Raise cigarette tax

This newspaper doesn't usually support tax increases to help solve government budget problems. Hiking taxes generally encourages elected officials to duck the root problem of most budget shortfalls - which is overspending.

But for every sound rule there are exceptions. We believe proposals by both the Georgia and South Carolina governors - Sonny Perdue and Mark Sanford respectively - to raise tobacco taxes to deal with their deficit nightmares qualify as exceptions.

Those nightmares aren't just a result of overspending. The 9-11 attack, slowing economy, unanticipated homeland security and escalating health care costs have also contributed mightily to widening deficits in both states.

Both states' cigarette taxes are way overdue to go up. Despite all that's been learned in recent years about the damaging impact smoking has on public health, the Peach and Palmetto states haven't touched their tobacco tax in decades.

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In Georgia it's still just 12 cents a pack and in South Carolina it's even less, 7 cents a pack. Perdue would push Georgia's tax to 58 cents a pack and Sanford recently agreed to push his state's to 53 cents. These hikes would still leave both states below the 50 states' average of 64 cents.

It's important for both states to raise their taxes in order to keep the price of cigarettes close enough so smokers won't cross borders to save money.

There's also a good double-whammy in upping tobacco taxes - and in including smokeless tobacco: There are health benefits as well as revenue benefits.

Recent studies show that sharp increases in cigarette taxes dramatically curb underage smoking - sometimes by as much as 50 percent. And in Sanford's state the increased revenues would also go a long way toward rescuing the faltering $3.6 billion Medicaid program.

Clearly, the time is ripe for both states to boost their tobacco tax. It is the only tax mechanism we know of that can raise millions in new revenues and improve public health at the same time.

--From the Saturday, March 22, 2003 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle