“Sin Tax Hikes” Underscore Lawmakers’ Spending Addiction

 
RALEIGH – The North Carolina chapter of the free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity (AFP-NC) today condemned Governor Easley’s budget plan, which would increase spending and hike taxes on citizens by about $165 million, even as the state enjoys a $150 million revenue surplus. The proposal to raise cigarette taxes by 57 percent (20 cents per pack) and taxes on beer (80 percent), wine (19 percent), and liquor (32 percent), calls attention to lawmakers’ addiction to spending hard-earned tax dollars, the group says.

“The bottom line is that politicians are hoping to leverage perceived bad habits to fund their own bad habit – growing government beyond our ability to pay for it,” said Dallas Woodhouse, director for AFP North Carolina. “These tax hikes target all of us because we will all be forced to pick up the tab for an even more bloated government.”

Woodhouse was quick to point out that while tobacco taxes and other sin taxes are often portrayed as the “healthy choice,” they suffer from a fundamental contradiction. While a stated goal of such tax hikes is to discourage smoking, it makes the state reliant on revenue from smokers, creating a perverse incentive for government to keep people smoking. Woodhouse also noted that tobacco taxes are extremely regressive, hitting low- and middle-income citizens who tend to smoke more with the worst tax punch.

“There is no question that the state of North Carolina has enough money to make ends meet,” Woodhouse concluded. “This tax hike is about Governor Easley pandering to special interests when he ought to be responding to the people’s clear interest in lower taxes and less government. We will continue to fight for fiscal responsibility and against unnecessary tax hikes. Lawmakers don’t need any more of our money to support their spending addiction.”