Re: Governor Patrick’s new taxes –
imposing the 6.25 percent sales tax on candy and soda,
another hike in the tax on cigarettes.
Governor Patrick’s $32.3 billion budget
proposal is almost two billion more than this fiscal year's –
before "supplemental budgets" are considered. Already many
hundreds of millions have been added to the $30.6 billion FY12
budget. How much more will be added to his proposed $32.3
billion?
The governor’s latest budget bill continues
the tradition of ever more taxes to support increasingly
unsustainable spending.
His defense for removing the sales tax
exemption on soda and candy, and for adding a nickel deposit to
bottled water and other bottled or canned drinks, is that
“polling” supports the imposition.
In 2000 the voters overwhelmingly said to
“keep the promise” and restore the income tax rate to 5%. A few
years ago polls showed that voters would have restored the sales
tax rate to 5%, though not to 3%. Therefore, adopting “taxation
by polling”, the state should be cutting income and sales tax
rates toward 5 percent.
Hiking the tax on cigarettes once again is
more complicated. Last year smokers
paid over half a
billion dollars in state excise and sales tax alone for
their cigarettes. As the immutable “law of diminishing returns”
continues to reduce the number of smokers – the stated goal –
maintaining this vast revenue source requires perpetual tax
increases on that dwindling target, as long as any smokers
remain.
Government shouldn’t rely on tobacco revenues
for essential services. If state taxes and programs discourage
smoking – a good thing – the revenue collected from smokers will
vanish, and other taxpayers will be expected to pick up the
slack.
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