Gov. Martin O?Malley said doubling Maryland?s cigarette tax to $2 a pack to help pay for expanded health coverage is “a distinct possibility.”
“I do think there?s the will to raise the tobacco tax,” O?Malley said on WTOP radio Friday.
This represents a major change in O?Malley?s position. As a candidate last year and as governor, he has consistently shied away from the tobacco tax increase because it is a declining source of revenue.
“We?re thrilled about the Governor O?Malley?s movement on the tobacco tax and his support for expanding Medicaid,” said Vincent DeMarco of the Maryland Citizens Health Initiative, a group that for years has been pushing the tax increase to fund more health care.
The group is set to release yet another poll Wednesday testing Marylanders? support of a tobacco tax increase. DeMarco declined to release the numbers, but previous polls by the group have found strong backing for the move.
Bruce Bereano, a lobbyist representing the Maryland Association of Candy and Tobacco Wholesalers, said increasing the tobacco tax will hurt working-class families.
“It?s certainly going to have a very profound impact on the economic group that can really least afford it,” Bereano said.
It will also drive Marylanders toDelaware and Virginia to buy their smokes, Bereano said. “It?s not sound tax policy. It?s so frustrating and so sad that government always first looks to the tobacco user as the first group to beat up on,” he said.
The House of Delegates in March overwhelmingly passed the $1 cigarette tax increase as part of program to expand Medicaid to more people. The increase was estimated to raise $219 million in it first year, but only $131 million four years later, as more people, especially teenagers, quit smoking — one of the intended effects of the bill.
The bill was never considered in the Senate, which refused to pass any measures involving tax increases or expensive expansions of programs as the state faced a deficit next year.
At the time, O?Malley did not support the measure and it is not clear what version of the legislation he might support. “Part of our disagreement [was] over the use of the funds,” he said on the radio Friday.
A cigarette tax increase is just the latest in a series of tax increases O?Malley said this week he is looking at either to help fix a $1.5 billion projected deficit next year or expand needed programs.
“I?m talking about income [tax], I?m talking about corporate, I?m talking about sales, I?m talking about how we finance our transportation improvements,” O?Malley said on WYPR Thursday. He indicated there was a consensus building for a sales tax increase, along with extending it to cover more services.
