Raise High The Cigarette Tax, Lawmakers

From the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

Two key Democratic lawmakers today launched an effort to establish universal health care coverage for all Iowans that likely will require a $1-per-pack increase in the state cigarette tax to implement.

There's always an alternative to paying a higher price for cigarettes: steal them!

This is from Minnesota Public Radio on May 19, 2006:

One way to avoid paying high prices for smokes is to steal them. Minneapolis police say over the last month, they've had about a dozen "crash and grab" robberies, where thieves ram a typically stolen car into a storefront, then dash inside to grab goods off the shelves...

... In these crimes, Minneapolis Police Lt. Gregg Reinhardt says the thieves seem to be targeting cigarettes.

"A couple of stores they've smashed their way into are strictly tobacco stores. The other convenience stores that they've broken into, and they we have video surveillance of, they jump right to the cigarette counter, and they're either climbing over the counter or grabbing for those items," he said.

Reinhardt says the thieves aren't stealing the cigarettes to smoke, but rather to sell.

"A cigarette is basically instant cash. You can go into a number of businesses and just sell them outright. People will pay $10 a carton or maybe $20 a carton...

...When smokers spend $4 to $5 a pack for cigarettes in Minnesota, a good chunk of that price is taxes and fees...

...Critics say cigarette taxes hit low-income people disproprtionately: they're more likely to smoke and the taxes take up a bigger portion of their income...

The increase in the price of cigarettes isn't just hitting smokers in the wallet -- it's hurting some tobacco shops, too. Some tobacco store owners say smokers who used to buy three or four cartons at a time have cut back to one or two.

Some say they don't see some of their customers at all anymore, since many are now buying their cigarettes online or through mail-order houses to save money. Others are going to Canada or other states, where the taxes are lower.

One shop owner quoted a tobacco distributor who said there are businesses just across the border in Wisconsin that used to sell about 400 cartons a week that are now selling 2,000 a week.

Same thing with Iowa convenience stores on the border with Minnesota.

Basically, Minnesota Public Radio, hardly a right-wing pile of hot air, says that raising taxes causes crime to go up and business to tobacco retailers to go down.

Even far-lefty Rekha Basu is against raising the cigarette tax.

I think this notion of using a cigarette tax increase to "pay for" whatever is absurd. Iowa got millions in extortion money from tobacco companies thanks to Tom Miller's shakedown, and most of it was fraudulently spent on things other than health care thanks to Christopher Rants and others.