Daniels' smokescreen

It's getting harder and harder to be a smoker. First, the bad news came years ago that cigarettes are quite bad for your health. Then came wave after wave of anti-smoking laws, including a no-smoking-within-30-feet-of-IU-buildings ban and an entire ban on smoking in bars and restaurants in Bloomington. \nNow, Gov. Mitch Daniels is proposing an additional 25-cent tax on every pack of cigarettes sold in the state. \nWhat's a poor smoker to do?\nThe state's hoping they'll quit. The state government is waving around a study that indicates if the price of cigarettes goes up 25 cents, 5 percent of teenagers will quit smoking. The tax will also raise a nice chunk of money, and as Daniels has promised to balance the budget by the end of his term, that money will come in handy. \nWe're in favor of this, but the whole thing seems a little ... well, smoky. First and foremost, it's targeting smokers. Smokers have been targeted for years, and it won't stop. It stinks, but it'll probably keep happening. And to be perfectly frank, we don't really believe the state's doing it for our health. Yes, a few people might quit, but we're not buying that Daniels is truly more concerned about our health than he is about balancing the budget and ending his term on a good note. Smokers are an easy target, too. The state has a near-epidemic rate of diabetes and heart disease, and nobody is putting a tax on doughnuts.\nAnd in a state where taxes raise money for specific reasons and often trail their spending off into "discretionary funds," it would be great if the authors of the bill would put in a little line about when the tax might end. Imagine: the proper amount of money is raised, the budget is balanced, and if the proper number of teenage Hoosiers aren't found to have quit smoking, the tax would be dropped. The budget would be balanced and the state wouldn't feel the need to perpetuate a defunct sin tax. \nWe're not denying that it would be nice to have a balanced budget. The state needs it, and Daniels' track records tell us that he'll probably be able to accomplish it without breaking a sweat. If the budget must be balanced, we'd rather it come from a tax on cigarettes than somewhere else, such as, ahem, cuts in higher education funding. And if a tax on cigarettes -- items people elect to purchase -- keeps property taxes from continuing to rise, all the better. \nWe're fine with the cigarette tax, as long as a few of our provisions are considered. But a note to the state for the future: Don't hide behind a smokescreen of concern for our health. We can see right through it.