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Cigarette tax defeated in Senate Finance Committee Date published: 2/4/2009
BY CHELYEN DAVIS
RICHMOND --A bill to double the tax on cigarettes failed in a Senate committee yesterday, leaving budget-writers scrambling to make up another $147 million hole in their state budget.The Senate Finance Committee voted 8-8 on the bill, and under the rules, a tie vote means a bill fails to pass. All the Republicans and one Democrat--Sen. Roscoe Reynolds--voted against the bill, while all the Democrats except Reynolds voted for it. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax, would have increased the tax on cigarettes from 30 cents a pack to 60 cents a pack. It was part of a proposal from Gov. Tim Kaine, who wanted to raise the cigarette tax to help mitigate budget cuts to Medicaid. Kaine had said that expenditures for smoking-related illnesses cost Medicaid far more than cigarette taxes brought in, and that raising the tax would help limit cuts to Medicaid in a year when nearly every state service and program is being cut to help cover a $3 billion budget shortfall. Lawmakers in both houses are due to present their own versions of the state budget this Sunday. The House had already rejected Kaine's cigarette tax proposal. But senators have only a few days to rewrite the health care portion of the budget without the tax money. "We just made a horrible situation worse," said Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, after the vote. Houck is one of the senators who are writing that portion of the budget. "This creates a terrible hole in funding for the health safety net. This is a major setback," he added. "It's tragic that the tobacco interests superseded the interests of health." In the next few days Houck and other budget writers will have to find other cuts to make up the roughly $150 million the cigarette tax increase would have brought. "We're going to have to get the sharp knife out and start cutting more, which is really difficult," Houck said. "It's going to be very difficult to find that amount of money anywhere else in the budget." Houck said it was clear to him that those senators who voted against the bill are "beholden to the tobacco industry." Several tobacco lobbyists spoke against the bill. The Republicans who voted against the bill gave different reasons during debate before the vote.
cigarettes do nothing but kill people. They should stop making them so addictive and full of poisons. Self righteous non-smokers don't know how bad they really are
I'm glad the tax was defeated. According to the CDC, heart disease is the number 1 killer in the US. Heart disease can be caused by many things, not just smoking. How about raising the tax on fast food? Have the food blisters fund the budget shortfalls.
I have plenty of friends and acquaintances who smoke AND support the common sense bill that was just voted down by ignorant Republicans (and one Democrat).
the 1st 5 posters are non-smokers.......
A no-brainer, and they got it wrong! In this day and time, what politician could think that passing this would cost them their job?
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