When a state government is staring at a bank account balance $456 million in the hole, it’s hard to know where to start making up for it. Maybe cuts to the operations budget would work, maybe cutting the arts education budget by 23ish percent would help, or maybe a hike in a cigarette or alcohol tax would help bring the number back up to zero.

None of these things are going to completely solve the problem by themselves when the deficit the state is facing is as much as $456 million. Cuts are going to have to come from everywhere and every corner of the state is going to feel the hurt.

Some of that hurt will come in the form of an extra 60 cents on every pack of cigarettes purchased and a tax increase on the sale of alcohol products.

House Bill 144 passed through the state House of Representatives Wednesday and made it successfully through the state Senate on Friday to implement a 60-cent tax on each pack of cigarettes and a 6 percent sales tax on all state alcohol sales.

But what happens when people from all over Kentucky are already hurting? In the time of a national economic crisis, dealing with an overdrawn state bank account must be done thoughtfully and strategically.

Hiking taxes on alcohol doesn’t affect the common purchaser — this isn’t a plea from a bunch of boozers wanting to save a buck on Friday night fun — rather it affects the small business owners of independent liquor stores throughout the state who will now have to mail monthly tax checks to the government rather than paying wholesale taxes.

As the economic crisis weighs heavily on the shoulders of small business owners around the country, additional tax cuts in the state not only mean fewer customers in the stores, but more money going out in monthly expenses.

Hema Patel, one of the owners of Coliseum Liquors on UK’s campus, feels the state of the economy has already impacted the amount of business in her store, she said in a Friday Kernel article.

“If someone smokes three packs of cigarettes in a week, they are probably going to move it down to two or even one,” Patel said in the article.

Around 400 people, including many owners of independent small liquor stores around the state, lobbied against the legislation earlier last week by gathering in Frankfort to protest.

According to an article by the Associated Press, some liquor executives dumped bourbon on the Capitol steps.

“Tough to see,” said liquor lobbyist Barry Becton in the AP article. “I think we’re going to see a decline in sales. I don’t think they’re going to generate the revenue numbers that they were hoping to generate.”

Increasing the sales tax on alcohol won’t make up for the $456 million deficit in Kentucky. It might pinch a few hundred thousand dollars in the next year or so from small business owners — including liquor stores, bars and restaurants — who had nothing to do with creating the debt the state is currently in.

This tax won’t solve the problem. In fact, according to Indiana Rep. Baron Hill, it might drive some of these businesses out of the state all together.

The controversy of the legislation prompted Hill to solicit a Louisville liquor manufacturer to invest in the Hoosier state.

Hill sent a letter to Brown Forman Chairman and CEO Paul Vargas urging him to “consider expanding the company’s presence in southern Indiana,” he said in an e-mail to the Kernel.

That will be a great help to the state economy.