Resolved: Cigarette Taxes are a Very Bad Thing

Great Debates
41

Taxes are not a form of punishment. They’re payment for government services. It’d be like saying the power company is punishing you by asking you to pay for electricity.

In my opinion, taxing tobacco is best justified by the fact that tobacco products are a luxury. Nobody needs to smoke, although people should have the right to do so. But if the choice has to be made between taxing prodcuts like food, shelter, medicine, clothing, and the necessities of life and taxing tobacco, I think it’s clear which product should be taxed.

42

‘Sin’ taxes are most definitely a form of punishment. The whole rationale for cigarette taxes was to try to limit smoking.

If all you want to do is raise funds, you’ll impose taxes in the broadest way, with as little distortion as possible on various behaviours. Sales taxes may fit this category, but sin takes most definitely do not.

43

LN: In my opinion, taxing tobacco is best justified by the fact that tobacco products are a luxury. Nobody needs to smoke, although people should have the right to do so. But if the choice has to be made between taxing prodcuts like food, shelter, medicine, clothing, and the necessities of life and taxing tobacco, I think it’s clear which product should be taxed.

Actually, I think cigarette taxes are partly a “luxury tax” (we tax more heavily the purchases that people don’t need for basic survival and health) and partly a “sin tax” (we tax more heavily the behavior we want to discourage).

44

I feel zero, ZERO sympathy for “poor” people who smoke. Now, I think you’ve presented a good case against cigarette taxes. But, to be brutally honest for a moment, I don’t think that “It’ll hit the poor people the most!” is that compelling of an argument.

Poor people are not without reason, or a brain. If they are living from paycheck to paycheck, then that alone should convince them that there are better ways to spend their meagre paychecks. I’ve worked at more than a few “dead end” jobs with people who live paycheck to paycheck, and some still spend a sizeable chunk of their paychecks on cigarettes each week. Sometimes my eyes bugged open when they told me how much they spend. They know. They know what they are doing. But they still choose to smoke. Most of them can read; they can see the Surgeon General’s warning on the side of each pack—the warning that has been present on each pack since the early 1960s. They already know. They are not victims. They are not uneducated, or ignorant on the perils of smoking. I don’t believe that for a second.

They make a choice. They choose to spend their money this way, because they want to. If they are willing to piss their money away on something that is heavily taxed, then that is their choice too.

Now, I think you are persuasive on many of your points, but the “it’s not fair to the poor people” line of reasoning just isn’t doin’ it for me.

45

This argument would be more compelling if the policies pursued by social conservatives under the guise of “protecting the family”, i.e., opposing gay marriage (and anti-gay policies generally), abstinence only sex-ed, etc., actually resulted in fewer single parent families and the like. As it stands, however, abstinence only sex-ed, just for example, actually results in higher rates of unwed teen pregnancies. I’m not aware that many modern liberals oppose govt programs that would, if instituted, actually mitigate the social costs of broken families, instead of just demonizing those who are a part of them.

Can you provide any evidence that higher cigarette taxes have no impact on consumption beyond noting that consumption trended slightly upward over a period of one year where the tax rate didn’t change (which, according to orthodox economics, is more or less the expected result when you have a fixed price for an item and a growing economy, even if the demand is perfectly elastic)? Or did you mean to say that Alberta raised the cigarette tax significantly last year? And did you look at the possibility that the taxes might decrease the rate at which teens take up smoking? Since teens generally have less disposable income than adults, this would lead to lower consumption rates in the long run, but with rather a lot of lag time between price increases and consumption decreases, if it were the case. Let’s have some evidence.

I’m with RickJay on this one. I have a really hard time getting worked up over the injustice of a tax one can opt out of paying.

46

Suppose we made a list of all your favorite foods and activities, and decided to tax the shit out of them. Would you still have no problem, since you could opt of those foods and acitivities for alternatives?

47

Standard format it may be, but the article doesn’t really seem to address the purpose of the word ‘resolved’ - I think it comes across as snotty and self-assured, but perhaps if someone could explain the *actual reason for the inclusion of the term ‘Resolved:’, I might not get that impression next time I see it.

48

Why don’t you start a debate thread titled: “Resolved: Using Resolved to start a debate is snooty”.

49

Not quite right. If you want to raise funds with “as little distortion as possible”, you’ll tax goods such as cigarettes, which have a more inelastic demand, more heavily, and reduce the tax rates of the more elastically demanded goods.

From an economic standpoint, sin taxes can be very useful for a government to gain revenue while trying to minimize societal loss.

Yeah, true enough, but have we as a society decided that health care should be a societal expense? Are hospitals obligated to treat smokers who are dying of cancer, even if the smoker doesn’t have health insurance?

50

Doesn’t this seem like a ridiculously low standard to meet? What individual product fails to qualify here? Meat? You can be vegetarian. Vegetables? Eat more fruit. Houses? Rent. Renting? Get a roommate if it is so hard. Etc etc etc.

To anyone: is there any merit to the notion that smokers die sooner, and so are actually less of a health care burden?

