Cigarettes are taxed at a higher rate than cigars and pipe tobacco. So cigarette companies are lobbying to change this — by trying to hike taxes on their competitors, according to Peter Suderman at Reason.
Suderman is right to use the term “not-so-odd couple” to describe “cigarette companies and public health advocates, both of which agree that pipe tobacco should be taxed at the higher rate.”
You see, Big Tobacco has aligned for over a decade with those who want more government control over tobacco.
You may recall the massive tobacco settlement of the late 1990s. I explained in my 2006 book, The Big Ripoff, how Big Tobacco supported that settlement as a way to protect the biggest companies from smaller competitors.
Also, Philip Morris, the biggest tobacco company, lobbied for and benefitted from Obama’s 2009 tobacco regulation bill.
It’s a nifty trick. Get really big. Make state budgets dependent on your profitability, then work with government to kill new competitors.
