By Andy Brack
Contributing Writer

If state lawmakers were to forget politics and consider what two things they could do to best help people across the state, they might reach the following conclusion: The state’s lowest-in-the-country cigarette tax is a missed revenue opportunity that could pay for serious improvements for education, curb smoking and improve the health of South Carolinians.

By raising the tax, which is painless for three out of four state residents, there would be more than enough money to fund free pre-kindergarten for 4-year-olds across the state.

Yes, these may be radical ideas for the Palmetto State.

Yes, there would be a hike in a “sin” tax.

Yes, controversy would arise.

But these connected policy options are the right things to do.

South Carolina’s children are worth earlier educational intervention. A new investment will have long-term dividends, such as cutting the youth smoking rate, and producing children who are better prepared to learn and who have access to more educational tools.

A few facts may help you reach a similar conclusion.

Cigarette taxes. When North Carolina raised its cigarette taxes last year, South Carolina became home to the lowest rate in the country, 7 cents per pack.

Polls show most people don’t object to raising the tax to about $1 per pack to help curb smoking and improve health, according to Nancy Cheney of the American Cancer Society in Columbia.

If the state raised the tax to $1 per pack, it could expect to generate $223 million to $300 million in revenue, according to state and ACS figures. If it raised the tax to the Southeast average of 35.6 cents per pack, it could generate about $95 million in additional revenue.

But raising the tax also would, perhaps more importantly, have major health benefits. The ACS says increasing cigarette taxes by 93 cents would likely cause youth smoking to drop by 18.8%, which would result in 57,500 fewer youth smokers and 40,000 fewer adult smokers. Even more surprisingly, long-term health savings could approach $1 billion, according to the ACS.

“Treatment costs for tobacco-related disease in South Carolina were $862 million in 2005, of which the state Medicaid program paid over $300 million, and every South Carolina household, smoking or not, paid $545 to cover costs,” an ACS briefing paper says.

Earlier kindergarten. Of the approximately 56,000 4-year-olds in South Carolina, about 31,400 children are considered “at risk” because their families are in economic circumstances that qualify them for free or reduced-price meals at schools, according to the state Department of Education.

Almost 18,000 of these children are in some kind of government-funded pre-kindergarten program, but 13,635 children are in no program.

A couple of proposals are floating around to fund full-day education for 4-year-olds. To pay for a pre-kindergarten program for the 13,635 at-risk kids in no program, the state would have to commit to a $50 million recurring cost.

State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum has been working on developing such a program, in coordination with private day care providers, faith-based organizations and the public school system, spokesman Jim Foster said.

Recently, two leading Democratic lawmakers proposed a broader initiative that would provide kindergarten and early childhood education for all of the state’s 4-year-olds. The proposal by Sen. Joel Lourie and Rep. James Smith, both from Columbia, would cost about $100 million annually.

“It’s immeasurable what this would mean in South Carolina for this generation of pre-schoolers,” Lourie said.

It is clear from a recent state court decision by Judge Thomas Cooper that more needs to be done to improve early childhood education in the state.

In a decision at the end of 2005, Cooper essentially ruled that the state has not provided a “minimally adequate education” to children living in poverty.

Despite evidence of crumbling facilities and the need for better teachers in poor school districts, the judge surprisingly ruled the state provided safe facilities and “minimally competent teachers.”

Nevertheless, it was clear that lawmakers thought Cooper would issue a much tougher ruling that would cost the state upwards of a billion dollars for educational improvements.

Now, with Cooper’s decision focusing on early childhood education, the least lawmakers can do is fund a universal pre-kindergarten program for 4-year-olds for $100 million—almost exactly the cost of raising cigarette taxes to the Southeast average.

Andy Brack is the publisher of the S.C. Statehouse Report (www.statehousereport.com), a forecast of business developments in the South Carolina Legislature and state government. E-mail him at brack@statehousereport.com.

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