Kulongoski - and the Numbers - Support Healthy Kids Program
Governor Ted Kulongoski this morning signed the Healthy Kids bill. The initiative, which will appear as Measure 50 on the November 6th ballot for approval by voters, seeks to use increased tobacco taxes to fund health care coverage for 117,000 Oregon children currently lacking it.
According to a recent report from the Commonwealth Fund, election day can't come to soon for Oregon's uninsured children.
The report, "Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance," examined states' performance across 32 indicators of health care access, quality, outcomes and hospital use. In its study comparing the relative health care performance of all 50 states Oregon ranked a disappointing 34th. Particularly alarming is the state's dismal performance in several indicators measuring the access and quality of health care for children:
- Oregon ranked 34th for the percentage of children under age 17 insured. The 89.6% figure trailed the median for all 50 states of 91.1%.
- The state came in 49th in providing five key vaccines to children between the ages of 19 and 35 months.
- Only 52% of Oregon children had both a preventive medical and dental visit in the past year, well below the 50 state median of 59%, and placing the state 40th nationally.
(For more on the good, bad and ugly of the Commonwealth Fund report, see the Oregon page here. For a discussion of the relative performance of other states, visit here.)
Governor Kulongoski predicted a battle with tobacco interests over the ballot measure for Healthy Kids. But for Oregon voters, he said, "I see it as a no brainer." The numbers certainly appear to back him up.
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August 9, 2007 |
Jon Perr | Comments (65 so far)
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Comments
Posted by: David The Troll | Aug 9, 2007 1:08:44 PM
I agree that Children "US Citizens" Should Have Insurance Paid for by the Taxpayer if absolutely necessary. I don't even Care if you tax cigarettes And Booze. I quit About 6 years ago.
I do however Think That Taxing The Smokers and Drinkers Is Kinda defeating The Purpose. First The Folks that pay the Tax are mostly the least able and second It won't induce many of them to quit. Only thing It appears to me will accomplish is That Your plan will keep the Poor and Downtrodden exactly that Poor and Down Trodden and probably that is the point of your exercise?
Posted by: Jon | Aug 9, 2007 1:25:12 PM
No doubt, regressive cigarette taxes are not the ideal approach for funding either state (Healthy Kids) or national (S-CHIP) children's health care programs.
That much said, the current political environment here and nationally make the prospect of general tax revenue increases bleak at best. Until Oregon and American voters provide their verdict in 2008, a progressive overhaul of the tax code is not in the cards.
Posted by: mrfearless47 | Aug 9, 2007 1:26:18 PM
David the Troll trolls:
"I do however Think That Taxing The Smokers and Drinkers Is Kinda defeating The Purpose. First The Folks that pay the Tax are mostly the least able and second It won't induce many of them to quit. Only thing It appears to me will accomplish is That Your plan will keep the Poor and Downtrodden exactly that Poor and Down Trodden and probably that is the point of your exercise?"
You are probably right about who smokes, but I'd hazard a guess that increasing the beer, wine, and alcohol tax would be a far more progressive solution that you credit it with. Just walk into any brewpub any day of the week. Walk into any high end bar any night of the week. You'll see a pretty good cross-section of poor to very affluent tossing back microbrews, Bud, and the specialized Martinis.
As far as the smokers, it is a regressive tax. Why should I care. Smoking has no social value whatsoever; it does nothing but drive up the cost of health care to anyone within 100 feet of its wake. Why shouldn't they pay.
Posted by: Eric J. | Aug 9, 2007 1:53:12 PM
OK...we tax the smokes. But, if those people stop smoking or buy the smokes in Washington or buy them on-line because they are being taxed more, wouldn't the revenue go down from the tax if the smokers did this? I still haven't received a good hard answer for this question. I am all for getting care for kids, but wouldn't it be self defeating if, by the nature of increasing taxes, people stopped smoking (which is good for them AND the kids in light of the 2nd hand smoke details) and then stopped buying the taxed items needed to fund thier kids care? Theoretically, if I was a smoker (since I am not a smoker in real time)I would maybe want to increase my smoking and kill myself to fund my childs care - who is (ironically) sick because of my smoking in the first place.
