Lets keep the cigarette tax intact

One of the mysteries of the legislative session continued to spin itself out to the end this week, when Gov. Bobby Jindal fulfilled his promise to veto the renewal of a 4-cent state tax on a pack of cigarettes. As this is written, an override — the first since the last Edwards administration — looks increasingly likely.

We hope the renewal takes effect and everyone gets what they want: The Legislature will have moved in some small way to make sure fewer younger people buy cigarettes, and the governor will have made his anti-tax statement without fear of consequences.

We should remember that the American Cancer Society and other anti-smoking groups started the session with big, if quixotic, hopes for a tax increase on tobacco equivalent to $1.25 on a pack of cigarettes. Most important of all, the tax increase would have raised the price of cigarettes and prevent some young people from acquiring the habit. It would also have raised more than $200 million a year, offsetting some — but not all — of public health-care expenditures related to smoking.

Among the people making this point: Gov. Bobby Jindal. Only he wasn't governor when he did it. It was 1997, and he was Louisiana's health-care whiz kid. The Baton Rouge Advocate resurrected an article from the Louisiana Medical Society Journal in which Jindal, then secretary of health and hospitals, said: "Society must recover those costs which could have been avoided had the individual not chosen the risky behavior only to prevent others from having to bear the costs."

Well, he doesn't actually say the word "taxes." But it's hard to figure how else society would "recover those costs that could have been prevented."

The big tobacco tax increase died hard and early. Soon it became clear that even renewing the existing 4-cent tax would be a fight and, sure enough, the governor vetoed the bill Monday. Protestors from the American Cancer Society, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and other groups rallied Tuesday at the Capitol in support of the old Bobby and against the new Bobby:

"The public is on the right side of this issue and the Legislature is on the right side of this issue. We're urging the Legislature to override the governor's veto," said Andrew Muhl of the American Cancer Society.

And:

"Why? Why would he take this position when the state needs health care dollars? Why would he push this particular issue?" asked Steve Monaghan of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers.

The governor's stand against new taxes is laudable, but there's such a thing as taking an idea to perilous extremes. We all know what we'd get if the tax renewal goes into effect: more money for health care and fewer kids who take up smoking. But what do we get from blocking the renewal? What advantage is there? The righteous warmth of ideological purity?