Legislators should raise the Missouri tobacco tax.
The state has a poor history in financing the battle against smoking. In 2011 we received $132.6 million from the 1998 national tobacco settlement. It has largely been absorbed into the general expenses of running the state. According to a state auditor's report in 2006, Missouri will get nearly $4.6 billion during the first 25 years of the settlement.
Goal One
You would think the state could fund an effective educational campaign aimed at reducing smoking from a source continuing in perpetuity as the settlement money does. But since it hasn't, our first goal for a higher tobacco tax is the funding of a continuing anti-smoking effort to be made by the state.
The need is real. According to the Department of Health and Senior Services:
• More than 9,300 Missourians died annually in 2005-07 from tobacco-related diseases.
• Secondhand smoke causes an average of 1,180 deaths in our state each year.
• Lost productivity in 2005-07 was figured at $2.6 billion.
• Every Missouri household pays $585 in U.S. and state tax dollars from expenditures due to smoking.
Obviously, Missourians are continuing to be injured by the vice of smoking. That these are self-inflicted injuries is even more frustrating. We recognize that individuals have a right to personal vices, smoking among them. But it doesn't follow that taxpayers should accept the costly health impact of tobacco addiction without at least making an effort to discourage our youths from starting to smoke or assisting smokers to quit.
Goal Two
A higher tobacco sales tax should be no higher than the lowest tobacco tax of the states bordering Missouri.
Our nearly nonexistent tobacco tax of 17 cents a pack makes us the lowest in the U.S. For now, our neighbor Kentucky is adding 60 cents per pack. The others: Iowa, $1.36; Arkansas, $1.15; Oklahoma, $1.03; Illinois, 98 cents; Kansas, 79 cents; Nebraska, 64 cents and Tennessee, 62 cents.
Opponents of a higher tax warn that Missouri retailers along the border will lose business. We believe these claims are exaggerated in the first place and, frankly, of less importance than the other state needs.
Goal Three
A dedicated percentage of the tax money should go to education and the rest to the state's general revenues.
The state continues to underfund the school formula. It needs a boost in revenues. Our commitment to education - and we would hope that of our state leadership - remains resolute. But we also recognize that difficult economic times require financial flexibility. The governor and legislators must have additional money that they can use as they believe necessary.
That brings us to the state's overall financial situation.
Years of cutting budgets and reducing services haven't made meeting Missouri's balanced budget requirement any easier. We've even reached the point of some lawmakers seeking to take money from the blind and from child care for low-income Missourians. Is it really so difficult to grasp that the state must increase revenues to deal with its present commitments, as well as, growing future needs?