Indiana legislators, are you listening?
Arizona has a major public health problem: Too few people are smoking.That’s not the only fiscal problem the state faces. But it’s one of them. Like many states, Arizona’s public finances are in miserable shape. And much of the state’s budget trouble can be attributed to a decade-old decision to finance an expansion of low-income health insurance coverage with revenue dependent on tobacco industry profits.
They're not the only ones who did this stupid shit.
You can't raise taxes on cigarettes (thus forcing low- and middle-income smokers to either give up smoking or cut back significantly, or to substitute other non-taxed niocotine products such as electric cigarettes) and pimp smoking-cessation programs at the same time. Sooner or later you price tobacco out of the market and then you have no revenue stream.
Maybe what the state ought to do is get its nose out of the snuffbox and STOP SPENDING SO MUCH OF OUR HARD-EARNED MONEY ON STUPID SHIT.
