The Big Lie About Tobacco Taxes

Updated below:




From the Sioux City Journal:

An increase in the tobacco tax in Iowa is something members of Siouxland CARES hope finally comes to fruition in 2007.

The same goes for a statewide beer keg registration law.

Both measures have been proposed in recent years, yet haven't come up for a vote, as key lawmakers have not let the measures come out of committee.

Officials of Siouxland CARES, formed in 1987 to address adolescent substance abuse, hope that 2007 is a year of change. They asked Sioux City legislators at a forum Tuesday to look favorably on raising the cigarette tax, putting a statewide keg registration program in place, as well as increasing the beer user excise tax...

...With Republican leadership at the Statehouse giving way to Democratic Party control in 2007, state Sen. Steve Warnstadt, D-Sioux City, said the tobacco tax increase discussion "will be viewed on the public health" aspect.

Looks like Steve Warnstadt and other State politicians are just going to lie about the reasons for increasing Iowa's tobacco tax, the same way that Democrat Tom Miller lied about the reasons why he cornholed tobacco companies out of $1.7 billion dollars:

...on November 27, 1996, I stood on these steps to announce a historic lawsuit by the State of Iowa against the tobacco companies and their research associations. The suit alleged that the defendants violated Iowa's Consumer Fraud Act by "repeatedly and systematically misleading the public" about the health dangers of smoking, and failing to disclose the addictive qualities of nicotine. The suit sought restitution and civil penalties on the consumer fraud count.

Our suit also asked the Court to order the defendants to pay the State millions of dollars in restitution for costs the State paid to provide health care and other services to citizens and employees as a result of tobacco-related diseases, illnesses and injuries. We alleged these huge costs resulted from "the defendants' wrongful conduct and unlawful activities."

As Iowans later learned, most of the tobacco settlement money was spent on things other than smoking cessation and health care costs:

[The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids] found that states this year (FY 2005) will collect $20 billion from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes. While only 8 percent of the $20 billion could fund tobacco prevention and cessation programs in every state at the minimum levels recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), states are spending just 2.7 percent on tobacco prevention and cessation.

Iowa is no exception. Annually Iowa generates $143.5 million from tobacco settlement payments and tobacco taxes, yet is spending just 3.6 percent of that revenue on tobacco prevention. Funding for prevention has also decreased since 2001. In FY 2001 Iowa spent $9.4 million (6.2 percent of tobacco revenue) on tobacco prevention programs, and has committed just $5.1 million (3.6 percent of tobacco revenue) for FY 2005.

In addition, tobacco companies spend nearly thirty times as much for marketing in Iowa than what Iowa spends on tobacco prevention

Talk about consumer fraud.

Attorney General Tom Miller and the Iowa Legislature should be sued for consumer fraud.

The same thing will happen when tobacco taxes in Iowa are raised again. That money will go into the general fund and be spent on anything but the public health costs of smoking. And since mostly poor people smoke, it's nothing but a tax increase on the poor.


Update: The Political Forecast has a post today about the proposed cigarette tax increase:

The fact is, the Culver administration’s budget will likely be predicated, to some extent, on an a cigarette tax increase. During the campaign season, it is how he proposed to pay for a lot of his health care proposals and it is unlikely that will change.

I suspect that a lot of Governor Knapp's budget will be chocked full of health care corporate welfare. You've got to keep the fatcats at Wellmark happy. Doctors around the state need to build fancy multi-zillion dollar buildings with the latest whiz-bang technology, as well as stock their 8000 sq foot houses and $70,000 SUVs with the latest gadgets.

Oh, you never thought of it that way, have you? Think about it that way. The next time you see one of those new and fancy buildings going up for this group of specialists or that bunch of hotshot Grey's Anatomy-age doctors, that's where your money is going. They're mortgaged to the hilt and they want you to pay for it all.