cur-mud-geon:
anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner
State lawmakers have decided that it is time again to increase cigarette taxes (by $1.00 per pack on top of the present $0.77 per pack) and to use that newfound wealth for “anti-smoking” and “health care” programs. Smokers have no political clout and therefore are perennial targets. State projections are that the increase in state cigarette tax of $1.00 per pack would raise an additional $227.5 million a year in new state tax revenue in spite of the projected decline of nearly 91 million packs of cigarettes in annual sales.
We’re not talking about loose change here.
By way of background, I confess to being a former cigarette smoker who kicked a three pack per day habit on July 5, 1985. It was, to paraphrase Mark Twain, always my rule to never smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake.
Back to the question: What if this actually worked?
What if they really used some of this money for anti-smoking programs unlike they used the money offered up by tobacco companies several years ago when the states won their lawsuit. And then, what if people actually began to quit smoking? That would drive down the number of packs of cigarettes sold to the point that this newfound source of wealth would dry up. The program would actually kill off the goose that laid the original golden egg.
Do they really plan for this outcome, or is it closer to the truth that they know there’ll be no real anti-smoking push and, instead, most of the money will be spent to deliver health care to the poor and uncovered? If that is the case, how do we equate penalizing users of a legal product, many of whom are creating their own health care issues by smoking, in order to raise taxes to fund some new cause especially when our state is in tough financial straits already?
The ugly truth is that lawmakers too often simply want to redistribute money to suit their own world or, in this case, state view. They seemingly care not where it comes from. They seemingly care not that the electorate might disagree with their use of the funds.
What does all this mean to Germantown? In my humble, or not so humble, opinion, it ultimately means that our taxes will go up. Why do I say that? Because these new spending programs almost always result in the spending of far more money than we’re told will be the case in the beginning. These programs acquire their own living energy and then perpetuate themselves whether or not they are working. Our taxes will increase also if the anti-smoking programs really have an effect since there’ll be a “shortfall” in tax collection that will have to be made up with money from the general fund, which is in serious trouble already…but more on that later.
Finally, what can we expect in terms of costs increasing in whatever the new health care programs are? Look at what has happened over the past decade for some idea. We are a very few years away from the day when health care costs in our country will consume 20 cents of every dollar of our Gross National Product.
Again, we’re not talking about loose change here.
