Smaller tobacco tax increase would work better

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Let's consider the size of the proposed tobacco tax increase in Proposition B. It's over five times the current tax. It would go from $1.70 to $9 per carton. Missouri does have a low tobacco tax, but a more than five times increase is obviously pure greed. Everyone would be outraged if the sales tax went up five times, say from 6 percent to 30 percent. And what would you be paying if your property tax was five times higher?

Wouldn't it be fairer to all parties involved if the tax wasn't so high? If the rate was doubled, it would still be a large increase but it would be considerably more tolerable to everyone. Schools would still get a subsidy, jobs would not be lost, tobacco users would not be hit so hard in the pocketbook and Missouri's total revenue would be larger instead of a decrease in revenue that a economics professor has calculated.

Joseph Haslag, a professor from the University of Missouri, has findings that show Missouri would actually lose at least $34 million a year in tax money if Proposition B would pass. This revenue would have to be made up somewhere, and all of us would pay. Let's be reasonable and vote this increase down and let the legislators come up with a more fair compromise.