51

All of them? Yes, if everything I liked was taxed disproportionately, I should be rather peeved. That is not, however, analogous to the matter at hand.

For any single item, my reaction would depend on the details.

Insofar as I do have concerns about cigarette taxes, it’s actually because I’m concerned that people can’t opt out. Certainly it’s possible to quit, I know, but I do worry to an extent that it’s sufficiently difficult that we’re exploiting people who foolishly got themselves addicted and now can be relied upon to carry more than their share of the tax burden, just because of that fact.

52

Just because demand for cigarettes is inelastic does not mean that the tax does not distort things. Specifically, it places an additional burden on the poor. They may continue to smoke, but it will affect other things they would have done with their money. Companies that cater specifically to the poor will be particularly hard hit. As will social agencies.

You think putting heavy punitive taxes on the poorest people in society doesn’t carry a ‘societal loss’???

Here in Canada, black market cigarettes have already become a big problem. Native populations, who don’t pay tobacco tax, are selling cigarettes on the black market. This has become big enough that a few years ago we almost started a war with an indian band over it. There was an armed standoff between the RCMP and men in masks and the whole bit.

Gorsnak said:

How far do you carry that? In Chile in the 1970’s, the government shut down opposition newspapers, not by passing laws making them illegal and arresting people, but by taxing newsprint so high that no one could afford to buy it. Of course, government-friendly newspapers got an exception. Is that okay too? After all, it’s just a tax on voluntary behaviour. You don’t HAVE to pay it - just don’t print subservive material.

I think one of the biggest blindspots many civil libertarians have is that they fail to realize that economic disincentive, when extreme enough, infringes on liberty just as much as outright bans do. For example, I’m sure you’d be marching in the streets if the government announced that people needed internal visas to travel from city to city, and had to get the approval of the government to do so. But what if the governmnet just taxes transportation heavily to discourage the same movement, and gives exemptions to travel it approves of? How is this any different?

Well, there’s one way in which punitive taxes are different - they disproportionally limit the liberty of the poor. After all, the rich can afford to pay $10/pack for cigarettes. Many poor people can’t. Sin taxes erode the freedom of the poor disproportionally. It’s just not right.

53

Calling them “sin taxes” is just a form of semantics. They could equally well be called “non-essential purchases taxes” which would make the principle clearer. Assuming the government is seeking a set amount of income, which is a fairer system of taxation: a 10% tax on all items or a combination of a 7% tax on food with a 15% tax on cigarettes and alcohol? People with limited income will generally be buying food as a priority item and would benefit from the lower taxes.

Poor people have a wide array of problems and it’s good that you’re trying to improve their lot. But I think defending their smoking rights is something we can move down the list.

54

The poor can’t afford a lot of things. Because a lot of things are priced beyond their budget. Cigarettes may just be something else that they cannot afford.

I recall hearing people bitch about the prices of cigarettes for ages now. It seems like they’ve always cost “too much.”

By my estimation, in the USA anyway, anyone who is younger than—let’s say 53 years—really should have had a clue that cigarettes were a bad, bad idea before they ever took that first puff. It was in the early '60s that the Surgeon General had those health warnings put on each pack. So, assuming that someone was, let’s say, 12 years old at the youngest when they started smoking, they’d have to be older than 53 (or let’s be generous and say age 50) to not have known before they started to smoke that is was a really bad idea.

But they chose to start the habit anyway. And now it’s too expensive. Actually, it’s been getting “too expensive” for quite a while now, and they still start to smoke anyway. Well, that’s too bad.

I don’t know, I just can’t dredge up a whole lot of sympathy for someone who knows (and has had it hammered into their heads, again and again) that something is doing them no damned good, and yet they choose to do it anyway. Hey, they can do it, it’s none of my business. And heaven knows, I fall prey to buying things that I shouldn’t afford, and I have my own share of bad habits. But these people aren’t victims because smoking is too expensive for them. Anymore than I am a victim because a yacht is too expensive for me.

As for the rest of your reasoning, I see merit in it—I don’t think we should be in the job of trying to control behavior by “punishing” them, and I think that if we’re going to have a sin tax, there are a whole helluva lot of other things that could be taxed more (fast food? Porn? Expensive clothes?) but aren’t, as far as I know, at least not on the same level as cigarettes. But I just can’t feel sorry for people who willingly become addicted to something that is “too expensive” for them, when they’ve been warned, time and again, and again, and again, that it’s no good for them, but they insist on doing it anyway. They knew before they started that it was not a good idea. Well, guess what? It’s also too expensive for them. Cry me a river.

55

So we’ll get cracking on that fat tax, yosemite.

56

Wow, that’s a pretty paternalistic attitude. I don’t suppose you’d even consider it possible that people know the risks, and choose to engage in the activity anyway, because to them the enjoyment they get from it outweighs the risks? Who are you to tell them what a ‘stupid’ decision is? I take it you get all the exercise you should? You’re fit and trim? You don’t eat trans-fats and junk food? You don’t engage in risky activities? Drive a motorcycle? Fly airplanes? Go skiing?

