrils as possible. I may not be able to afford any French mercenaries, but I am thinking a hunger strike might be do-able. Do you think we could get Dan Rather to show up wearing fatigues for the final lowering of my flag and dragging off to the hoosegow?
I should not have to inform you of this, but with power comes responsibility. People live under very individual and sometimes very harsh circumstances, and not even trying to take that into account in the design of policy or law is just plain “dropping the ball” and unacceptably reckless. I hope that you can appreciate that I am not a stupid, thoughtless, or emotionally psychotic person, and if your actions can provoke such contempt in me, I truly hate to imagine what’s going on in some less disciplined minds. When you create unyielding law that requires poor people to sacrifice 10, 20 or even 30% of their income to do something they have done most of their lives in a once free nation, I think you are “lighting up” a fuse. Anyway, if your lack of thoughtful consideration does some day bear sad fruit, I will admittedly feel better than I should handing this letter to the editors of the New York Times and saying in a crude part of my heart, “touch’e, Madame Christi let-them-eat-cake-but-don’t-let-them-smoke Whitman.
Signed,
Gary Mosher
P.S. Let’s say you get all the poor people to stop smoking. With what new tax do you suggest we finance the extra 7 to 10 years of expensive services they will consume-- maybe a tax on poor people food like rice and macaroni?
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