Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour fought back an effort to make groceries more affordable for state residents because it would also raise the cost of cigarettes, according to supporters of the measure.
The bill would have cut the grocery tax by one-half and raised the state's $.18 per pack cigarette tax, the third lowest in the nation, to $1 per pack.Anti-smoking advocates are outraged. Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, says Barbour, a former tobacco lobbyist, is more loyal to his former tobacco industry clients than to the citizens of Mississippi.
"It's a governor who's still acting like a tobacco industry lobbyist and using the same tactics," said Myers.
Mississippi has the highest percentage of citizens living below the poverty line at 23.1 percent and the highest grocery tax in the nation at seven percent...
In 2004, Mississippi ranked fourth in cancer mortality in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society.
Nearly a quarter of the people in the state live in poverty, and the governor is more concerned about the price of a pack of cigarettes than of a basket of groceries. Republicans sure are good to the people, aren't they?
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