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Today's Poll!Petition proposes 80-cent tobacco tax hike
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The American Cancer Society, health professionals and several other groups want Missourians to change the state Constitution, so they can pay more for their tobacco use.
And the groups want education — including efforts to teach about the harm tobacco causes — to benefit from the tax hike plan.
The proposed initiative petition was submitted Tuesday to Secretary of State Robin Carnahan’s office. The secretary of state, auditor and attorney general must approve a ballot title and calculate a fiscal note before the petitions can be circulated, and voters asked to sign them.
The petition proposes a constitutional amendment on the November 2012 ballot, creating an 80-cent per pack increase in Missouri’s cigarettes tax and an equivalent increase on other tobacco product prices.
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Comments
wyriontair 1 year, 3 months ago
We don't need a constitutional amendment to raise taxes on smokers. The groups involved want money for themselves, their political lobbyistsa and to line the pockets of politicians. We've heard since the inception of the ACS and other groups that they want to "educate", excuse me, the state and those groups filed a lawsuit to get money from tobacco companies, got millions and millions of dollars all in the name of "education" and "repay the state money they spent on healthcare", the truth is very little went to "repay the state" and very little went to more "education". If you really want to raise revenues that bad to support your groups and politicians, tell them to give their money to you instead of going after taxpayers again. The overall theme these last few years is how can we stuff our pockets with other peoples money and get away with it. Except for the federal government wanting to tax and regulate sugar now, I don't see any group in MO wanting to raise taxes on soda, alcohol, junk food and by the way, where's the tax on those in sports, they have a high rate of brain damage.
tonto_goldberg 1 year, 3 months ago
Sorry, it's not an area where logic applies. It's politics. There a couple of different revenue limits in the Missouri Constitution and this tax increase could put the state over one of them. Do a Google search for "18e" for the details.
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