Please note my colleague Sarah Curry’s post below. First of all the “conservative” Senate today voted for an omnibus tax bill that included a brand new, punitive add-on tax on people who use e-cigarettes. While the omnibus bill, overall, does not raise taxes it clearly does so on this politically impotent  segment of our citizenry, with no real justification in either the economics or ethics of taxation. But secondly, when offered a chance to reduce the tax from 5 cents a milliliter of total liquid used in the cigarettes to 3 cents, the Republicans in the Senate voted unanimously against the cut…and people wonder why I am not a Republican.