Cigarettes- Another easy tax-and-spend target

The $81.5 million targeted for education from Missouri's casinos is chicken feed compared to the $340 million that would be raised from proposed increases in cigarette taxes. Legislation to raise cigarette taxes isn't doing well in the legislature, where voting for a tax increase is akin to purposely spilling a cup of hot coffee in your lap. As a result, many legislators are getting behind a petition drive that would put the cigarette-tax issue on November's ballot.

Under the most likely proposals, the tax on each pack of cigarettes would be increased 50 or 55 cents. Currently, the state tax is 17 cents a pack, and cigarettes are selling right now for about $3 a pack.

Supporters of the cigarette-tax increase say the extra revenue would be earmarked for Medicaid payments to health-care providers as well as an anti-smoking program.

The real focus of such a tax increase simple: more money to spend. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out if anti-smoking efforts were successful, there wouldn't be an extra $340 million for legislators to appropriate.

One caution: Missouri won a multibillion-dollar settlement from tobacco companies to pay for health care and anti-smoking education. So far, this money is being inhaled by legislators trying to keep their hefty spending plans alive for programs that have little if anything to do with health care or smoking.