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November 8, 2007

Nonsense at the times

One of the biggest disappointments in Tuesday’s election was the defeat of an Oregon ballot initiative that would have raised the state’s cigarette tax by 85 cents a pack to help pay for health care for uninsured children.

The outcome is a testament, more than anything else, to the shamelessness of the nation’s big tobacco companies. They spent an obscene amount of money on deceptive television ads designed to protect their profits, even at the expense of poor children. The results should not be allowed to diminish national concern about insuring those youngsters.

If the government wants to use taxes to pay for sicknesses caused by first and second hand smoking, then it might be appropriate to have a higher cigarette tax. But given the goal of insuring state financing of medicine for poor children, even if it is a good one, should not be financed on the backs of smokers (who are poorer than non-smokers), the tobacco shareholders, and their employees. If that this a legitimate state goal and the lion's share of the expense for these children is not from tobacco related issue (A pigovian tax) then the moral solution is a broad based sales, income, or property tax, no this terrible singling out of a particular product that happens to be legal but unpopular.

The tone of this piece is outrageous; as if holding off the tax man by lobbying the public is somehow amoral, as if failure to help something is morally equivalent causing it to happen. The attitude is very undemocratic too. By saying things like "[they] ... proceeded to barrage voters with unscrupulous TV ads and mailings. " and "The referendum said a lot about the power of money in any election, and not much about what the public thinks about the issue if given accurate and balanced information", they buy into the rhetoric that the public cannot be trusted, that they will believe anything if you show it on TV enough. We should respect those that take their case to the public using advertising to peacefully change the views of others. Surely, that is as least as moral as writing letters to congressmen. In the later you just try to influence the leadership, in the former you actually try to change the opinion of the public.

Posted by OneEyedMan at November 8, 2007 6:40 AM

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Posted by: BlueEyedGirl at November 9, 2007 1:01 PM

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