On Smoking and Killing Kittens
The talk about the new cigarette tax (which I’m having an amazingly difficult time finding a story on) has me thinking about vice taxes. The general rationalization is that you put a tax on naughty behavior, that you can’t outlaw, in the hopes of decreasing demand.
What happens when it works though?
What makes sense to me is you take tobacco taxes and use them to fund smoking cessation programs. That way when the tax pool dries up from people quitting, the demand for the programs dries up.
So what are they going to spend the new tax money on? SCHIP, a program that has nothing at all to do with smoking.
What you’re left with is the government saying, “smoking is bad, so we’re going to encourage you to quit,” but whispering, “please don’t, we really need the money.”
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DiToro
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Tina