U.S. Tax Policy Although Smokers

U.S. tax policy

Although smokers may hate to hear it, tax policies used for the purpose of social engineering do seem to work. According to USA Today, "Cigarette sales fell 18% in North Carolina last year after the tax was raised in two steps to 35 cents from a nickel" (Cauchon 2007). Eventually, no matter how powerful the addiction to cigarettes may be, the economic law of scarcity and finite resources must win out -- eventually people cannot afford to smoke, and so they quit or reduce their consumption. Smoking not only hurts the individual, it also harms the individual's friends and family who are exposed to second-hand smoke. It harms society, as smokers suffer more health complaints, not just long-term health complaints like lung cancer, but also more minor illnesses like colds because of their compromised immune systems, which results in lower productivity and higher health costs that must be born by the entire nation. The argument made in 2007 in favor raising the tax on smoking in Congress, even during a time of an economic slow-down, was that it could be used to support health care for children (Cauchon 2007). Smokers 'tax' the health care system with their illnesses, the argument goes, so why not force smokers who refuse to quit to give back to the health care system, taking away at least some of the money that they are channeling into the pockets of the companies that feed their addiction.

Although this attitude may seem puritanical, even regressive, given that smokers tend to be poorer on average than non-smokers, it is worth remembering that there are few 'morally neutral' taxes that do not engineer social policy to some degree. The recent economic stimulus package that gave back tax dollars to Americans to encourage them to spend on consumer goods suggested that spending more to stimulate the economy was a moral imperative, even if many Americans are in debt. Sin taxes on alcohol reflect the attitude that alcohol is an unnecessary substance that acts as a drain upon society, even though for many individuals from many different cultures it has profound religious, social, and spiritual significance -- more so than so-called 'junk food' that is not similarly 'sin taxed.' Placing sales taxes on certain goods but not on other goods in general suggests what we think of as necessary or unnecessary goods as a society, while giving sales tax holidays in certain cities or states implies that spending to stimulate the economy, even on luxury goods, is positive for society.