Poking fun of Wall Street Journal editorials is child's play, but some days I can't resist. Today, the financial paper of record lambasts my home state of Maryland for raising its cigarette tax to $2 a pack to help fund health care. Cigarette sales in the state have plunged 25 percent, the editorial informs us, as people fled to Virginia to by their ciggies, where the tax is just 30 cents a pack. The editorial also admits that some of the drop-off probably resulted from less smoking due to higher prices, which is a good thing.

"Members of Congress, please take note," the editorial concludes. "Democrats are planning one more pre-election go at a $35 billion children's health program expansion (S-CHIP) funded by a 61-cent per pack tobacco tax increase. They justify the new levy as a 'sin tax. OK, but if Americans don't start sinning a whole lot more, states and Uncle Sam are going to go broke."

Agreed that sin taxes should never be the bedrock of funding for any core government program, especially one providing health care to kids. But a higher national cigarette tax to supplement revenue for health care is a triple-bagger: it directly taxes one of the major causes of rising health care costs; it reduces smoking, which will lower health care costs in the long run; and, because it is national, it leaves the smoker with no place to run for cheaper cigarettes.

So, let's go to a national program for of $2.50 a pack or 25 cents a cigarette. The federal government can keep the 61 cents it needs to fund the state Children's Health Insurance Program, and $1.89 (slightly less than the tax in my home state of Maryland) can be distributed to the states on a per capita basis for their own health programs, including expanding and supplementing S-CHIP if that is how they want to use it.