Reliance on sin taxes creates a financial mess

In Alabama, more than a quarter of adults still smoke cigarettes, well above the national average, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 40 percent of people 12 and older have consumed alcohol in the past month, despite a large population of teetotalers, according to a Washington Post analysis of statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services.

So, "sin taxes" impact a large chunk of Alabama's general taxpaying population. But one thing Alabamians seem willing to pay for is the privilege of punishing sin, even one's own.

Still, that's no way to fund state government, which is why Alabama perpetually is unable to adequately fund the amount of government programs and services voters demand. Whenever something is funded by sin taxes, it makes those parts of government dependent on activities other parts of government - and private organizations and individuals - often are actively discouraging. The left hand may know what the right hand is doing, but they're still working at cross purposes.

Sin taxes raise still more issues when it's unelected boards, and not elected lawmakers, raising them.

Effective Nov. 1, the state's markup on liquor will go up 30 percent to 35 percent to generate more money for the state's district attorneys and court system. The price hike is estimated to generate about $8.2 million annually.

Sen. Bill Holtzclaw, R-Madison, has tried unsuccessfully to prevent unelected bodies like the state Alcohol Beverage Control Board from enacting such phantom tax increases - price hikes based not on increasing costs, and where the revenue goes to fund some outside agency or program.

Holtzclaw has said lawmakers can't give away the responsibility of tax increases to unelected agency leaders.

"We're elected, therefore we're accountable to the people," he said. "We continue to go down this path where ? legislators are basically putting their hands up and saying, 'It's in the law and we couldn't do anything about it.' Therein lies my concern."

Holtzclaw is exactly right. It is the responsibility of the state Legislature to fund the courts and district attorneys, and it is the Legislature that has shirked its duty. Not only is a specific group being targeted to pay for services everyone depends upon, the targeting is being done by unaccountable state workers.

In the case of the ABC board raising the price of spirits to pay for state agencies, there is yet another problem. The state of Alabama should not be in the liquor business in the first place. Government agencies and employees who are dependent on being subsidized by state alcohol sales become yet another constituency that will oppose any attempt to end the state's wholesale liquor monopoly. So, it's no surprise the ABC board is willing to subsidize district attorneys and the courts. By so doing, ABC puts out more markers it can call if and when some lawmakers seek to privatize the state's alcohol sales.

The state's reliance on sin taxes has created a fine mess: underfunded agencies on the one hand, and difficult-to-kill agencies on the other. And it's all because the same lawmakers who concentrate as much power in Montgomery as possible can't take the heat when it comes time to pay the bills.