It didn't take long for the tax hikers in the State Legislature to get started in 2010. By tomorrow afternoon, they will have voted on a 110 percent increase in the state cigarette tax, funneling more money from small businesses and the poor to the ever-growing government war chest.

Contact your State Representative now and tell them tax increases are not the way out of this recession; vote NO on Senate Bill 30!

Cigarette taxes hit the poor the hardest: The tax burden is almost three times higher for a smoker making $15,000 a year than for one who earns the state median income. These New Mexicans were just hit with a massive tax increase by the Obama Administration in 2009, and now the tax hikers in the Legislature want to follow the same tax-and-spend path.

Senate Bill 30 also represents a tax increase on small businesses. In 2007, cigarettes made up almost one-third of all products sold in convenience stores nationwide. Now politicians in Santa Fe want to make them more expensive, skimming 60 percent off the top for their wasteful spending projects of choice.