Cigarette tax hike could gain support: Stephanie Grace

Democratic state Senate President Joel Chaisson harbored no illusions when he said recently that he favors a modest increase in the state's cigarette tax and that he hopes Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal will at least consider the concept.
"The governor has asked me to be open-minded about his ideas, and I've agreed," Chaisson said. "I have asked him to be open-minded as well ... I don't know if he will be."

Actually, Chaisson knew even as he said those words that Jindal had explicitly rejected the idea of raising taxes to minimize the $1.6 billion budget shortfall. Jindal reiterated his stance last week as he released his proposed budget and vowed to veto any tax measures that hit his desk. Still Chaisson says he wants to at least debate a tobacco tax hike during the upcoming regular session.
Realistically, it's a longshot and not just because of Jindal's hard line. Both houses now have presumably tax-averse Republican majorities, and even before that historic shift happened, supporters couldn't muster the two-thirds support needed for a 2009 tax measure to escape the House -- although as Chaisson hinted, cover from a GOP governor could change that equation.
That doesn't mean the politics of a tobacco tax increase couldn't work. In fact, ideological obstinance aside, this is one budget fix that lawmakers and the governor could support with little risk of public blowback.
At just 36 cents, the state's current per-pack levy is the third-lowest in the nation, higher than only Virginia and Missouri. Louisiana charges less than the major tobacco-producing states' average rate of 48.5 cents, and well below the national average of $1.45, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
Chaisson has floated the idea of matching Mississippi's rate of 68 cents, the lowest of the surrounding states. Even if that happened, Louisiana would trail Texas and Arkansas, which charge $1.41 and $1.15 respectively, and would remain among the country's lowest. It's too early in the process for an official estimate of how much money Louisiana would raise by matching Mississippi, but based on the 2009 proposal, the tax would probably cover less than 5 percent of the shortfall.
Still, there's reason to believe that most voters would be fine with the idea.
A recent poll of 600 likely Louisiana voters, taken late last year by Southern Media & Opinion Research Inc., actually found significant support for raising the cigarette tax to balance the budget. Sixty-five percent of those interviewed said they'd favor an unspecified increase, compared to just 26 percent who backed raising income taxes on middle and upper income people, 20 percent who supported hiking business taxes and 18 percent who backed upping the state sales tax.
Support for the idea was broad, too. Men and women favored it, as did residents of every region of the state. Even 61 percent of Republican sympathizers said they'd favor a cigarette tax hike, joining 70 percent of those who say they agree with the Democrats' politics.
And the question didn't even link the idea of taxing cigarettes with paying to treat tobacco-related illnesses and possibly pricing young smokers out of the market, as proponents surely will.
For more evidence that Jindal could back the idea without damaging his conservative credentials, consider the experience of his fellow GOP governor, Mississippi's Haley Barbour.
Barbour endorsed a cigarette tax hike two years ago and didn't seem to suffer at home after it passed. Nor has it been an issue in his nascent presidential campaign, even among the true believers who dominate presidential primary politics. Instead, the questions dogging Barbour so far have centered on his controversial take on Southern history and his own past as a lobbyist (including for big tobacco, by the way).
If Jindal's overestimating the risk of OKing a cigarette tax hike, he's also missing out on the potential reward, not just in higher revenue but also in respect from those who wish he'd govern more as a pragmatist than an ideological absolutist.
There is one obvious downside, though, for both the governor and lawmakers who will face voters this fall. Someone, at some point, could label them tax-and-spenders.
Nonetheless, if the most compelling reason for politicians to oppose a modest, acceptable tax hike is that doing otherwise might prompt political attacks -- well, that's a justification that will be persuasive only to them.