Cigarette Taxes in The United States - Under The Obama Administration

Under The Obama Administration

On February 4, 2009, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 was signed into law, which raised the federal tax rate for cigarettes on April 1, 2009 from $0.39 per pack to $1.01 per pack. The purpose of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is to provide aid for impoverished children. SCHIP expanded its coverage of liability (in 2009)to include families with up to three times the federal poverty level as well as children from high-income families in New York and New Jersey. SCHIP is proposed to also cover dental benefits and treatment of mental illnesses where it previously did not exist. In addition to providing these services for U.S. citizens, SCHIP is also expanded to cover immigrant children and immigrant pregnant women.

President Barack Obama has received both criticism and support for signing it.

One of the biggest critiques of the passing of this bill comes from economists who believe that an increase in the federal cigarette tax will lead to decreased funding for state programs that rely on their own state cigarette taxes. According to Nobel prize winning economist Gary Becker, who has studied the long-run price elasticity of cigarettes, the tax increase as a result of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act increases the price of cigarettes 13.3% which ultimately means a 10.6% decrease in unit sales. The National Tax Foundation calculates these numbers to determine a predicted $1 billion loss for states. Another argument against this bill claims it to be regressive, holding that the tax increase unfairly targets the poor because according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) more than half of all smokers are low income. The CDC also notes that, "However, because low-income groups are more responsive to price increases, increasing the real price of cigarettes can reduce cigarette consumption among low-income smokers by a greater percentage than among higher-income smokers, and thereby diminish socioeconomic smoking disparities. Further, lower-income communities also suffer from tobacco-related illnesses at a disproportionately higher rater than their higher-income counterparts.

In a study conducted on behalf of the New York State Department of Health, it revealed that low-income smokers (those in households making under $30,000), spent an average of 23.6% of their annual household income on cigarettes, compared to 2.2% for smokers in households making over $60,000.