Editorial: Alcohol, tobacco both tax targets

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November 29, 2006

Anonymous The Tribune Star Wed Nov 29, 2006, 08:55 AM EST

LEBANON, Ind. — An editorial: Alcohol, tobacco both tax targets

Opinion: The Lebanon (Ind.) Reporter

Increasing Indiana’s state tax on cigarettes is a quick and superficially efficient way to raise money for Hoosier health care.

Gov. Mitch Daniels wants the tax raised by 25 cents per pack. The Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation board estimates the tax hike will save the state more than a half-billion dollars in long-term health care expenses.

We support smoking bans: We believe there is indisputable medical evidence that non-smokers are harmed by second-hand smoke. We believe the benefits of telling smokers they can’t light up in public outweigh the benefits of giving smokers their “right” to smoke. As we have said before, those rights end where a non-smoker’s lungs begin.

But Daniels, and others who enthusiastically endorse raising cigarette taxes, are overlooking simple mathematics — eventually, the cost of smoking will go so high that most smokers stop, and the tax revenue will plummet.

Again, the benefits of having fewer Hoosiers smoking outweigh the tax revenue’s value. But raising the cigarette tax is like putting a choke collar on the goose that lays golden eggs: No one knows how tight the collar can be pulled before the goose dies.

There’s another option: Raise the tax on alcohol.

We pause while beer, wine and liquor drinkers and distributors pick themselves off the floor.

Tobacco smoke kills people. There’s no debate over that issue.

Drunk drivers kill people, too. As of 2004, the most recent year for which statistics could be found, alcohol was a factor in a third of Indiana’s 792 highway deaths, according to www.alcoholalert.com. Not all of those killed had been drinking, but a drunk driver was involved in the crashes.

Nationally in 2004, according to the site, 27 percent of all fatal highway accidents involved a driver who had a blood alcohol percentage of 0.08 — Indiana’s level for drunken driving.

Possibly, some fatal crashes involve drivers who were distracted by a tobacco product, whether they dropped a pipe, or a cigarette, or were blinded by smoke. But we’re certain that drunks are to blame in far, far, far more of those fatal accidents.

Indiana collects 55.5 cents on a 20-pack of cigarettes, and just over 69 cents on a 25-count pack, according to the Indiana Department of Revenue.

But the state tax per gallon of beer is only 11.5 cents. Liquor and wine that is more than 21 percent alcohol is taxed at $2.68 per gallon. Wine with less than 21 percent alcohol, and mixed drinks with less than 14 percent alcohol, are taxed at 47 cents per gallon.

We figure that means a Hoosier smoker pays 2.77 cents per cigarette; a beer drinker pays less than a penny per 12 ounce can.

If smokers must pay for the health care expenses of their habit, then it is only fair that alcohol users contribute their fair share, too.