Illinois is operating, dysfunctionally, under a $30 billion budget.
It appears that cigarette taxes are back on the table in the Land of Lincoln. State Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) said in a statement that "a cigarette tax is one of the most important agenda items for the coming year."
But as I've written many times in the last year, cigarette taxes are not a license to print money. It motivates some to kick the habit, others will purchase cigarettes from states that don't tax their smokes as much. This is what happened when the state of New York upped their taxes last summer. Pennsylvania and Vermont, which tax cigarettes at a lower late, ought to send "thank you" cards to Albany. Cigarette sales, legal ones that is, have plummeted 27 percent since the new taxes went into effect in the Empire State. Purchasing cigarettes from the internet remains an option for frugal smokers.
A recent University of Illinois at Chicago study found that 75 percent of its smokers buy cigarettes outside of the city limits--where taxes are less.
Another UIC study says that $377 million will be raised by adding a $1 to the state's cigarette tax. Considering Illinois' spend-first-worry-about-revenue-later philosophy, the smoking tax could simply add to the state's deficit.
CORRECTION 11:00am: While listening to Cisco Cotto's WLS-AM show, I learned that Quinn was meeting with only one legislative reader while I was writing my post, House Minority Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego).
Related post:
Proft, Lang, discuss Quinn's debt bomb
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