Part Two: What if it doesn’t work?

Last week’s column was an attempt to explain how state leaders are misleading people by saying cigarette taxes must be raised to keep car tag costs in check.

For managers of a budget topping $5 billion to say they can’t find $30 million somewhere else to keep car tags at current rates is, well, nonsense.

The additional dimension, though, is this: Lawmakers, while becoming the prime beneficiaries of cigarette sales, could be hitching their wagon to a falling star.

The explanation: There have been 57 increases in cigarette taxes enacted by other states since July 1, 2002. In 39 instances, the increase did not deliver all the new money expected. In New Jersey, lawmakers pushed the cigarette tax higher annually for several years. In 2006 it became the nation’s top rate at $2.57 per pack. Not only did the state not get more money from the last bump, it got less.

People in New Jersey got the message. They either quit smoking, which is a good result, or started avoiding the state tax by buying their smokes on the Internet, at untaxed outlets such as Indian reservations or started spending their money and paying the lower taxes on cigarettes in neighboring states — boosting them and letting their home state actually lose money after a tax increase.

That “flee the jurisdiction” thing is a point raised by some Mississippi lawmakers. If wiser heads prevail, any increase from the embarrassing 18 cents per pack now imposed in this state will be to around 64 cents, perhaps even at a “floating average” of rates in Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana.

If the tax is tripled in Mississippi and the same number of cigarettes are sold, the state’s income will rise by $100 million.

But what if puffers, already zapped this month by an increase to $1.01 in the federal excise tax, do quit or find a way to avoid the taxes? And what about the loss of revenue at convenience stores and other places that depend on cigarettes sales for as much as a third of their profits? Lawmakers will have made the recession worse, and not have new revenue to show for it.

There’s nothing funny about lung cancer, heart disease or emphysema, but the illicit love affair between elected leaders — who are supposed to have our best interests at heart — and their need for us to do bad stuff should at least elicit a grin.

According to Altria, parent company of brands such as Marlboro, the breakdown in Mississippi in the not-too-distant future could be:

• $1.68 — Manufacturer’s price for a pack of a premium brand. That includes, growing tobacco, marketing, manufacturing and shipping.

• 68 cents — Profit to the seller.

• 64 cents — Quota buyout and Mississippi tobacco lawsuit settlement expense. (What, you didn’t know consumers were paying this?)

• $1.01 — Federal excise tax.

• 70 cents — Mississippi excise tax (possibly).

• 33 cents — Mississippi sales tax. (What, you didn’t know there were sales taxes on cigarettes, too?)

The total is $5.04.

Quit smoking and makers and sellers lose $2.36. Quit and you’ve cost America and the Great State of Mississippi $2.68 or 53 percent of the total.

It’s amazing. What other product is taxed more than it costs? If cars were taxed like cigarettes, you could pick out a nice $30,000 sedan and settle up at the cash register for $70,000.

The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi is a coalition that has been pushing lawmakers for years for the right reason — to increase the excise tax to help make smoking cost-prohibitive, period.

Altria has presented lawmakers with alternatives that are in Big Tobacco’s interests but are better balanced. The group would place a per-pack fee on non-settling companies and tax smokeless tobacco by weight as the federal government does to come up with the $30 million said to be needed right away. Altria also suggests using each year’s settlement check toward a $3 to $1 federal Medicaid match, parlaying it into $800 million or so.

If, however, past is prologue, lawmakers will take a “get this over with” approach when they return to the Capitol. They will add another layer of taxation to a patchwork that is already dysfunctional and hope there’s enough money to escape the car tag price dilemma they created for the state.

Then they’ll go home, yapping that smoking is bad — and hoping that no one quits.