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State of Denial
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Business New Haven
2/18/2002
By: BNH
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A few years of good fiscal times is apparently all it took to addict Republicans in Connecticut and elsewhere to excessive government spending.
Now that times are tough, though, where is the money to come from? Fear not: a politically harmless solution is at hand.
New York's new Republican mayor has demonstrated his commitment to the future health of his city by proposing to raise the city tax on cigarettes from eight cents per pack to $1.50. Combined with a 39-cent state cigarette tax hike scheduled to take effect April 1, the average cost of a pack in the city would approach $7.
Bloomberg and his counterparts in Albany (and Connecticut) have positioned higher cigarette taxes as a public-health measure that's part of a strategy to reduce teen smoking.
If you believe that, there is a lovely old bridge out in the boroughs we'd like to sell you.
More likely, lawmakers - at least in Connecticut - are comforted by the fact that Gov. John G. Rowland's own proposal for a 61-cent tax increase (bringing per-pack state taxes to $1.11) was backed by 73 percent of those surveyed in a recent poll by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at UConn. Only 27 percent approved a general tax increase.
Thankfully, at least one Marlboro man is still on his horse: Senate Minority Leader Louis C. DeLuca (R-Woodbury) calls the tax “counterproductive.” We agree.
We have no particular sympathy for overtaxed cigarette smokers. Indeed we've told inquiring cigarette marketers that this publication is off-limits to their tobacco advertising. But it's clear to us that an addiction to high spending has Connecticut in denial.
Lawmakers and others are operating under a dangerous assumption that a return to higher state revenues is just around the corner. Unfortunately, there is no evidence of that effect. As we've reminded readers previously, Connecticut unemployment rate remains under four percent.
What next: a tax on animal fat?
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