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* My weekly syndicated newspaper column was due before the House vote on the cigarette tax hike. So while there is no House vote total in the piece, the prediction was solid…
As state legislative support for a cigarette tax hike grew in late May, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist and other conservatives stepped into the Illinois fray.
A top House Republican said over a week ago that the roll call in favor of a dollar a pack cigarette tax hike was in the double digits within his caucus. The tax would raise $700 million, including the federal match, to help close the Medicaid program’s gaping $2.7 billion budget hole.
In return, Republicans won concessions from the Democrats, particularly when it came to sparing doctors from Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed Medicaid provider rate cuts.
For the past several decades, the House Republicans’ most reliable campaign supporter has been the Illinois State Medical Society. The House GOP always sticks with the docs, no matter what. The Medical Society was against last year’s workers’ compensation reform agreement that the Senate Republicans, including former gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady, supported. The House Republicans sided with the doctors and took a hard line against it. The decision not to cut physicians’ Medicaid payment rates was a huge win for the House Republicans, so they agreed to put votes on the cigarette tax.
Norquist is probably best known for his anti-tax pledge that most Republican members of Congress have signed, and that he aggressively holds them to whenever they start thinking about revenue enhancements. Norquist first allied himself with tobacco companies in the 1990s as part of the national Republican effort to defeat President Bill Clinton’s health care proposal, which was funded in part by a cigarette tax hike. He has since fought against cigarette tax hikes in numerous states.
Cigarette tax hikes are by far the most popular tax increases with the public. A poll of southern Illinois voters taken by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute last year found that 60 percent of them backed a dollar a pack tax hike. A statewide poll taken in 2010 found that 74 percent of Illinoisans - including 71 percent of Republicans - supported a dollar per pack tax increase.
But Joshua Culling, the state-affairs manager for Norquist’s group, wrote that Cross’ caucus could “ruin the GOP brand in the state for a generation” if it backed the cigarette tax increase. “Tom Cross seems content to cut a deal that will further imperil Illinois’s economic outlook while simultaneously eroding the national party’s messaging on the toxicity of Obamacare,” Culling wrote.
Since April, Cross has done several public events outside Springfield and Chicago to urge that President Obama’s health care reform bill be repealed and said he was adamantly opposed to any moves in Illinois to implement the federal law. That refusal led directly to the death of a bipartisan effort by Democratic state Rep. Frank Mautino to set up a health insurance exchange in Illinois.
But Cross’ attempts at appeasing his party’s right wing apparently didn’t go far enough. In a letter sent to supporters, the Illinois Policy Institute’s director singled out Leader Cross for criticism, saying the Medicaid proposal “destroys the credibility of leaders who talk about economic freedom only to vote in favor of more heavy-handed government.”
And the United Republican Fund, one of the oldest and most conservative GOP organizations in the state, also sent out a press release about the Medicaid compromise and the cigarette tax hike. “The time has come for legislators to stop being the unwitting (or intentional) co-conspirators in the slow demise of our great state. The time has come for leadership and courage. For statesmen instead of politicians. For competence instead of compromise.”
The Republican Party’s more pragmatic, governing wing has been in full retreat for the past few years as national politics has invaded state government as part of the GOP’s messaging against the President from Illinois. That aggressive national push has resulted in far more Illinois Statehouse partisanship, so legislators who supported cigarette tax increases in the past, like Senate Republican Leader Chris Radogno, are now vocally against any tax hike of any sort. Her caucus is even against a proposal to close a loophole that allows commercial roll your own cigarette operations to avoid most state sales taxes.
But, in Illinois, some things still trump national party interests. The Medical Society is one of those things. Sorry, Grover. You may have all the Washington, DC Republicans scared out of their wits, but things are a little different here.
