This is well worth repeating.
Ballot Measure 50: AMENDS CONSTITUTION: DEDICATES FUNDS TO PROVIDE HEALTHCARE FOR CHILDREN, FUND TOBACCO PREVENTION, THROUGH INCREASED TOBACCO TAX OF (84.5 CENTS/PACK).
This is pretty much a no-brainer. Put an 84.5 cent tax on packs of cigarettes and the money goes to kids. Pretty much only the the tobacco industry is against this measure. You can find out more here at HealthyKids-Oregon.org.
Here is Senate Joint Resolution 4 which is the actual legalese of what Ballot Measure 50 looks like. It's extremely easy to read and very straight forward.
Here is a Legislative Argument in Support of Ballot Measure 50.
Vote yes on 50. Help kids with no healthcare finally get the help they need.
11 comments:
Your right about one thing.
Its a no-brainer....
Funding an ongoing program with a diminishing return. You have built a funding crisis at the outset. Good job. You've all ready got special interest hostages from day one.
Tax cigarettes if you want to. Don't use a sintax to fund something that needs stability. Oregon has a long history of overextending itself in the good times (something about democrats having little realism in their budgets).
If Healthy Kids was a real priority for the Governor he would have made it a sole general fund obligation. Now just like Kitzhaber's Oregon Health Plan, the first fiscal crisis that comes along and the democrats will be forced to cut the program way back.
I suppose they will blame smokers for that as well.
Re: the comment from dare!pdx: "Methinks the lady doth protest too much." What we have here, people, is a republican smoker!
Ya think, maybe, that smokers are a special interest group? If you are a two-pack a day addict, you're going to pay $600+ more each year if this passes! Think thar maught jus' bee a conflick of interis?
Republicans have a long history of being in bed with big tobacco. I'm not surprized to hear this kinda argument.
Never smoked at any time in my life.
I have been a democratic staffer who got a close look at tax policy formation and know that to create an entitlement that families are going to rely on without steady funding should be a criminal act.
Its also a huge part of why I'm no longer a democrat.
I also was here in Oregon back in 2001 the last time a liberal governor spent our state into the hole. Not looking forward to the repeat occassion where the poor are cast off their health plan so SEIU can keep its over-rich retirement and twice market cost medical insurance all in the name of fairness.
Tax cigarettes all you want. Tie that tax to cigarette related costs. Don't create another program that won't have a steady source of funding.
Your advocacy for this is like financially planning for a bankruptcy.
So again. This proposal is a no brainer...
Dare!pdx - I see you've found my lair. Thanks for posting.
"Your right about one thing. Its a no-brainer....
Funding an ongoing program with a diminishing return. You have built a funding crisis at the outset. Good job. You've all ready got special interest hostages from day one. ."
Diminishing returns. You didn't back up your statement so it's little more than conjecture. Assuming that it was diminishing returns, I don't see the Big Tobacco running to the hills any time soon.
I'm sure we all have faith that cigarettes and cigarette smokers will be around for a long, long time. Diminishing returns? Where would we be now with respect to healthcare for tots if we would have started this 10 years ago? From back then, looking ahead, using your argument… we see that it would have ended up (did end up) being unfounded.
"Tax cigarettes if you want to. Don't use a sintax to fund something that needs stability. Oregon has a long history of overextending itself in the good times (something about democrats having little realism in their budgets).
If Healthy Kids was a real priority for the Governor he would have made it a sole general fund obligation. Now just like Kitzhaber's Oregon Health Plan, the first fiscal crisis that comes along and the democrats will be forced to cut the program way back.
I suppose they will blame smokers for that as well."
I'm going to take this chance to post what was deleted off another blog (RinoWatch). Yes, I was caustic and venomous, but I later toned it down on the third post… but he still deleted it… we're working things out as we speak. It's in reference to a news article about Ballot Measure 50: Smoking For Health Care.
Here is my response, toned down of course. The article is bolded.
" It walks like a tax, talks like a tax and is a tax. One in six Oregonians will pay it. If you smoke you'll pay approximately 85 cents more a pack to support it. "
It says so on the ballot measure itself. Smokers will pay 84.5¢ per pack of cigarettes for little kids to finally get healthcare.
" We shouldn't be expected to pay for them. But neither should we profit from their addiction. "
"We shouldn't profit from their addiction!" Such a noble cause for the poor helpless cigarette smokers.
