House Chamber PASSES tobacco tax legislation.
Check out the roll call here.
HB1204, the bill that will increase the state’s cigarette tax by 56 cents, was the first order of business this afternoon in the House Chamber. Rep. Gregg Reep, the bill’s sponsor, focused on the many and various health initiatives that revenue generated from the tax could fund. Rep. Flowers inquired into why these health initiatives were not specifically included in the bill, since as it is currently written the monies from the tax increase would go into General Revenue and thus, could be spent on any number of programs that are not necessarily health-related.
Rep. Frank Glidewell (R) from Fort Smith spoke against the bill and cited the country’s current economic status as the reason to not impose more taxes and expand government. He noted that he did support a trauma system, but felt that funding could be found elsewhere.
Speaker Wills then took the podium to speak for HB1204. He asked for support to keep community health centers open, to give seniors the ability to stay in their homes and to save the lives of the 200 folks/year who die because the state does not hava truama system.
Rep. Bryan King, House MInority Leader, spoke against the bill. King told the chamber that he had made a promise to not raise taxes when he ran for office and the he would uphold that promise. He ended by saying that this tax would not be good for the state of Arkansas.
Rep. Gaskill (D), a former dentist from Paragould, spoke in support of the tax hike and shared a story about his son who would have died 10 years ago had it not been for the trauma center in Memphis. He further noted that many have cited that this is a tax on the poor, and as a former smoker, he sympathized with the addiction, but stood fast on the fact that smoking is a choice.
The motion was made to pass HB1204 and with a vote of 75-24-0-1, the tobacco tax made it out of the House.
It is unwise to tax an addiction of the poor and in which tax revenue will decrease over time. In turn, this will cause gov’t to seek out other forms of tax revenue to sustain it. This is a short term solution to a long term problem.
This is such a discriminatory tax. I hope some honest lawyer (one without political aspirations) will assemble a class-action discrimination suit against our legislators.
By the way, what do Emergency Rooms do if they don’t handle trauma?
[...] More analysis on the vote at Capsearch.com here. [...]
……publish who voted for tax and who voted against tax on hb 1204…..