* Related…
* The Medicaid money trail?: Roughly 16 percent of the state’s 47,000 doctors aren’t signed up for the program. Even among those who are, the overwhelming majority infrequently see patients, leaving the care concentrated in the hands of a few, according to a Crain’s analysis of payment records. About 25 percent of Medicaid doctors account for just 0.4 percent of the $2.8 billion paid from 2009 through 2011 and make less than $1,400 a year in the program, Crain’s finds. At the other end, the top 10 percent of Medicaid earners received more than 55 percent of the total payments, making at least $70,000 a year, the analysis shows. The shortage of doctors, particularly specialists, is likely to get worse, experts say. In 2014, an estimated 611,000 additional residents will be eligible for Medicaid, a 22 percent increase over the 2.7 million people with full benefits under the Illinois program. Meanwhile, the rising number of aging baby boomers already is increasing demand for doctors.
* IL House approves cigarette tax hike
* House OKs cigarette tax hike
* Illinois House OKs higher cigarette tax
* Illinois poised to hike cigarette tax by $1 a pack to fund healthcare
* House approves cigarette tax increase
* Governor Pat Quinn Statement on House of Representatives Passage of Cigarette Tax
* House Votes To Make Smokers Pay More
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, May 28, 12 @ 11:29 am
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–But Joshua Culling, the state-affairs manager for Norquist’s group, wrote that Cross’ caucus could “ruin the GOP brand in the state for a generation” if it backed the cigarette tax increase. –
Only if the GOP “brand” is Virginia Slims Menthol Ultra-Lights.
Good on the House GOPers who took a tough vote. It was reasonable, rational and undoubtedly will cause them trouble with the highly compensated, professional, full-time full-mooners in their tent.
Comment by wordslinger Monday, May 28, 12 @ 11:42 am
Memo to good ole Josh:
Hate to burst the bubble but perhaps the rubes outside IL don’t mind being led by someone named Grover, but Billboards and Gags are much smarter than that
Comment by CircularFiringSquad Monday, May 28, 12 @ 12:35 pm
Grover Norquist and his demand of a “no-tax ever pledge” of republican candidates is what is killing the Republican “brand” in Illinois and elsewhere, in my opinion. To blindly follow this course is what has turned the Republican party into the party of NO. NO is not the answer to finding solutions to societal problems , but that is all they have to offer (this post is coming from a lifelong Republican who doesn’t consider himself aligned with any party any more)
Comment by roadiepig Monday, May 28, 12 @ 1:07 pm
What happens when they don’t come anywhere close to $700 million from this next year? Seriously, does anyone actually believe those revenue projections? Fine, support a cigarette tax hike if you must, but lying about the inflated revenue to get it passed is worse than anything Grover has done on this issue.
Rich, I hope you revisit this tax hike one year from now. When it only brings in $500 million and ends up adding another $300 million to the state’s $9 billion in past due bills someone should be held to account. All the supporters of this should have to make up the difference out their own pockets. Their inflated revenue projections will only put Illinois farther behind on its bills or in more debt. We all know the GA will spend that $700 million before it is realized.
The Democrats of Illinois have almost won the race to the bottom now, as Alabama is the only state that taxes poor people more harshly than Illinois. A nickel or dime tax would have been reasonable, but $1 per pack, taking the total tax in Chicago past $75 per carton, is just extreme social engineering by bullies.
Comment by Jeff Trigg Monday, May 28, 12 @ 1:46 pm
-Jeff trigg
If people don’t like the tax then they can stop smoking
Comment by Political junkie Monday, May 28, 12 @ 3:56 pm
The Repubs in Illinois, with few exceptions, have never bought into the national party’s extreme positions. This wasn’t much of a test, though. So many people look at smokers as lower than low, and deserving of paying huge taxes to sustain their habits.
The state though is in an interesting position: they spend quite a bit to try to get smokers to quit, and at the same time rely on smokers to balance the budget. If the quit-smoking efforts are successful, the funding dries up.
Comment by DuPage Dave Monday, May 28, 12 @ 4:27 pm
Yes, political junkie, I know how social engineering works. If people don’t like extreme taxes on alcohol, sweetened beverages, chocolate, unhealthy foods and snacks, “bad” fast foods, enormous food portions at restaurants, environmental and health damaging gasoline, unnecessary pets and products, and the like, they can stop buying those things as well. And those taxes will be coming next when more smokers quit.
The fact that people can quit isn’t justification for this excessive tax or the overblown revenue projections that will end up costing everyone more next year and beyond.
Comment by Jeff Trigg Monday, May 28, 12 @ 5:24 pm