In case you haven’t followed this, Congress wants to essentially ban poor people from enjoying cigars:

A measure making its way through the halls of Congress would not only raise the tax on cigarettes and cigars, it would raise the tax on some cigars through the roof.
Cigarettes, which account 95 percent of tobacco tax collections, are the main focus of the bill. Federal taxes on a pack would jump from 39-cents to $1.
As for cigars, currently the federal government levies a flat tax of 5-cents per cigar. If the proposed legislation passes, it would increase the tax up to $10 per cigar, depending on the price of the cigar. In some cases that would be an increase of up to 20 thousand percent.
Under measure being considered, a cigar would be taxed at 53-percent of its wholesale price. For example, if a cigar costs $5 now, under the new tax plan the price would increase by more than half – to just over $7.50. A cigar that costs $20 would be taxed $10 under the new plan.
The impact of cigar dealers, large and small, would be enormous.
“I have a thousand open boxes of cigars,” said Jorge Valdes of Sabor Havana Cigars in Doral. “Put 20-thousand percent on top of each cigar and you tell me what that number is.”

Me: I admit that I am particularly sensitive to this because I’ve recently taken up the cigar habit. But I think this provides a perfect example of how liberal policies exacerbate the rich-poor divide. Whatever you may think about cigars, let’s stipulate that for some number of people, rich and poor alike, cigars are a source of real joy. If this absurd tax goes through, poor people won’t be able to afford cigars while rich people will have no problem carrying this additional freight. It will be inconvenient to be sure, but Rush Limbaugh and Bill Clinton will still be able to buy whatever cigars they like.