Make 2010 the year cigarette tax goes up
Lawmakers generally are loath to raise taxes, but increasing the cigarette tax is a hike many South Carolinians would support, and in a tough budget year, the money would be welcome.
Last year, lawmakers came tantalizingly close to raising the tax by 50 cents a pack, up from the shamefully low 7 cents a pack. But they couldn’t agree on how to spend the estimated $147 million it would raise.
They can do it this session if they’ll put their minds to it.
Gov. Mark Sanford’s spokesman indicates that the tax hike might not face the veto hurdle it couldn’t clear in previous years. Federal health care reform could make the difference.
Sanford will oppose the federal bill, Ben Fox told The (Columbia) State newspaper, but “wouldn’t put a blanket prohibition on (using cigarette tax revenue) without seeing how it plays out.”
The governor previously has insisted that a matching tax break come with a cigarette tax hike. Supporters of the hike haven’t been able to generate the two-thirds vote needed to override Sanford’s veto.
The federal bill could add $1 billion to South Carolina’s Medicaid costs in the next decade, officials estimate.
South Carolina spends an estimated $1 billion a year on smoking-related illnesses.
A look at South Carolina’s record on cigarette taxes and programs to stop smoking leads us straight to the bottom. Our tax of 7 cents a pack is the lowest in the country. It hasn’t changed since 1977. The national average now stands at $1.34 a pack.
The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids reports that the average cigarette tax for major tobacco states (Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee) is 40 cents a pack; for all other states, it is $1.46 a pack. Cigarette taxes in the other tobacco states range from 30 cents in Virginia to 62 cents in Tennessee. We’re doing our part to keep down the average.
And we earned a big fat “F” for our smoking prevention efforts in a new report released last week. According to the American Lung Association, South Carolina is one of six states to score all “F’s” for their efforts on tobacco prevention and control spending, smoke-free air laws and rules, taxing cigarettes and helping smokers kick the habit. The other states with all failing grades were Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.
The South Carolina House version of the bill raising the cigarette tax allocates $5 million a year for smoking prevention and cessation programs. The state spent no money in fiscal year 2009, down from $2 million in fiscal year 2008. Spending $5 million would be a step in the right direction, but it’s still far short of the $62.2 million a year recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That figure was based on the amount of money generated from tobacco sales in South Carolina.
Tobacco lobbyists say it’s bad fiscal policy to rely on a tobacco tax to pay for health care costs. If the tax works to reduce smoking by raising the cost, then revenue from the tax goes down.
But so, too, would the incidence of tobacco-related illnesses. And that should be lawmakers’ first concern.
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