On 6-6-12 I provided an update on the state of tobacco tax revenue in New Hampshire. Buried in that post were some observations about how hypocritical and dishonest Democrats in the Granite state are about tobacco and their obsession with taxing it. A hypocrisy they themselves may not even grasp. So I wanted to excerpt that portion separately with a few minor edits. Here it is.
Democrats complained publicly and often about lower tobacco revenue after the tax was first lowered. But isn’t that the point of the tax? To lower consumption and therefore revenue? To end a practice many in government, and more so in the nanny wing, argue adds to the long term cost borne by the public? Is that not the goal? To make smoking history?
And we know that raising the tax reduces consumption, and lowers traffic into New Hampshire to buy tobacco (and anything else) because we’ve seen it happen. So less tobacco revenue always had to be the goal for Democrats if they are being even remotely honest about it. This means that at some point New Hampshire was going to have to look someplace else for that revenue–or were NH Democrats planning on increasing the tax per pack on the last smoker to $30 million (or whatever it is) to make up for everyone else who had quit at their urging?
Do you see how stupid that logic is?
Nothing makes me smile like watching another left wing New Hampshire Democrat narrative go up in smoke. Which narrative, you ask, there are so many to choose from? Why, the one about how irresponsible it was to cut the tobacco tax and how it would never stimulate enough other forms of cross border commerce to make up the difference. A notion that is not just backwards, it runs counter to the entire concept of the New Hampshire advantage.