Dan

Calabrese

Read Dan's bio and previous columns here

November 12, 2007

Smoking is Dumb, But a Higher Cigarette Tax is Even Dumber

How would you feel about a $9.589 billion tax increase? Wait. It’s a cigarette tax increase.

Oh. Well, you say. That’s different.

That’s what the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are counting on you to think. Not all Americans are reflexively opposed to tax increases, but among those who are, opposition tends to be far less ferocious when you are convinced you will not be the one paying.

So before the Democrats proposed last week to raise the federal cigarette tax from 39 cents per pack to $1 per pack, they did the math. The political math. There are 45 million Americans who smoke, leaving some 255 million who don’t.

Tax the minority, convince the majority the tax is “doing good” by persuading people to quit (funny how Democrats believe taxes impact economic activity when it justifies raising them), and if the president opposes the increase, say he is “pro-smoking” or bought off by the tobacco lobby.

Too bad this has nothing to do with public health or with trying to persuade people to quit. For Democrats, it is all about getting their hands on that $9.589 billion. Cigarettes simply provide a politically easy excuse for doing so.

Smoking is horrible. Anyone who smokes is engaging in a disgusting and self-destructive habit. I have little sympathy for the argument that cigarette taxes unfairly target smokers. Smokers unfairly target themselves by smoking. I would say they should just stop doing it, thus avoiding the tax, but they can’t because they’re addicted to nicotine. If they didn’t know that would happen before they started, they have only themselves to blame.

The problem with cigarette tax is not that it’s unfair. The problem is that it’s a huge transfer of wealth from the private sector to the federal government. Just because you are one of the 255 million nonsmokers who won’t directly pay the tax doesn’t mean this is good news for you.

Every time the federal government takes a dollar out the private economy, that is a dollar of opportunity you cannot access – unless you do so through federal largesse. And if you are not a federal employee, welfare recipient, foundation grant writer, federal contractor or state, county or local official skilled at getting your hands on federal revenue-sharing funds, you’re not getting any of that money.

Democrats gain power when more people rely on the federal government to access opportunity. They are the ones who decide how federal dollars are doled out. When Republicans controlled Congress, they were supposed to end this nonsense, but instead they got drunk with power and thought they would become the masters of it.

You don’t send a boy to do a man’s job, and you don’t send a Republican to do what Democrats raised to an art form. The voters decided in 2006 that if the federal government is going to continue to perpetrate this corruption on the American people, they might as well put the experts back in charge of it.

Just because a pack of cigarettes is a foolish purchase doesn’t mean it makes things better to have the smoker then turn around and send an additional dollar to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. If the smoker kept the dollar, he or she would at least spend it on something determined by the dynamics of the free market. Maybe, Mr. Nonsmoker, the smoker would use that dollar to buy something from you, or from your employer. Congressional Democrats will spend it on something determined by their own political self-interest.

When Washington confiscates an additional $9.589 billion from the American people, that is not a good thing. It makes no difference from whom they took it, or why. That money would create much more wealth and prosperity in the private sector.

The larger the percentage of the nation’s wealth that is controlled by Washington, the more you and I rely on government, and the less we can rely on ourselves.

Smoking is stupid, and everyone who does it should quit. But they should figure that out for themselves, and we don’t need the federal government using the tax code to try to manipulate them to do what they ought to do anyway – especially since Democrats have no desire to see anyone quit. Fewer smokers means the federal government confiscates less of the private sector’s money. For all you “Breakfast Club” fans, the real hope of the Democrats is no different from that of Judd Nelson’s dad: “Smoke up, Johnny!”

And as foolishly as smokers spend their money, I’d still rather have them control the wealth than give it to the federal government. At least the smoker will kill himself eventually. The federal leviathan shows no signs of mortality.

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