CJ: People don't kill people, low taxes kill people

This year, 2008, has been the year of the magical tax increase in Kentucky. An added seventy cent cigarette tax has been sold as a solution to education, health, and road funding at various times.

The din is reaching a crescendo of absurd proportions this morning as the Louisville Courier Journal suggests on its editorial page that if legislators cared about the safety of social workers, they would raise the tax:

"But it is a refrain that is growing increasingly tiresome, and unacceptable, when the legislature has legitimate means to solve at least some of the shortfall for underfunded human services -- and refuses to act. Cigarette tax, anyone?"
"On the eve of the second anniversary of Boni Frederick's murder, it's worth remembering what she gave to protect a child -- and what the state of Kentucky is apparently unwilling to provide to protect people like Boni Frederick."

What is silly about this is that everyone knows the magical seventy cents won't scratch the big spenders' itch. A cigarette tax is a gateway drug for the big-taxing junkies, who have designs, of course, on all kinds of income and commerce. If we give in on this one issue, they will quickly return for another hit.

Can't imagine why we would throw any more money their way when we have over-compensated bureaucrats, over-medicated welfare recipients, over-politicized student testing, and under-inspected state spending (and this).

Can you?