Taxes on cigarettes generate over $293 million a year in the state of Wisconsin alone. The cigarette tax in Wisconsin is now 77 cents per pack, which is in the middle range for all 50 states. However, state legislators on the Assembly committee studying Medicaid, specifically Republican Rep. J.A. Hines of Oxford, want to raise that tax to help pay for the Medicaid bill. If the recently proposed tax increase is implemented, raising the tax per pack to $1.77, revenue generated from cigarette taxes will, possibly, go up between $250 and $340 million.
Rep. Hines and fellow Republican Rep. Curt Gielow of Mequon, chair of the committee studying Medicaid, are working together on this bill. Both are so worried, as Republicans, about appearing to be in favor of a tax increase, they are calling the increase a “user fee.” However, since I’m not afraid of them actually taking a stance, I’ll be calling it what it clearly is, which is a tax increase.
Now, an increase in the cigarette tax would most likely deter many younger people from smoking. And of course, attempting to dissuade the impressionable youth targeted by the tobacco company ads is a noble idea. The fewer people who partake in smoking this highly addictive and dangerous — though legal — drug, the better off and healthier we are as a society. After all, one in five deaths in America is smoking-related. That means that more than 400,000 people die from smoking every year. Preventing just a few of those deaths is worth a $1 tax increase.
The state of Montana recently raised its cigarette tax by a dollar as well and has just seen a major drop in cigarette sales. Kudos to Montana!
Unfortunately, that’s not the purpose of this tax increase. In fact, if people start smoking less in Wisconsin, the whole point of the increase would be defeated since the point is to make more money to pay for Medicaid.
Wisconsin, along with other states, is facing a Medicaid crisis. This year there was a $123.7 million gap in federal funding for the program and legislators are attempting to reform Medicaid in order to keep it. Even after all this and the ever-rising health care costs, the Bush Administration has recently proposed a $40 billion cut in the Medicaid program in an effort to reduce the deficit. Taking money from the program that provides lower-income people with health care probably isn’t the best place to start, but as surprised as I know you all are, that’s what President Bush is attempting to do.
The Wisconsin Assembly has decided that in order to not be forced to reduce eligibility or cut services provided by Medicaid, they will try out this extra tax on cigarettes. Gov. Doyle is opposed to the tax increase because he does not want to put the fate of Medicaid in the hopes that people will continue, and others start up, bad habits.
As good of an idea as this tax may be, forcing Wisconsinites who are addicted to cigarettes to pay for Medicaid isn’t a fair policy.
Maybe now is a good time to reconsider legalizing marijuana, which studies conclusively show is physically non-addictive as opposed to cigarettes. When comparing the 400,000 deaths cigarettes cause a year and the zero deaths that have been directly caused by marijuana in this country, it’s a more sensible plan that can create even more revenue than the cigarette tax increase.
So here is my proposal: legalize marijuana, a less dangerous drug than tobacco, in order to tax it to raise funds for Medicaid and raise the cigarette tax in order to dissuade people from smoking.
And hopefully whatever the state Assembly, and separately the Bush Administration, proposes will be a comromise at least moderately acceptable to everyone.
Julie Isen ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in political science.