[Vision2020] Idaho Is Poorly Managed by a bunch of Ignorant Republican Farmers

[Dick Schmidt]

David,

I really can't say I agree with you that a cigarette tax is a regressive tax. That is something you choose to do and is not something like having to eat. It is probably right that more people smoke on the lower end of the wage scale but again they choose to. Another reason for a tax on cigarettes is to give people another reason to quit. I smoked for 40 years and gave it up about 6 or 7 years ago. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. I can remember about 20 years ago being in Canada and ran out of cigarettes. I paid $3.50 for a pack of American cigarettes and all the while thinking just how stupid it was. On the other end of the scale when I was in the Navy I smoked Lucky Strikes and paid $0.90 a carton for cigarettes at sea. 

I will definitely say that a sales tax is a regressive tax and you are fortunate in Montana that you don't have one as yet. In some states they do exempt food and prescription medicine but Idaho does not and that makes it a more regressive tax. A benefit I enjoy when I come to Montana is that in some McDonalds I can still get a senior coffee for $0.25. Us old guys like a bargain!

I will do some looking at what the CATO people have to say about the cigarette tax.

Dick Schmidt
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David M. Budge 
  To: Dick Schmidt 
  Cc: vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 4:49 AM
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Idaho Is Poorly Managed by a bunch of Ignorant Republican Farmers


  Dick, I'll concede that it may be premature to assess the final impact on tax collections.  However, if you're interested, The Cato Institution has done extensive analysis on the impact of tobacco tax, revenue collections and black market cigarette sales..  With that I show my libertarian bias.  

  As for Montana law, I'm not sure how it's circumvented, but cigarettes on the S-K reservation are significantly less than they are off the reservation.  Perhaps that has been a consequence of the reported stockpiling as well.  There's no way for me to know.

  Having said that, you did not address my (libertarian) concern about the regressive nature of the tax. 

  db

  Dick Schmidt wrote:

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20050401/27b95e20/attachment.htm