The Eric Garner case is maddening and sickening all at once. The part that gets me is that it all started over the sale of loose cigarettes.
Not being a smoker, I had no idea that people purchased loose cigarettes, but I can understand how the occasional smoker might be interested in buying just one cigarette. Nevertheless, it is illegal because cigarettes must be sold in packages showing the tax stamp to verify that taxes were paid.
Cigarette taxes vary by state and tend to be high. One reason is to discourage people, especially children, from smoking by making it expensive. A second reason is to raise much-needed revenues for the state. Many people argue that smokers have higher health care costs that increase state spending, although the data on that is ambiguous: the big demand on Medicaid is long-term care for the elderly, and smokers tend to die young.
The reason to levy a tax is to pay for government. If the voters want schools, roads, and Medicaid, then someone has to pay for it. The problem is that human beings, being the greedy creatures that we are, always want someone else to pay for the things that we want.
Part of the game of taxation, then, is to raise money in a way that the citizenry will accept.
There’s a second part to the taxation game: any time there is a cost attached to anything, it gives people a mix of incentives and disincentives. A high tax on cigarettes gives people a disincentive to smoke. It also gives people an incentive to find ways to avoid the tax.
I won’t go so far as to to say that taxes killed Eric Garner, but will point out that taxes have an affect on relationships. Selling loose cigarettes is a crime because it causes the government to lose revenue. It would seem to me that a fine – which would help the government make up the revenue – would be a better punishment than arrest. Likewise, are speeding tickets about public safety or about raising revenue? Does it matter if the ticket is issued on a clear day on a road with very little traffic?
Okay, so maybe I’m just bitter about my particular ticket.
The United States as a whole and most of the constituent states are facing financial crises of various sorts, and they boil down to a shortage of cash. Stuff costs money. As must as we would all like to believe that tax cuts magically increase revenue, that doesn’t happen. Regardless of the effects on revenue, though, taxes have effects on behavior, and those externalities have to be considered. Trying to pass the bill on to someone else through fines, excise taxes, and user fees doesn’t eliminate the negative effects, it just passes them on to someone else.
