Tuesday, September 17, 1985
Cigarette tax saves lives
Daily Nebraskan
Page5
sensLtoiPS sense
The Senate Finance Committee is
going to be talking cents this
week. Eight cents. Sixteen cents.
Thirty two cents. With any luck, they
may even be talking common sense.
Ellen
Goodman
The subject on the table no
ashtrays please is smoking and
taxes. The question is whether the
Congress will lower, raise or maintain
the excise tax on cigarettes.
At the moment, the tax rate is 16
cents per pack. This is relatively less
than in 1951. But if the Congress does'
nothing, on Oct. 1 the figure will be
halved, with eight cents chopped off
the consumer price tag.
In the larger scheme of things, eight
cents doesn't mean a heck of a lot. But
this is beginning to sound like a line
from "Pajama Game" give it to the
government on every pack, 30 billion
packs a year and it adds up to nearly
$2.5 billion.
As you might imagine, it is an odd
moment in deficit financing to go
looking for ways to take several billion
out of the federal treasury. This is a tax
that is actually popular. In a Yankelovich
poll, more than three-quarters of the
U.S. public chose cigarette taxes as
their favorite way to raise money for the
deficit. That included smokers.
It is an even more peculiar moment
for the government to be actively
promoting such a deadly habit. A study
by the Office of Technological Asses
sment estimates that Americans spend
$62 billion ayear on diseases caused by
smoking. Smoking is lethal. Why push
it with a discount?
In fairness, cigarette consumption
among adults doesn't rise or fall with
the price tag. Few adults stop smoking
just because the cost has gone up. Even
when adult smokers know the real
price the cigarettes are exacting on
their lungs, smoking is a brutal addic
tion to conquer.
But there is solid evidence that cost
has an effect on the youngest consumers
who aren't yet hooked. The typical
American who leaves high school as a
confirmed smoker picks up the habit in
junior high when money is toughest.
The older you get, the less likely you
are to start smoking.
If we cut the cigarfette tax and the
price per pack goes down, The Institute
for the Study of Smoking Behavior and
Policy at Harvard estimates that a
million young people between the ages
of 12 and 25 would begin, or continue,
smoking.
When you figure the long-term health
effects of this tax policy, Kenneth
Warner of the University of Michigan's
School of Public Health says bluntly,
"If that tax is allowed to fall in half,
upwards of half-a-million Americans
will die earlier than if the tax had been
left at 16 cents."
The House Ways and Means Com
mittee has already voted to keep the
16-cent tax, Things are less certain in
the Senate, especially since Senate
Majority Leader Bob Dole is in favor of a
return to the eight-cent rule. But the
most attractive of the Senate bills
under consideration this week would
go in the anti-Dole, anti-Helms, anti
tobacco lobby direction. They would
raise the tax to 32 cents.
One such bill would earmark part of
the new money for health education
and part for Medicare. This is an
attractive notion since some $5 billion
in MedicareMedicaid bills annually
can be attributed to smoking. Cigarette
smokers would prepay a piece of their
future health costs with each drag. It's
a pay-as-you-puff program.
But again, the greatest appeal is not
in terms of raising revenue, but in
discouraging smoking. The same studies
show that any 16-cent increase would
likely diminish the number of teen-age
smokers by 17 percent or 820,000.
"In general," says Kenneth Warner,
"I don't like the ideaof using tax policy
to influence behavior. But consider the
behavior. We're dealing with a highly
addictive process. Ninety percent of
adults say they'd like to quit if it were
easy to do so; 60 percent claim they
have tried within the past year."
He sees a subtle "educational" value
in a major tax rise. "I'm an economist.
We talk about market failure. People
do not understand the results of the
market behavior called smoking. By
raising the dollar price, we're providing
information. We're saying, 'This is
, costly.' That's not just in dollars; that's
in terms of health implications too."
It seems unlikely that we'll get our
32-cents-worth out of the current Senate
session. The habit some senators have
acquired of caving in to the tobacco
lobby is addictive. But at the very least,
they should maintain the current 16
cents. It's one tax that's certifiably
good for our health.
1985, The Boston Globe Newspaper
Company Washington
Post Writers Group
Goodman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning
columnist for the Boston Globe.
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Letters...
Stunned by 'filth'
The filth that came from the student with such pigs,
section following a questionable call And the drummers who lead them
by the officials at the Sept. 7 football should be severely reprimanded. They
game, should never be repeated. certainly can be identified.
I was stunned and so disgusted with Helen Abdouch
what I heard. It was hard to believe Omaha
that Tom Osborne our national trea- Originally submitted to Bob Devaney,
sure should have to be identified athletic director.
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