Senate votes for cigarette tax increase

Legislators attempting to shake automatic raises from proposal

The Senate voted 28-16 Tuesday for a 50-cent tax increase on a pack of cigarettes, but that does not seal the proposal’s fate.

Sen. Luke Rankin, R-Myrtle Beach, was among those who voted against the proposal because it includes automatic per-pack tax increases each year based on the inflation rate of medical care.

Horry and Georgetown counties’ other three senators voted in favor.

Attempts will be made today to strip that automatic tax increase out of the bill. Rankin said he is not sure how he will vote if that effort fails.

He said he is in favor of raising the tax on cigarettes, but not automatically.

“I do not support indexing it so that it will continue to climb,” Rankin said. “It does not need to be an ever-increasing tax.”

Several other senators who voted against the proposal said they will vote for it if the automatic increase is removed.

If the automatic increase is not removed, the vote margin is not enough for the two-thirds majority required to override the veto of the bill that Gov. Mark Sanford has promised.

The current 7-cent-a-pack tax is the nation’s lowest. The proposal would raise about $159 million, with $5 million going for anti-smoking programs and the rest split between expanding Medicaid programs and offering assistance for low-income people to buy their own health insurance.

Besides overcoming a veto from Sanford, the proposal has to go back for a House vote.

The House approved a 30-cent-a-pack tax increase last year with the money to be used to cut sales taxes on groceries.

The grocery tax was cut last year with other funds, and some House members say they cannot vote for a tax increase if there is not an accompanying tax cut.

Sanford holds the same position. He has proposed for several years that the money from a smoke tax increase be used to cut income taxes.

An attempt to adopt a 93-cent tax increase that would bring the per-pack tax to $1 was voted down 30-13.

Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, said lawmakers should seize the opportunity to make permanent changes in the state’s health and economy, and use the money to provide health care.

All four local senators voted against the plan.

In other legislative action Tuesday, the House Republican Caucus agreed to support a move today to change a Senate immigration proposal by stripping out its new alternate state verification system.

Rep. Thad Viers, R-Myrtle Beach, said the House wants to require that employers use the federal online verification system or a state driver’s license or official photo ID.

That issue is what the Senate and Sanford fought over last week, with Sanford saying the Senate’s new proposal offers another loophole.

The federal I-9 will still be required but state officials can’t enforce it.

What lawmakers want, and what they say their constituents want, is state enforcement of a better immigration status verification.

Democrats are expected to oppose the move, but “we have the votes,” Viers said.

The House hopes to pass the measure and sent it back to the Senate today.

Also Tuesday, informal budget talks continued without resolution.

The House is trying to restore $12 million in tourism promotion that the Senate cut, as well as funds for health care programs.

The Sun News
By Zane Wilson
5/07/08

Subscribe in a reader