It is curious that President Obama keeps claiming that he is not raising taxes on lower-income Americans, yet a tax hike that will impose a disproportionately large burden on the poor goes into effect Wednesday.

In February, Obama signed into law a large tax hike on cigarette consumers. The federal tax on cigarette consumers is jumping from 39 cents per pack to $1.01 per pack — a huge 159 percent increase. If you smoke two packs per day, President Obama has raised your taxes by a $453 annually.

Next on the Obama low-income tax hike agenda: global warming taxes of about $80 billion per year, as revealed in the Obama budget, which equals an annual tax boost of $700 for every household in the United States.