Also this issue: Seeking a Cure City Council members recommend prison health-care reforms days after the administration agrees to investigate alleged neglect. -Gwen Shaffer Rent! One woman's struggle to find a decent place to live. -Daniel Brook Ralph and Ruthie: The Movie Kinky sex, murder and mayhem -- the life of Ruthann Seccio -- may be coming to a movie screen near you. -Brendan McGarvey Variety Club -Mary F. Patel The Bell Curve City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

June 13-19, 2002

guvwatch

Smoke -- We Need the Money

by Daryl Gale

Rip that patch off right now and take the nicotine gum out of your mouth. If you quit smoking now, you’ll rob the state of some much-needed revenue. Both sitting Gov. Mark Schweiker and would-be governor Ed Rendell propose radically raising the state tax on a pack of cigarettes, sending local cancer stick prices through the roof.

Schweiker says that raising the state's cigarette excise tax to a dollar from its current 31 cents would discourage teens from smoking, and help plug the $1.2 billion budget shortfall the state faces. Rendell, the Democratic candidate for the governor's office in November, says he'd double the tax to 62 cents, and use the money to more fairly fund public education.

But considering that Schweiker's proposal is part of current budget negotiations -- which must be approved by the legislature by June 30, if Schweiker is successful in raising the tax to a dollar -- how could Rendell raise it again if he takes office in November? Rendell spokesperson Dan Fee says that until Schweiker's plan is approved, the Rendell team isn't going to worry about it.

"More important to Ed than the actual funding sources is the commitment to properly fund our schools," Fee says. "We'll do what we have to do to honor that commitment."

Schweiker spokesperson Steve Aaron explains the governor's position.

"The reality is that we have a $1.2 billion deficit," Aaron says, "and the governor would devote that added revenue to help with the budget shortfall. This is the first year that anyone around here can remember where the state has taken in less tax revenue than the previous year. That's significant. By raising the cigarette tax to a dollar a pack, the state would receive an additional $617 million per year."

Schweiker's proposal would also tax snuff and chewing tobacco, since currently "smokeless tobaccos''are untaxed in Pennsylvania. In a news release put out last week by the governor's office, Schweiker says 12.8 million packs of cigarettes were illegally sold to teens last year in Pennsylvania, and 38,000 teens get hooked on cigarettes every day. Citing studies by the U.S. Surgeon General and the American Cancer Society, the governor's office contends that raising the price of cigarettes is a sure-fire way to give kids a second thought about buying them.

Rendell's position papers claim raising the cigarette tax to 62 cents would mean an additional $269 million in state coffers, and that as governor, Rendell will target the total amount of these revenues to local communities to support the costs of public education.

Fee says that jacking up the price of smokes would end Pennsylvania's over-reliance on property taxes to fund public education and even out the funding structure, which he says currently gives school districts in poor areas short shrift.

"Ed has said repeatedly that he'd use the additional revenues from the higher tax on cigarettes to pay for education and lower property taxes," Fee says. "The plan is to uncouple education funding from property taxes and create a more even playing field."

A spokesperson for state Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Fisher says that Fisher, true to GOP form, has no plans to raise the cigarette, or any other tax.

"A cigarette tax hike is just not part of our proposals," says Kelli Phiel. "In principle, the attorney general supports the governor's proposal to raise the tax to a dollar, but raising taxes is not in our platform at all."

So the next time you light up, look at the bright side. You're not just befouling the air, poisoning the lungs of those around you and condemning yourself to a slow, hideous death; you're doing your part to get the commonwealth back on the road to financial stability, or maybe helping a kid get a quality education.