WASHINGTON — The plan moving through Congress to provide health insurance for more children in low-income families is highlighting a pointed question: Are cigarette smokers the only people left in America for whom politicians think it's fine to raise taxes?
The health program, created in 1997, is up for renewal this year, and Democrats are pushing to extend benefits to more children. Many Republicans, with an eye to next year's elections, want to support the expansion. And that means buying into huge increases in tobacco taxes.
The Senate version of the bill calls for adding 61 cents a pack to the cigarette tax, a 156% increase over the current 39 cents. The House version would add 45 cents in taxes, an increase of 115%. Those would be the biggest percentage boosts since Civil War days.
But stirring up sympathy for smokers is not easy, said Robert Blendon, a public opinion expert at the Harvard School of Public Health. "You are raising a tax where the majority of Americans know they will not pay it," Blendon said. "And there is a sort of moral dimension to this tax, since many people think you're taxing something that should not be done at all."
Smokers and the tobacco industry have teamed up with anti-tax conservatives to oppose the plan. The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. has issued a "call to action" on its website and has set up a toll-free number where callers can be connected with lawmakers' offices. President Bush has threatened a veto. And House GOP leaders say they will fight higher taxes.
"People are beginning to be concerned about the size of the tobacco tax increases that are being talked about," said Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.), an opponent of the proposed levy. "We ought to take into account the impact on Joe Six-Pack and on small shop owners."
But some Republicans already have signaled they will break with the party line on this issue. Some have predicted it could be the first Bush veto to be overridden since he took office in 2001.
Mitch Daniels, Bush's former budget director and now the Republican governor of Indiana, is relying on a tobacco tax hike to fund his plan to expand health insurance coverage in his state.
Asked recently about the Senate proposal, Daniels responded: "I can only applaud something that is going to reduce smoking and all the costly consequences of it."
Even some smokers say fighting a tobacco tax, especially one that would bring medical care to children, is an uphill battle.
