An idea in smoke

Cigarettes are foul things that send millions of their puffing and huffing legions to ghastly deaths, so tax tobacco to the hilt, rake in extra revenues and compel smokers by brute levying force to go smokeless. This is the flawed logic that fueled another addiction, that of states to cigarette taxes. Politicians, oblivious to contradiction and denouement, now wear a junkie’s daze, pining for their fix of smoke cash as it dwindles. So here comes Greg Marrow, asking for a light.

The Democratic challenger to Republican Del. Steve Landes in the 25th District, Marrow snipes at the incumbent for his and his party’s failure to find money to cover Virginia’s $1-billion transportation shortfall. Among the abortive attempts to do this was a move Landes supported, so-called abusive driver fees, an initiative Virginians summarily loathed. Mention of the fees Thursday during a debate between the two candidates drew a nod from Landes and perhaps an unseen shudder. An alternative Marrow offered ought to draw laughter.

Edging to the tip of a cracked limb, Marrow stepped gingerly around the prospect of an increased gas tax – Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds is for this before he is against it but then he’s for it again; check the clock, it’s time for his position to change. Marrow then broached the topic of increasing cigarette taxes and spending the money on roads. The state’s tobacco tax, he reasoned, is the “lowest around.” So why not change that?

True enough, it’s all the rage to increase taxes on smokes and Virginia is hardly hip to the trend. Two subcommittees in the Republican-controlled state House choked off an attempt in January to double the tax to 60 cents per pack. Virginia’s rate is the third lowest in the union behind South Carolina and Missouri. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine had planned to use $155 million in additional revenue to offset $400 million in annual Medicaid expenses tied to smoking.

On the subject of revenues, Kaine has a demonstrated proclivity for seeing glasses full and overflowing when they’re less than half-empty. That likelihood is in play on cigarette taxes, since revenues have been flagging elsewhere as smokers either kick habits or cross state lines where taxes are lower.

Take Kaine at his word and accept that doubling the cigarette tax would bring in the extra money at the rate he projects it. That $155 million still leaves a transportation funding gap of almost $850 million. And what of the Medicaid expenses that troubled Kaine? Never mind.

Were Marrow to upset Landes in November, he surely would discover what the incumbent already knows, that solving the conundrum of how to pay for badly needed road projects in Northern Virginia while navigating a turbulent economy is an easy enough thing until one attempts it.

Heavily taxing tobacco to curb its use and increase state revenues has been a questionable enterprise from the beginning. It places government in the position of reliance upon people maintaining a harmful habit. If the number of smokers decreases, and it has, government loses money.

Landes contends that whenever he and his Republican pals propose alternatives to raising the state gas tax to pay for transportation improvements, Democrats resist. The evidence suggests they had a point on abusive driver fees. But the alternatives Marrow offered – raising the corporate income tax was another – are no fix either. Increasing taxes amid deep recession increases hardship. Increasing cigarette taxes to pay for roads is something worse, a kind of remedial arithmetic. It just doesn’t add up.