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Tax Revenues Go Up In Smoke
By David Scribner
On the wall calendar above my desk I keep a tally of how many days it's been since I quit smoking. At this writing it stands as 2,885 days, coming up on 8 years.
I can remember the precise moment I first accepted smoking - except for a run-in with a Marlboro cigarette behind a barn when I was in eighth grade that did not end well. I was at my college roommate's wedding in Manhattan, a big affair in a ballroom with many tables. I'd come in from Indiana where I was in graduate school. I hadn't seen him in several years, the room was filled with people I didn't know. I felt out of place and suddenly estranged from someone I had felt close to. At the reception, he was as warm and friendly as ever, and he offered me a cigar. I smoked it - and did not inhale.
But that gesture started me. I went on to cigarettes. My roommate went on to Harvard Medical School where he became a cardiologist and helped repair Dick Cheney's heart - his physical one. There's no hope for the other.
Kicking the smoking habit was an achievement. I'd failed before, often, usually on the grounds that I'd never be able to write another sentence, another paragraph, another chapter again unless I could light up and collect my thoughts floating like stars in the smoke. Even though I could barely afford the $7 a day for my two-pack habit, it was a small price to pay.
This time I had help. From a friend named Patch. Patch supplied the nicotine in ever decreasing doses so that I didn't have to inhale it. Patch was an ally.
Too bad Patch can't help the Commonwealth, which is as addicted to cigarettes as I ever was. Massachusetts needs the tax revenue.
In April, the state added $1 to the $1.51 state tax on a pack of cigarettes in hopes of raising an estimated $175 million in revenues. In a mindboggling irony - right up there with spending billions to bail out the auto industry for building vehicles no one wants or can afford to operate -- two-thirds of the cigarette tax increase is targeted for support of the state's universal health care program, whose costs are far exceeding estimates and may in fact have to begin deny coverage in order to stay afloat.
Let's see if we've got this straight: The Commonwealth is in dire financial straits. Tax revenues are falling faster than the Dow Jones averages, with aid to cities and towns likely to be slashed by 10 percent, and education next on the chopping block. So the state ups the cigarette tax.
Smoking is nasty to the body, and increases rates of cancer and heart disease, among other afflictions. But the Commonwealth needs people to keep smoking in order to keep the revenue stream flowing which is being diverted more and more to pay for medical care induced, at least in part, by smoking. This is the logic of the Legislature.
Basically, then, the Commonwealth is in the business of counting on a dangerous addiction, and it's preying on the poorest segment of the population, those who don't have the cash to drive the 100 miles to New Hampshire where they could load up their trunk with a month's worth of cigarettes for half the price.
Massachusetts needs to wean itself from reliance upon destructive behavior, like smoking and gambling, in order to underwrite its productive programs, like health care and education. Massachusetts needs Mr. Patch.
This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Record.
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02/28/08
The Last Hurrah
It was only a matter of time before local daily newspapers - the ones we used to count on for being a complete, accurate archive of essential community information, like the records of births and marriages and deaths - would realize that there's a pile of money to be made on death and dying and grief.
06/15/06
Parents to District Attorney: Why?
Fourteen years ago, 52-year-old Joseph Mechare and his wife Sharon had a dream. Just married and living in Millerton, New York, where Joe had grown up in a working class family - his father was a carpenter and he had been trained in autobody repair - they wanted to start a new life together.
03/24/06
DA Capeless: Zealot or tough cop? You decide.
In Berkshire County, Massachusetts, reputed rock-ribbed bastion of enlightened lifestyles, you can go to jail for two years for an offense that's the equivalent of a speeding ticket, especially if you are a foolish teenager, and have never had another offense.
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The ICE-men Cometh: Local Skirmishes in the War Against Illegal Immigrants
At dawn on Saturday morning, Sept. 27, 2008, men in jeans, flannel shirts and workboots were getting into old cars and battered pickups outside what is known by the Hispanic population in Valatie, N. Y., as the
The Brooklyn of the Berkshires? Pittsfield's Push for a
When more than a thousand people turned out on the streets of downtown Pittsfield on a rainy Thursday evening in June for a celebration of the arts, music and culture, the city
Regional Passenger Rail Projects Await Green Light
Late on a summer's day in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, Jack Fitzpatrick, former state senator and owner of the Red Lion Inn, likes to pace the platform of the Stockbridge rail station he bought 10 years ago for $150,000.
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©2009 David Scribner
Starving Artists Detective Agency
255 North St.
Pittsfield, Massachusetts 01201
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