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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 29, 1993                   TAG: 9301290428
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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TAX BILLS

SEN. ELLIOT Schewel, D-Lynchburg, has introduced a bill in the Virginia General Assembly to raise the state's lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax to 20 cents a pack.

Under his bill, half the revenues would go to the state, and half would be returned to localities.

Del. Kenneth Plum, D-Reston, has a more modest proposal.

His measure would raise the per-pack tax by about a penny, with the $100-million revenue earmarked for reducing school-funding disparities between the state's poorest and wealthiest districts.

Not to worry, King Tobacco. Neither measure - whether for 1 cent or 20 - is thought to have much chance of passage.

Oh, sure, there's evidence of public support for a tax increase on tobacco.

There's evidence of the health hazards of tobacco not only for those who smoke but also for nonsmokers who breathe secondhand smoke.

And there's evidence of tobacco's contribution to the escalating costs of health care, currently the fastest-rising item on the expenditure side of the state budget.

Unfortunately, there's also evidence that the tobacco lobby is among Virginia's strongest. And the evidence from the record of history suggests that legislators, when confronted with a choice between a powerful lobby and the public good, generally choose the former over the latter.

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