Tax increases are certainly not unheard of to help balance the budget during tough economic times. But lawmakers always should take an honest approach to the process.

As state lawmakers look for ways to resolve budget problems, it appears they are faced with either $150 million in cuts or a 30-cent tax increase on cigarettes. Smokers have long been taxed for their “sin,” but now some in the Legislature are claiming public health and prevention as their reason for the tax hike.

If encouraging smokers to quit and others to never begin were the actual goal - instead of simply more taxes - increases likely would be more than 30 cents.

As anyone close to an addicted smoker knows, a few bits of change will not keep them from their fix. It would take multiple dollars to makes a smoker think about their habit and a few more to get them to quit. Those types of cost increases actually force a person to reconsider their habits and find another place to spend their hard-earned money.

Instead, by nickel-and-diming smokers, legislators are trying to protect the scheduled small business and income-tax cuts and survive during the election-year atmosphere. After all, smoking rarely becomes a campaign issue, but the business lobby carries a lot of weight in Lansing.

Fears of cutting the budget too deeply already caused the Senate to pass a measure that would drain all but $33 million from the state’s “rainy day” fund. That fund contained $1.2 billion in fall 2000.

Increasing the cigarette tax may be an appropriate way to prop up the state’s coffers. But if the economic outlook continues to be as grim as it has, it will take a lot more than the smoke of this tax increase to prevent the state from having to make deep, painful cuts. Without proper budget planning, no amount of increase in sin taxes will prevent a rough financial future. No matter how such an increase is stated, the health of Michigan residents is the last thing on the mind of Legislators.