Messaging 101: It's a "Cigarette Tax Cut"

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by: Colorado Pols

As we discussed yesterday, one of the major sticking points responsible for the looming impasse in the Joint Budget Committee this year is a proposal by Republicans to cut sales taxes on cigarettes (note our choice of words). The vivid contrasts offered between cutting cigarette taxes and further cuts to public schools, as we said, make this a politically bizarre, and potentially very costly idea to pursue in the midst of the ongoing fiscal crisis.

To be clear, what we’re talking about has its origins in House Bill 09-1342, which eliminated the sales tax exemption for cigarettes in the state two years ago. This bill passed somewhat less controversially than other tax credit repeals a year later, and it was written to “sunset” the exemption repeal after two years. The presumption at the time was that the exemption would be renewed, or not, based on economic and fiscal conditions in 2011.

So what do you think, folks? Has the budget situation improved enough that we can spare the $30 million a year these cigarette sales taxes have brought in? Isn’t that almost 10% of the proposed cut to K-12 education this year? Can’t the decision to allow the sales tax on cigarettes to “sunset” fairly be called cutting taxes on cigarettes?

The reason we’re pointing this out is, we’ve heard it wrongly inferred that higher taxes on cigarettes are some kind of new proposal by Gov. John Hickenlooper. Hickenlooper’s budget only calls for the renewal of the existing sales tax that will otherwise go away. And for the purpose of winning the message war for an anxious voting public, there’s a really big difference.

Don’t think so? That’s cool, you’re the reason Democrats lose these debates all the time.

15 thoughts on “Messaging 101: It’s a “Cigarette Tax Cut””

MADCO says:

March 28, 2011 at 7:55 pm

cigarettes, bull semen, and other items subject to sales tax – don’t deserve tax cuts now more than a lot of other things.

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1. DavidThi808 says:
  
  March 28, 2011 at 8:00 pm
  
  So bulls can afford a cigarette after making a donation… Clearly much more important than educating children.
  
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2. BlueCat says:
  
  March 28, 2011 at 8:27 pm
  
  Is there anything on which Rs don’t place a higher priority than education? Is there any public service they don’t think is less important than getting rid of any tax?
  
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  1. JeffcoBlue says:
    
    March 28, 2011 at 8:34 pm
    
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  2. droll says:
    
    March 28, 2011 at 8:36 pm
    
    I don’t see anyone not taking their salaries, or doing internal budget cutting. I see the opposite, of course.
    
    That part doesn’t surprise me at all.
    
    What does is the sudden need to do the unpopular. I understand the grandstanding in the House while the other place can kill, but why this particular tax? To justify cutting low income health care (because all poor kids’ parents are forever buying cigs instead of insurance)?
    
    So that’s a joke, but I’m serious with the asking. Why?
    
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    1. gertie97 says:
      
      March 28, 2011 at 8:54 pm
      
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  3. Diogenesdemar says:
    
    March 29, 2011 at 12:05 am
    
    as addictive to Republicans as cheap nicotine. What these people need is a patch.
    
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allyncooper says:

March 28, 2011 at 9:20 pm

It may be a dumb question, but just thought I’d ask.

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1. Ralphie says:
  
  March 28, 2011 at 9:25 pm
  
  you don’t need no steenkin’ offsetting revenue.
  
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c rork says:

March 28, 2011 at 9:39 pm

Screw education! I want my Camel’s to cost $3.50 again. We shall not be moved!

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Half Glass Full says:

March 29, 2011 at 12:54 am

C’mon. No one in 2011 in Colorado could seriously be proposing cutting taxes on cigarettes.

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davebarnes says:

March 29, 2011 at 4:45 am

Why do we tax cigarettes at a higher rate than other consumption products?

I do not know.

Cigarettes LOWER overall health care costs as the consumers of tobacco products DIE SOONER than non-consumers.

Cigarettes are good for the overall economy. Not so good for the individual smoker, but we are talking about the aggregate here.

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1. EmeraldKnight76 says:
  
  March 29, 2011 at 5:01 am
  
  It’s not like you light up one day and drop dead. Unfortunately, you go through months or years (if you’re lucky) of lung/throat cancer or emphysema. Both are very costly.
  
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2. Car 31 says:
  
  March 29, 2011 at 5:02 am
  
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3. gertie97 says:
  
  March 29, 2011 at 6:18 am
  
  Smokers do have lower lifetime costs because they die earlier. Just about everybody, regardless of whether he/she smoked or not, has hugely expensive health care in the last year or two of life. Very few are lucky enough (in my book at least) to unexpectedly wake up dead. Smokers, however, while using expensive health care the last year or two of life just like most everybody else, take Social Security for a much shorter period of time, if at all.
  
  Motorcycle riders without helmets have lower lifetime health care costs than those who di use brain buckets, because the big wreck kills them instead of landing them in Craig Hospital for expensive rehab and life on Medicaid and Social Security thereafter.
  
  Our former governor Dick Lamm has facts and figures to back up the above. Try teh Google.
  
  Smokers get taxed highly because it’s easy to pick on them. Liquor taxes also qualify.
  
  “Don’t tax me, don’t tax thee. Tax that fellow behind the tree.”
  
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