What does the cigarette tax go to purchase or support?

Question

Does it support medical care, etc?
I could really use some links to websites explaining this, as well as links to sites with some sort of an opinion paper on what we could place this tax on instead, or about how we could eliminate it compleatly if we were to ban smoking nationwide.
I'm doing a persuasive essay for school in which I am persuading the people in my class to support a nationwide smoking ban.
Help is greatly appreciated. =)

I live in Texas...
Hope that helps.

Answer 1

It depends. Taxes on cigarette sales are collected by the federal and state governments and these taxes go into the governments' general funds. They are used to pay for everything the government spends money on. In recent decades, whenever an increase to the existing taxes on tobacco has been passed, it has always passed under the argument that smoking causes greater health costs, so the "extra" tax money is supposed to be used to fund these costs, plus programs/advertising to encourage/assist quitting.

If you look at it, it is like a Catch 22. They raise taxes on tobacco to cover additional costs that tobacco causes and to try to get people to quit. But if people quit, then tax revenues from tobacco would go down. The government can't afford to have these tax revenues disappear, so they will need to raise these taxes again to ensure that their tax revenues from tobacco doesn't go down. In a way, you could say that the last thing the government would want would be for everyone to just quit smoking one day.

Besides, growing tobacco is a huge part of the economy for many southern states. You won't see a general ban on smoking (or see tobacco being outlawed), because you would go up against not just the tobacco companies and their lobbyists, but the senators and congressmen from these southern states that rely heavily on tobacco as a part of their economy. You wouldn't want to be the senator that has to go before their constituents and say that the people that voted him into office is now out of work and on unemployment and is now going to lose their homes to foreclosure because he (or she) voted to outlaw tobacco.

Answer 2

In South Carolina, the money from the Cigarette tax goes to support "stop smoking" initiatives. And, they are about to raise the tax again, which will provide even more revenue for the effort to keep kids from ever even starting.

Answer 3

That's entirely up to the state. Most states pitch raising tobacco taxes to offset the cost of smoking related illnesses but then put the tax revenues into the general fund. General fund reveunes COULD be used for healthcare, but could just as easily buy a new desk for the Governor or pave a stretch of highway.

A nationwide tobacco ban would have repurcussions similar to what Prohibition did. Massive profits for organized crime and black marketeers, gangland killings and underground smoker's "smoke-easies" would proliferate.

If you are proposing such action, you MUST consider all repurcussions and costs for your presentation to be valid. The costs of additional law enforcement, prosecuting black marketeers and crime bosses and the impact of crimminalizing otherwise law-abiding citizens all factor in.

Answer 4

Many cigarette taxes are specifically set up to fund education to prevent kids from smoking. It's usually a state or local tax.

That's all I've got.

Answer 5

I don't have a website, but here in Cuyahoga County, in Ohio, they just raised the tax on tobacco to support the arts. The thing about it is, they also just approved the smoking ban. So do they want us to "support the arts", or quit?

Answer 6

wasteful spending when they won the 600 some million dollar sute isnt it funny how they didnt make them stop producing them, if there so bad! nooo they just want the cash. the gov dont care about peoples health just there money!