1) We're not profiting from the smokers. I suggest you look at the definition of what "profit" is.
2) It's ok for tobacco industries to profit from smoker's addictions but we can't help our children get healthcare?
3) You think 84.5¢ will stop smokers from buying cigarettes?
"The idea is the increased tax on cigarettes will pay for all children under 18 in Oregon to have health insurance. ..But basically the idea is health care for children supported by a cigarette tax."
And?...
"… the bill's logic was challenged. Smoking is not the booming industry it used to be… Somewhere on the horizon a path of more money from smoking will be needed to support the path of more children. So even though the idea of health care for children is noble, the funding source is finite. "
So, the author admits that, helping the kids is a noble cause. He said it himself. But… since the theory is that we will need more smokers and more money many years from now… we might as well not help out our kids right now. This does not make any sense at all.
"… a whole new bureaucracy with a new funding source will be set on Oregon's two-legged revenue stream. Something's got to give. It won't be long until the taxpayers will be tapped for some funding shortages to provide care because of a bureaucratic bogey. "
We'll be inundated with red tape, red tape as far as the eye can see so we best not help the kids."
"After providing care for our children, are we going to rescind it? "
The author has created a straw man argument based on a fabricated premise. The premise is that the money is limited and will not be enough.
Here is what the author is saying "since the money will run out…. We'll have to take this healthcare away from the kids at some point in the distant future. Since that would be bad, we might as well not give them the healthcare in the first place!"
Vote Yes on Ballot Measure 50.
It's real simple folks. Tobacco tax is to help give kids money for healthcare. That's it. A no-brainer. Be sure to read up on Ballot Measure 50 yourself….
Senate Joint Resolution 4
Oregon Education Association
Ballot Measure 50 fact sheet
Big Tobacco fights 50
I apologize for long posts, they do tend to bother some people, but It does take space when you are quoting others and refuting them on their points and lack of merit.
Dare!pdx - Never smoked at any time in my life.
I have been a democratic staffer who got a close look at tax policy formation and know that to create an entitlement that families are going to rely on without steady funding should be a criminal act.
Its also a huge part of why I'm no longer a democrat.
I also was here in Oregon back in 2001 the last time a liberal governor spent our state into the hole. Not looking forward to the repeat occasion where the poor are cast off their health plan so SEIU can keep its over-rich retirement and twice market cost medical insurance all in the name of fairness.
Tax cigarettes all you want. Tie that tax to cigarette related costs. Don't create another program that won't have a steady source of funding.
Your advocacy for this is like financially planning for a bankruptcy.
So again. This proposal is a no brainer...
What’s interesting is that you have yet to back up anything you say other than opinion. I might be a Moonbat, but I have always sited my references to support my opinions. You continue to mention an absence of “steady funding” and a “program with diminishing returns” but you simply do not back these premises up with anything substantial.
Even if we did assume that the number of smokers is getting smaller, the rate at which the group would be shrinking is not fast enough to warrant not supplying children with healthcare. Do you honestly believe that Big Tobacco is going to go out of business any time soon? If so, when? Do you have a source to back this up? Is it 3 years? 5 years? 10 years? 20? What is the rate of shrinkage?
You would rather pass up the chance to provide healthcare because …. the tobacco industry is doomed to fail within the next 3-5 years (more to my favor if you pick a period of time longer than 5 years) and we lose a source of revenue. So, (let me get this straight) we don’t want to see the slope of revenue decrease, so let’s just throw it completely under the bus altogether. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but this is what it sounds like you and all the other conservatives are saying.
“revenue is showing diminishing returns over the next X number of years, that would be bad, so we better not have any funding at all for the kids. That would be better.”
How is “No funding” better than “funding with less funding over time?” Remember, this is all assuming that your premise is correct counselor. And where in this logic does this become a no-brainer?
One last thing, to address your dislike for spending. You do know that Clinton is the only president since Vietnam that provided a Surplus with our Federal Deficit. That means he didn’t run this country into the ground. Him and his penis actually put us in a healthy position. Not so with Reagan, Bush and Dubya.
You’re saying I need to back up the above?
You can't be serious. You doubt the reality that smoking in the US is in decline. That revenues garnered from tobacco will not keep pace with inflation (let alone health care costs).
Its fact and you even agree with it in your own argument. You admit that its unstable funding infering it as bad policy but better than nothing (which by the way there are choices other than M50 or nothing).
You literally need convincing that the state of Oregon saw a huge budget crisis (though revenues were still above historical trends) in 2001 - 2006.
