Featured Article
No Need to Raise Tobacco Taxes
By Marc Kilmer
Whenever
there is a need to increase government revenue, one group can always be
counted on as an easy target – tobacco users. While it is
stressed that we need to be tolerant of every other lifestyle, it is
somehow OK to demonize people who use tobacco products. Even though
they are an easy target, legislators should resist the temptation to
increase their taxes as a way to raise revenue or discourage their
habit.
Governor's Flawed Borrowing Plan
The Toledo Blade reports that in his State of the State Address, Governor Strickland proposed "A $1.7 billion borrowing package designed to create 80,000 new jobs by investing in renewable power; tackle local water and sewer projects; improve the state's transportation infrastructure; promote nonpetroleum production of plastics; boost the biomedical industry; invest in redevelopment of Main Street, Ohio; clean up polluted industrial sites, and preserve farmland."
In a statement on the merits of this plan, Buckeye Institute President David Hansen notes,"The governor is sacrificing long-term economic growth for a short-term payoff. Bonds are not free. Future generations of Ohioans will be stuck with an ever-increasing mountain of state debt, payable with interest. Government has nothing to give that it hasn't already taken away from taxpayers. More government spending is not the answer. Only cuts in taxes and spending will free our state's entrepreneurs and put our economy back on a path to sustained job creation and economic growth."
Targeting Tobacco
According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "Anti-smoking forces upset over little cigars and candy-flavored tobacco marketed to children said Tuesday they will push for a 55 percent tax on all non-cigarette tobacco products."
In
No Need to Raise Tobacco
Taxes,
Buckeye Institute analyst Marc Kilmer writes, "raising taxes on
products to discourage their usage also has unintended consequences.
Activists do not seem to realize that not all tobacco products are
equally unhealthy. While all tobacco products pose some health risk,
smoking cigars or using chewing tobacco causes far fewer health
problems than smoking cigarettes. By raising the cost of these less
dangerous products the anti-tobacco activists may well cause some
people who used these products to satisfy their tobacco habit with
cigarettes."
Wrong Approach to Economic Growth
The Youngstown Vincator editorializes, "Spending to create Ohio jobs is smart — and necessary. To those who like to say that government should be more like business, we respond with one of the basic truisms of business: You have to spend money to make money."
In
Why Economic Development
Efforts Often Fail, Buckeye Institute advisor
James Stotter
writes "Economic development is a by-product of profitable businesses.
In short, however, politicians respond to pressure and what they
perceive will get them re-elected. This usually means supporting an
active minority. One consequence of this short-term 'thinking' is that
politicians approach ED like most cold remedies approach a cold. That
is, they offer symptomatic relief rather than solving the problem.
Thus, supporting ED appears to politicians be a no-brainer. Since
markets almost always trump politics, 'no-brainer' pretty well
describes their strategies."
Buckeye Institute in the News
In his weekly New York Sun column, Buckeye Institute Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Ken Blackwell discusses John McCain.
The Cincinnati Enquirer and the Gongwer News Service mentioned Buckeye Institute President David Hansen's criticism of Governor Strickland's bond plan.
WHIO-TV reported on Attorney General Marc Dann being named the Buckeye Institute's "Porker of the Month."
The
Hillsboro
Times-Gazette published Marc Kilmer's article on
conservatives and payday lending.
