Tobacco Taxation
Although generally a proponent of restrictions on state government spending instead of tax increases to close budgetary shortfalls, Peterson, an avowed non-smoker, supports higher taxes on tobacco and use of the consequent revenue to fund priorities of the Louisiana Healthier Families Act. Her 2009 House Bill 889 (Louisiana Healthier Families Act), after heavy lobbying by both sides, failed in the Louisiana House of Representatives; she attributed the loss to "the national ambition of our governor" Bobby Jindal, assumed to be interested in the Presidency and wanting to seek that higher office without a tax increase on his record.
Peterson drew the ire of a Jindal ally, Louisiana Republican Party State Chairman Roger Villere, of Metairie in Jefferson Parish. Villere called upon Peterson to release certain public information about herself to him. At least two Republican lawmakers, Joe Harrison of Napoleonville and Ernest Wooton of Belle Chasse, defended Peterson and urged Villere to apologize or to step down from the chairmanship. Villere's open records request had come after Peterson had criticized Governor Jindal.
Read more about this topic: Karen Carter Peterson
Famous quotes containing the words tobacco and/or taxation:
“Sure smokers have made personal choices. And they pay for those choices every day, whether sitting through an airline flight dying for a smoke, or dying for a smoke in the oncology wing of a hospital. The tobacco companies have not paid nearly enough for the killing.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“Whether talking about addiction, taxation [on cigarettes] or education [about smoking], there is always at the center of the conversation an essential conundrum: How come we’re selling this deadly stuff anyway?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)