Governor Doyle Sets A Price Point That Breaks The Camel's Back

I'll admit it: I'm addicted to smoking. And, not only am I an addict, I actually enjoy it. I know it's harmful to my health, but so is jumping out of a plane, and people will do that with no second thoughts.

In terms of vices, there are some that are waaay more expensive. And, believe it or not, it's actually not that hard of a habit to break, if you put your mind to it. I myself have quit before, once for a number of years. But I've always started back up, because it's a relatively cheap way to get a decent legal buzz. With me, smoking has always been a case of "how much is too much," what's that magic number that would make me quit smoking.

Turns out...it's eight bucks.

On April 1, Wisconsin is raising the cigarette tax by a dollar, a year after previously raising it a dollar. The previous tax rate put Wisconsin right in the middle of the pack; the new tax of $2.50 a pack brings us up to third, right behind New York and New Jersey. Tack that on top on the fact that all of the cigarette manufacturers recently upped their prices, and the fact that our new President would like to raise the federal tax by a dollar, and the pleasure of smoking 20 cigarettes is going to cost you about eight bucks.

Now, I'm not dumb. I understand the concept of the "sin tax": taxing products that people can get addicted to as a deterrent. The high price is supposed to make you want to stop. And that's all fine and good. But have you ever known the government to do anything that was purely honorable, something from which they wouldn't benefit at all except for a good feeling. It's basically a clever, good-intentioned way for the state government to shore up any budget shortfalls on the backs of the state's smokers. I somehow suspect that if everyone in the state were to quit smoking, the governor wouldn't say, "Well, mission accomplished. We're now smoke-free!" I suspect he'd be saying something like, "Where the fuck did that $700 million we were robbing from smokers go?"

If that doesn't seem like a reasonable scenario, take the case of New Jersey. When they raised their tax to $2.58 a pack, people actually quit smoking and many small retailers stopped selling cigarettes altogether. Government officials were astounded by the fact that there was suddenly a $22 million hole in the budget. I'm sure they were shocked that their "cessation by taxation" program actually worked.

But here's the funny thing about state budgets: once they hit an amount, they never go lower than that. If your budget is $6 billion one year, it's not going to drop down to $4 billion the next. It's going to be at least $6 billion, probably more, because all the money in the budget is earmarked for something from the year before, and anything additional is tacked on to that. So where do they get that revenue that suddenly dries up when people stop smoking? Why, right out of the pockets of non-smokers. They find some other tax or fee to raise to make up the difference. John Q. Non-Smoker gets penalized for the state having tentpoled the budget on smokers.

So, all that being said, I think I'm going to quit, maybe permanently. I'm tired of making up all of the state's budget shortfalls. Let someone else do it for once.

Oh, wait: I'M that someone else. Oops.