You don't take it as fact that Kitzhaber refused to pass a budget unless it included a tax increase which the voters declined.
You find it unlikely the reality that Kitzhaber, rather than manage, just cut the budget across the board creating hostage holding in basic services. He bankrupted the state to make a point. The voters didn't blink.
This above is historical fact. So is the fact that Kitzhaber claimed that Oregon was "ungovernable" because the voters wouldn't give him his tax increases.
You didn't know that they cut the Oregon Health Plan way back and saw all kinds of service cut due to unsustainable funding expectations (and legal obligations to fund PERS beyond the state's ability).
You haven't noticed that this last legislative session saw more free flowing cash than any other session since Oregon's founding.
What you need a wikipedia post to prove reality to you?
The above is documented provable fact. If you doubt it your not even worth talking to because you’re so under informed.
Have you not read a newspaper until the last month?
You have a long way to go intellectually. I have yet to even see a single argument based on a logical premise that isn't a wikipedia or special interest talking point. (That is except for personal attacks and your frustrated inability to forward anything but obscenity).
Your consistent response is "nu-uhhh!" You know my opinion is based in fact if you even read the Oregonian one day a week for the last six months.
Dare! - "You can't be serious. You doubt the reality that smoking in the US is in decline. That revenues garnered from tobacco will not keep pace with inflation (let alone health care costs)."
Are you completely daft? If you buy into the sky is falling argument and you think that big tobacco is going under, then how many years until it goes under? You never, ever refute the points, you just blather on. You still don’t get it.
You neocons will NEVER put something up to provide healthcare for kids so this is the best we got. You cry that “oh, it’s not enough!” Well fine, if it’s not enough then well do another one, and another one till you guys shut your pie hole!
No, there are no other choices other than Measure 50. Last I checked, this was the only option for the kids on this election. Hey! You fascist neocons had your chance, now it’s ours. You should have thought about that before this ballot came up for a vote. Too bad, you smokers lose!
You don't take it as fact that Kitzhaber refused to pass a budget unless it included a tax increase which the voters declined.
Has nothing to do with this, you’re reaching and you’re coming up short little man.
This above is historical fact. So is the fact that Kitzhaber claimed that Oregon was "ungovernable" because the voters wouldn't give him his tax increases.
Oh, I guess we can all live happily ever after without taxing the public. Where the hell would our military be without taxes? You think it’s ok to tax for war but not for healthcare. Idiots.
Again, it has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. Come on Mr. Haliburton, stick to the argument.
You consistently complain about me citing anything yet you cite NOTHING. You have NEVER CITED anything because all you have is your opinion, which… psssst… is nothing.
“Your consistent response is "nu-uhhh!" “
Nice to know you read the “liberal media.” Allah only knows you can’t trust that liberal communist rag!
Am I daft? No, I actually read the Oregonian over the last legislative session.
http://www.oregon.gov/DAS/BAM/docs/Publications/GRB0709/2007-09_Budget_Summary.pdf
Your party spent over a billion dollars that could have been funelled to children's health care. Your party could have followed Howard Dean's Vermont lead and covered all minors in the state under the Oregon Health Plan if Kulongoski wanted to.
That wasn't done.
M50 was presented. An unstable and unsustainable funding source as cigarette sales will decline in the US (and tobacco companies will move to the developing world).
M50 does not tax tabocco companies. It taxes smokers.
I cite plenty of facts. My facts are likely more reliable than Wikipedia. Sorry if I don't spend hours to give you links to information that is common knowledge but still escapes you.
M50 was presented. An unstable and unsustainable funding source as cigarette sales will decline in the US (and tobacco companies will move to the developing world).
Back up your claim. You’re saying they’re going under? Back up your claim. Going under? When? At what rate?
I cite plenty of facts. My facts are likely more reliable than Wikipedia. Sorry if I don't spend hours to give you links to information that is common knowledge but still escapes you.
You’re delusional. I haven’t seen you site anything. You spout hyperbole and conjecture, nothing more. Nothing substantial. Just like the statement above.
You are blinded by your anger and you are obviously biased to the point that simple facts get in the way of you bringing reality and your opinion closer together.
vote yes on measure 50. If I were old enough to vote, I would vote yes because it might help people stop smoking, it provides health care to many in need, it might prevent kids from smoking, it fulfills our moral obligation to care for kids, and because it can save lives.
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