One person’s ‘stupidity’ is another’s ‘spice of life’.

And the relentless anti-tobacco campaigns have given us a pretty distorted view of the risks of cigarette smoking. It’s like if someone smokes you automatically think, "Well, he’s a goner. He’ll be lucky to live to 70’. In fact, most smokers do not contract lung cancer. Only a small percentage do. I take bigger risks flying small airplanes and eating potato chips. We need to stop demonizing people because their particular vices are out of fashion.

By the way, I do not smoke. Never have.

57

No. It places an additional burden on smokers. Smokers != the poor

I don’t carry that very far at all - you may have seen my lack of enthusiasm for cigarette taxes in my second post above. But that said, this is a ridiculous argument, drawing an analogy between consumption of recreational drugs and a free press. Criticism of government may be voluntary on an individual level, but at the societal level it is a requirement for free and fair governance. The same can obviously not be said of smoking cigarettes.

It’s interesting that you’d make this argument, given your general views on economics. Do you not realize that it is precisely the coercive nature of extreme economic disincentives that are the Leftists’ underlying rationale for much of the government’s meddling in the free market? There’s a reason that orthodox libertarians deny that economic coercion is coercion at all. It’s because as soon as they allow that, they completely undermine the liberty-based argument for laissez-faire capitalism. The argument itself is simple - coercion is bad, therefore we should have as little of it as possible. So you have your minimal government, and let the Invisible Hand take care of the rest. But if a factory owner taking advantage of dire poverty to sway people to sweat under abhorrent conditions for him is employing coercion, then it’s not at all obvious that laissez-faire is less coercive than some level of government regulations. The standard libertarian response is always “No one’s being forced to work there; anyone who dislikes the conditions enough can always quit.” But this ignores the economic realities which some (or many) of the employees may be facing - which in the sort of pre-Labour Movement environment I’m envisaging went far, far beyond the horrors of having to pay 10 bucks for a pack of cigarettes.

So, just so you know, if you’re going to argue that economic disincentives restrict liberties, you are required, on pain of inconsistency, to recognize that more government meddling with the marketplace will not necessarily result in less freedom, but might in fact result in more freedom. I don’t much care where you come down on this, but you need to recognize that your argument here is the first step on the road to Marxism.

58

When you consider economic efficiency, taxing goods that have more inelastic demand makes sense. Quantity produced decreases only a little, tax revenue is higher, the deadweight loss is minimized, etc.

I can understand your disgust with sin taxes, especially considering the patent falsity of the ostensible rationale of the taxes and your own experience of taxation so high that it’s created a black market, but there is a very real economic justification for taxing these sorts of goods at a higher rate. In your eyes, this justification might be insignificant compared to the disadvantages of such a tax policy, but the point should still be brought up.

59

Hey. It’s expensive and it’s bad for your health. I’ve never heard a smoker describe their smoking as a “smart” choice. But their choice? Sure. I’d never tell them that they don’t have that right. I’d never give them a hard time. But I simply do not feel one iota of sympathy for them when they complain about how put-upon they are. They can enjoy, enjoy, enjoy and puff away. I don’t care. But they’d damned well never come to me with baleful eyes and say how they “didn’t know” that it was bad for them (and yes, some people who were decidedly under 50 have done that) and expect me to feel sorry for them. They’d better not complain about how costly it is, when it has been costly for a long time and almost certainly costly when they started to smoke. They are adults. They make their choices. They are not victims because they don’t like some of the consequences of the choices they willingly make.

Do I claim that “bad habits” are good ideas? I have bad habits, and I don’t call them good ideas. Never. I also don’t claim victim status because some of my bad habits come at a price. I don’t expect pity because I have to pay for my bad habits. I also don’t expect to be treated like shit. But then again, I’m not advocating treating smokers like shit. I’m just refraining from considering them victims.

I’d like a cite showing exactly what the percentage of people who smoke get lung cancer or some other kind of cancer. I was led to believe that while it is not an overwhelmingly high percentage, it’s not insignificant, either.

But I’m not trying to “demonize” smokers. I’d never give a smoker shit. I just won’t give them pity and pat them on the back and say, “There there, you poor dear. It’s so terribly unfair that you can’t afford some other niceties of life because you choose to spend that money on cigarettes instead.”

Would you feel sorry for me if I choose to spend all my extra money on trips to Yosemite, and therefore didn’t have any extra money left over for other niceties? I would not expect you to. I made a choice and I chose what was most important to me. As do smokers. Why would I give them pity for that?

60

Does that mean that everyone should pay market value for healthcare, and there should be no insurance? 'Cause with insurance, suddenly other people’s habits effect my premiums and then, yes, it becomes a societal issue.

Also, isn’t one fundamental and critically important aspect of human civilization (in our evolutionary process) caring for the old and infirm by the group at large? Would you really want to undo that? Should people who are old or sick just crawl off somewhere to die so they are in no way a burden on anyone else?