Proposal for small increase in cigarette tax spurs huffing and puffing

Georgia has the second-lowest cigarette tax in the country, and — judging by a House subcommittee hearing this past week — that’s not likely to change.

Proposals to bump up the 37-cents-per-pack tax, usually by a dollar, are an annual rite at the General Assembly. Thanks in part to big campaign donations from tobacco companies, so are their defeats.

It’s been that way for nearly two decades.

State Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, thought going smaller might yield results.

He filed House Bill 191, seeking an increase of 20 cents per pack on cigarettes. He also filed House Bill 192, which would double the relatively new state tax on vaping products.

Stephens made his case for the bills a matter of economics.

The state’s Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled spends $700 million a year treating tobacco-related illnesses.

The current tobacco tax takes in about $150 million a year, he said. That’s a gap of $550 million that nonsmoking taxpayers are filling to subsidize the health care of smokers.

Stephens’ proposal to up the cigarette tax would only narrow the gap a little, raising about $90 million a year.

The measures immediately ran into resistance on the Ways and Means subcommittee.

“This is nothing more than a tax on the poor,” said state Rep. Jason Ridley, R-Chatsworth. “This country was founded on freedom.

“We don’t penalize and look down on a group of people (for smoking).”

Ridley expressed concern about how a higher tax would affect convenience stores on Georgia’s borders that sell to out-of-state smokers looking for a discount on smokes.

He also doubted it would inspire smokers to quit.

“I don’t know if you raise it $1.50 (a pack) it’s going to make a difference,” he said. “If you are going to smoke, you are going to smoke.”

That message may have been meant more for health care groups that attended the hearing to push for a buck-and-a-half boost in the tax.

Those groups, however, said Stephens’ bills didn’t go far enough.

Danna Thompson of the American Lung Association said 20 cents per pack “will generate little to no health benefits.”

Tobacco companies, she said, offer coupons to regular smokers that would mitigate the impact of such a small increase in cigarette taxes.

The subcommittee adjourned without voting on the measures.

CARLINE JEAN/SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL/TNS 2019 The state’s Medicaid health care program spends $700 million a year treating tobacco-related illnesses. The current tobacco tax takes in about $150 million a year.