My Letter to Congress: H.R.4439 Tobacco Tax Parity Act of 2010 
Contact Congress
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Rep. Mike Quigley [D, IL-5] Vote on Passage of H.R.4439: Not Voted Yet -
Sen. Mark Kirk [R, IL] Vote on Passage of H.R.4439: Not Voted Yet -
Sen. Richard Durbin [D, IL] Vote on Passage of H.R.4439: Not Voted Yet
Do not take another step towards the prohibition of tobacco. Not everyone suffers as a result of tobacco consumption. Pipe smokers are one group that fall into this category. Pipe smokers sincerely enjoy the extreme pleasure of fine pipe tobacco, as do many of those who are around when it is being burned.
By imposing a tax of this size on pipe tobacco in order to attack roll your own cigarette tobacco, you may wind up destroying the livelihoods of thousands of professional tobacconists who have been in business for their entire lives and, in many cases, have continued the business handed down by their fathers. Others who would be affected are tobacco blenders, pipe carving artisans, pipe tobacco packaging plants, and tobacco farmers.
In economic times like these, it makes absolutely no sense to pass legislation that could cause more unemployment. I urge you to seriously consider the repercussions of an action like this.
Sincerely,
David Huber
Thank you for taking the time to contact my office. Your thoughts are
very important to me. We read each message sent and appreciate your
patience, as we receive more than 5,000 comments per day.
Sincerely,
Mark Kirk
United States Senator
Note to Congressional staff & elected officials reading this: this letter was sent through Contact-Congress features on OpenCongress.org, a free public resource website, but in the future we seek to compel the U.S. Congress to adopt fully open technology for constituent communications. For more information how your office can better handle public feedback through an open API and open standards, contact us -- even today, there are significantly more efficient and responsive ways for our elected officials to receive email feedback than the status quo of individual webforms. For greater public accountability in government, we must make the process of writing one's members of Congress more accessible and empowering. Looking ahead, we will release more data from Contact-Congress letters and Congressional response rates back into the public commons. This will result in a new open data source on bills & issues people care about, as well as encourage best practices in constituent communications and make it possible to grade members of Congress on their responsiveness & citizen satisfaction.
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