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DrugScreening.org


 
White House Rejects Tobacco Tax-Increase Recommendation
February 28, 2003

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News Summary

The Bush administration rejected a recommendation by one of its own advisory panels to raise the federal cigarette tax by $2 a pack, the Washington Post reported Feb. 27.

"We are not contemplating it," said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson in testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Budget Committee. "This administration does not raise taxes."

The 28-member Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health unanimously endorsed raising the federal cigarette tax and allocating more money for anti-smoking and smoking-cessation programs as a means of reducing smoking-related deaths and illnesses.

Currently, the federal tax on cigarettes is 39 cents a pack. By increasing it to $2.39 per pack, the panel said, a portion of the $28 billion in anticipated revenue could fund a national quit line, an advertising campaign, and insurance coverage for federal employees to pay for tobacco-addiction treatment.

"The general premise that setting up some sort of a fund to give money back to people who want to quit smoking is good," Thompson said. "The tax question is problematic, politically."

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids was displeased at Thompson's dismissal of the panel's recommendation.

"Politics and the interests of the tobacco industry have won out over a sound scientific proposal that would save millions of lives," said William V. Corr, executive vice president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "There is nothing in the Bush administration budget that would provide any additional assistance to smokers to help them stop."

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