Sunday, September 16, 2007

Casinos + Cigarette Tax Increase = ???

You wouldn't know it from reading the Lexington Herald-Leader or the Louisville Courier-Journal, but a couple of issues Kentucky will face in 2008 are hitting Indiana now.

We would save ourselves a little time if we paid attention.

Indiana already has casinos, but they just raised cigarette taxes another 44 cents per pack to expand health insurance coverage.

This is happening while gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear is promising to expand government-paid health insurance and several other initiatives with new casinos alone.

Beshear's scam might get him elected, but his questionable proposals have done little to inspire confidence that anything more will come of that than putting Democrats back in charge of abusing the merit system.