Tax increases aren't usually popular, but the cigarette tax is an exception. It's an enormously popular tax to hike because it has many beneficial ramifications - not the least of which is saving lives, especially young lives.

Taxes push cigarette prices higher, and that's been shown to reduce teenage smoking by making it too expensive. Many mature smokers quit too, for the same reason. Hence, higher taxes are a healthy disincentive to smoking.

Saving lives is certainly a worthy government goal, and that's why South Carolinians should be pleased that new life has been blown into raising their state's cigarette tax after it was killed twice earlier this month in the House as amendments to the budget.

It was revived Thursday when a subcommittee of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee recommended two cigarette tax bills for the full panel to consider before, hopefully, sending at least one of them onto the full floor for debate and passage.

One measure, which has 54 co-sponsors, would raise the tax, now lowest in the nation at 7 cents a pack, to 39 cents, with money earmarked for expanding Medicaid for low-income children. The tax would continue to rise at the rate of inflation and some of the new revenues would be spent on youth smoking prevention programs.

The second bill would raise the tax gradually over a three-year period to 47 cents, and would also pay for programs to discourage youth smoking. Some of the other extra revenues would be used to reduce state income taxes which should appeal to Gov. Mark Sanford. He has said he will support a cigarette tax boost if it's revenue-neutral - in other words, offset by tax cuts elsewhere.

Groups lobbying for the cigarette tax hike say if it's to pass both legislative chambers, lawmakers will have to hear from the folks back home. There's still a lot of resistance to it in Columbia even though polls say more than 70 percent of South Carolinians back the higher tax. And well they should.

A tax boost would be a triple win for the state. Less smoking is a public health win. It's a fiscal win because it will raise an estimated $93.3 million in new revenues each year and it's a political win because of its popularity with the public.

What's the Legislature waiting on?