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States Look at Tobacco to Balance the Budget
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Mar 20, 2009 07:33pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Saturday, March 21, 2009 01:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: March 20, 2009
ATLANTA — Mississippi’s tax on cigarettes, at 18 cents a pack the nation’s third-lowest, has not been raised since 1985. Gov. Haley Barbour, a former tobacco lobbyist, has long opposed an increase.
But this year, state lawmakers have gone from giving little thought to a tobacco tax increase to arguing over how much the tax should go up and where the money should go.
And they are not alone. Budget shortfalls are pushing more than 20 states to look to tobacco for revenue, even those that have long been loath to touch cigarette taxes.
In the South, where such taxes have been lower than in the rest of the country, Arkansas has nearly doubled its tax, to $1.15 a pack, and Kentucky’s will double, to 60 cents, on April 1.
Increases are also under consideration in other tobacco-growing states like North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. With estimated state budget shortfalls nearing $50 billion, opponents of smoking see an opportunity to make headway with the most reluctant lawmakers.
“Everything lined up for us this year,” said Jennifer Cofer, the executive director of the American Lung Association in Mississippi. “Our state needed money; we’ve made a great case for it for almost seven years in a row; we have health care expenditures in astronomical proportions. It’s kind of like, why not now?”
But Ms. Cofer and other lobbyists have abandoned hope of seeing part of the money go to helping smokers quit or to pay for their health care. The Mississippi House and Senate have passed bills that differ on the amount of the tax and whether it should all go to the state’s general fund, or also be used to pay promised subsidies to local governments and to help people quit smoking, two proposals that Mr. Barbour opposes. The differences were being hammered out this week. |
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