| Date: |
APRIL 3, 1998 |
| Title: |
Increasing the Federal Cigarette Tax: A Means of Reducing Consumption? |
| Managers: |
Lauren Tran & Richard Hegner |
| Summary: |
This meeting occurred only two days after the Senate Commerce Committee voted 19 to 1 to approve a bill that would raise the federal cigarette tax by $1.10 — an almost sixfold increase. Three economists reviewed the merits of such a tax increase as a tool of public policy, with particular attention to the evidence about the effects of price and tax increases on cigarette consumption — specially that by underage smokers. One suggested that no other public policy intervention could save as many lives as a significant increase in the cigarette tax. A second questioned the propriety of such a tax in light of its apparent regressivity and the lack of similar fiscal penalties on other unhealthy behavior. The meeting also included discussion of the impact of a tax increase on the nation's tobacco-growing and -manufacturing economy as well as a review of the status of the June 20, 1997, settlement between the tobacco industry and 40 state attorneys general. |
| Speakers: |
Kenneth E. Warner, PhD, Professor, University of Michigan School of Public Health; Stephen J. Entin, Executive Director and Chief Economist, Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation; and Thomas C. Schelling, PhD, Professor, University of Maryland School of Public Affairs |
Related
Materials: |
More information available in the accompanying publication, Issue Brief No. 717. |
