Watchdog.org Podcast

By Eric Boehm and Katie Watson | Watchdog Radio This is Behind the Headlines, Watchdog.org’s podcast that takes a deeper look at the political news of the day. In this week’s episode, host Eric Boehm sits down with Watchdog.org reporter Katie Watson to discuss the political and economic consequences of cigarette taxes. Watson is in the midst of a series of investigative reports about the uses and problems with cigarette taxes in two Virginia cities who recently decided that they wanted to make smokers pay more in order to help plug holes in budgets. But it's a local story with national implications, as cities and states across the country are looking to avoid broad-based tax increases by picking on smaller groups like smokers.  Do cigarette taxes do some good by encouraging people to quit, or are they really just a regressive tax on the people least likely to be able to avoid paying it?