President Obama’s New Cigarette Tax Will Fuel an Already Booming Black Market in Smokes
19th April 2013
Drawing on the old adage, “if you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less, tax it,” politicans around the country have turned to burdensome tariffs on stuff they don’t like as a proxy for the hard work of passing formal prohibitions. Booze, tobacco and ammunition have been popular targets of late, But maybe politicans need an annotated version of that adage. As the cigarette market demonstrates, when you wield revenue collection as a tool of social engineering, what you get is less of the legal version of the product that you’re trying to tax the hell out of. As outright prohibitionists discovered (but ignored) long ago, savvy black marketeers always stand ready to dodge the law to give people what they want. And among the things people want are smokes at an affordable price. That’s an important point to remember just days after the president called for a 94 cent hike in federal cigarette taxes.
But Obama is a politician, and politicians never learn.