“Study after study shows this product causes sickness and death,” Speaker Pro-Tem Walt Leger said of cigarettes. He’s one of three representatives sponsoring bills to raise the cigarette tax to $1.08 per pack, and those measures were heard in the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday morning.
“Not only will the state benefit greatly from the revenue this additional $0.22 increase in tax will provide, but we can expect to save greatly as it relates to the health care costs associated with the use of tobacco products,” Leger said, advocating for the tax hike Governor John Bel Edwards has recommended to help stabilize the current budget.
It is expected to raise $46-million for the state -- revenue that could help avoid cuts to other services, like the pediatric daycare services, which are on the budget chopping block.r where Angela Lorio’s son receives treatment.
“If we do not raise revenue, some of our kids will die,” Angela Lorio urged the committee. “That is not an exaggeration.”
Lorio’s son requires pediatric day care.
Just last spring, the cigarette tax was raised to the current $0.86 per pack. West Monroe Representative Frank Hoffman, author of one of the cigarette tax increase bills, says this additional tax hike would bring Louisiana in line with the average for Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas.
“Because we’re looking at the financial issues we have for this year and next year too, April 1 is the date for which this tax would apply,” Hoffman explained.
Some healthcare groups opposed the bills because the hike isn’t high enough. Lydia Kuykendal, Government Relations Director for American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network in Louisiana, suggested the total tax should be $2.11 per pack.
“We don’t oppose cigarette taxes, we oppose the amount of the cigarette tax,” Kukendall testified, in opposition to the bills. “We would like to see a very significant increase.”
The committee didn’t vote on the bills, deciding instead to continue discussing them another day.
Delays like this are burning up the time on the clock. This is the first step in the process, which requires tax measures to gain approval not only from Ways and Means, but House Appropriations, too. The the full House must vote, before sending the bills to the Senate. There, they have to pass muster with two committees before being voted on by the full Senate.
Any changes to the start dates or the amount of the tax further delays progress, as the Legislative Fiscal Office must recalculate the “note”: an estimate of the fiscal impact of the bill.
Legislators have just three weeks left to do it all.