Cigarette tax trades rights to halt deficit

Over the last two years, Wisconsin smokers saw a dramatic increase in the taxing of tobacco and cigarette. As part of efforts to fill state deficits, Gov. Jim Doyle approved a large amount of legislation over the last five years to increase the price of cigarettes to boost state revenue and promote a healthier Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin state budget has fallen deeply into the red this year, but taxing cigarettes will not help bring it back in to the black. By taxing cigarettes, the government is abridging the rights of citizens rather than accepting their fiscal responsibility.

Beyond that, increasing the tax on a “sin good” such as cigarettes—as good intentioned and morally sound an idea that is—creates many problems, however, and threatens the future revenue of Wisconsin. These increases in taxes have primarily been promoted as a double benefit to the state: the goal of the tax being to prevent people from smoking, thus benefiting the health-care system, while simultaneously raising revenue to fill a state budget deficit.

But this logic is also very problematic. Firstly, the tax effect is degenerative; as more and more people quit smoking, the tax will generate less and less revenue until it reaches a point where it becomes ineffective. What happens when cigarettes and tobacco have been taxed to cinders and there are not enough smokers for this tax to be beneficial to the state? Will the state government simply look for another good that has a negative image in today’s society to bleed money from?

Following tobacco, alcohol and gasoline will likely be the government’s next luxury items to become targets of taxation. The rationalization that these products are harmful to our citizens or country does not mean they should be taxed to death. Our lives as American citizens are based the concept of liberty and the right to make choices. As much as someone has a right to breathe fresh air, another citizen has a right to enjoy tobacco. Taxing tobacco based on a healthier America is beside the point, because people are free to live as unhealthily as they like, according to the laws that protect our life-styles.  

As fewer people light up, fewer people will be going to hospitals seeking treatment. And while a healthy America should be an important goal in the face of a health-care overhaul, the onus will be placed upon the health-care industry. If fewer people seek treatment for smoking-related diseases caused by tobacco, then health-care will see a dramatic spiral in its revenue.

Health care, from an economic point of view, does not benefit at all from the increasing of taxes on cigarettes; it becomes crippled. Rates for treatment would likely go up when a majority of people quit smoking, particularly under the unregulated, nonuniversal health-care system that America currently employs. It is important to remember, health care is a business.

On the other side, people generally complain about footing the bill for the smoking habits of others, wasting their hard-earned dollars on someone else’s vice. That is, we as citizens have a portion of our paychecks subtracted every payday for Medicare and other social safety nets. Even if you do not smoke, you pay for smoker’s health problems every time you work. Some people believe this is unfair, as they are paying for someone who is knowingly damaging their own health. This is a valid point, but it too has issues.

Using this logic, I should be very upset that I’m paying for every person who decides to do something dangerous and idiotic and injures themselves in the process when they knew the possibility of damaging their body is high. Likewise, smokers as well as nonsmokers pay part of their hard earned money toward Medicare, so do they not have the right to use it as well?

Another issue with raising taxes on vice goods like cigarettes, one that is becoming ever more prevalent, is the creation of crime. As pointed out last Thursday in the Wisconsin State Journal, the state is seeing a rise in break-ins of convenience stores and gas stations. The primary theft? Cartons and cartons of cigarettes. Taxing goods that a majority of middle-class Americans enjoy inevitably leads to a frustrated population, one apparently that can be driven to crime. 

The government cannot simply tax a good without thinking of the possible complications that come with that tax, especially if it infringes on citizens rights. Passing increases on taxes for goods that people enjoy simply to fill deficit issues created by government officials who could not balance the budget is illogical and unjust to the citizens.

Citizens should not have to pay more out of pocket for the mistakes made by irresponsible spending by the government. This is not merely an issue of taxing cigarettes, but taxing and scapegoating a good in order to justify poor planning.

Collin Wisniewski is freshman intending to major in journalism. We welcome all feedback. Please send all responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.