A cigarette tax too far

Published 4:57pm Saturday, February 9, 2013
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A plan to increase taxes on cigarettes by $1.60 per pack goes too far. Using tax policy as a tool of social engineering is bad enough, but the extreme tax increase proposed this week in the Minnesota Legislature would enact its ideas about social policy at the expense of small, locally owned businesses.

Let’s agree for starters that smoking is bad. It is an unpleasant habit that ought not exist. But the same can be said for many, many other things that people do and, in America, are perfectly free to do as long as they don’t injure anyone else in the process. While it is perfectly understandable that government operations must be funded with tax revenues, it is less understandable when government uses taxes to punish behavior that it does not like. It’s an elitist position that suggests certain lawmakers think they’re smarter, and know better, than the rest of us.

The cigarette tax increase has an additional demerit: It would damage small businesses in border communities such as Austin. Far from reducing smoking, the gigantic tax increase would most likely lure smokers across the border. For large retailers, this does not matter; they own stores in every state. For small operators, however, driving business across the state line is a real problem. Coupled with the governor’s sales tax proposal, it is beginning to look very much like state leaders want not only to engineer people’s lifestyles, but for some incomprehensible reason to target small businesses. This makes no economic sense.

The cigarette tax bill got a hearing this week. We hope that’s the end of it. Gov. Dayton has already proposed a 94 cent per pack tax hike, which strikes us as quite aggressive. Smoking is a bad habit, a deadly habit. But forcing people to live a state-approved lifestyle is the wrong use of government’s power. And enacting social theories at the expense of jobs makes it even worse.

 

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  • Toxic Butts

    Unfortunately the reality is that cigarettes and tobacco in general DO cost Americans money…smokers and non-smokers alike. The burden on the healthcare system from smoking -related diseases is huge and there is also an enormous cost to communities to clean up the waste of tobacco. All those cigarettes on the ground, everywhere you look, someone has to pick them up AND they are toxic to our environment. Im not saying taxes are the answer, but I think being honest about the true cost of tobacco to our society is important….someone has to pay for it.

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