Kill yourself to help your kid. Kind of a bizarre sacrafice if you think about it.
Posted by: lestatdelc | Aug 9, 2007 2:09:08 PM
While decreasing use of tobacco means a reducing revenue for kids health care, it also reduces the cost of healthcare since tobacco related health issues is one of the largest slices of healthcare costs.
While we need to find a way to have a more broad and permanent funding source, this is a good bridge towards that goal. The "regressive tax" argument about smoking is a fraudulent one in that those same smokers are also directly and indirectly the biggest drain on the health system.
Show me a viable universal healthcare package/system with the fairest and widest possible funding source which can be passed politically, and I will glad support it over this incremental initiative.
Until that time, we need to cover the kids without coverage NOW or they (and we) will simply pay more for it if we do not address it NOW.
Posted by: Steven Maurer | Aug 9, 2007 2:14:37 PM
Eric J. if those people stop smoking or buy the smokes in Washington or buy them on-line because they are being taxed more, wouldn't the revenue go down from the tax if the smokers did this?
1] The Healthy Kids Initiative raises taxes on Oregon "smokes" precisely to the level that it is in Washington State. So it's unlikely many people are going to make a trip because of that.
2] Buying tobacco online doesn't let you avoid paying taxes on it. At least not legally.
3] If we can keep kids from starting smoking that will save taxpayers more money in the long run.
4] The idea that someone is going to smoke more so that they can pay more taxes to fund some minimal standard of their kid's health care is bizarre. If they had the money, why not just pay for the best care directly?
Posted by: Eric J. | Aug 9, 2007 2:25:22 PM
Yes, Steve, it would be bizarre in your point No. 4 if it were not for one thing I sometimes factor in when it includes smokers - The Addiction factor...where sometimes a smoker is too addicted to smokes to care one way or the other about what they spend money on.
Posted by: trishka | Aug 9, 2007 2:30:59 PM
the regressive nature of the cigarette tax troubles me as well. however, placing a tax on fattening unhealthy foods would, contrary to what one poster asserted above, be regressive as well.
obesity and its accompanying health problems and costs is disproportionately something that affects people of lower socio-economic status. fattening food is, unfortunately, cheaper and more plentiful. this is as much a function of the farm subsidy situation in our country as anything. (corn corn corn corn corn and more corn = lots of empty calories).
the above notwithstanding, i do recognize that these so called "sin" taxes are very likely the only politically viable options for funding children's healthcare at this point. which is a sad state of affairs, but there it is. so it's choosing the lesser of 2 evils, as so often is the case in politics.
Posted by: Kevin | Aug 9, 2007 2:43:39 PM
lestatdelc: The "regressive tax" argument about smoking is a fraudulent one in that those same smokers are also directly and indirectly the biggest drain on the health system.
Um... you might want to look up what "regressive" actually means.
Triska, I fully agree that obesity disproportionately affects those of lower socioeconomic status. But that's a bit of a side issue. In terms of funding sources the taxation of fastfoods would both spread the costs much wider and more equitably in socio-economic terms, both of which would be inherently more progressive than the current proposal. That's really my sole point here. I don't dispute tobacco's contribution to health care costs.
Posted by: trishka | Aug 9, 2007 2:59:18 PM
kevin, i don't think you're right about that. my understanding is that fast food is purchased in disproportionately greater quantities by people of lower incomes. therefore, taxing it would place a greater burden on them.
but that's neither here nor there, as fastfood franchises have yet attained the "sinful" nature in the eyes of taxpayers that cigarettes have, and therefore are not yet fair game politically for taxing. possibly because many people may eat at them occasionally, while the addictive nature of nicotine means that one is either a smoker or not.
Posted by: Dan | Aug 9, 2007 3:12:42 PM
Why not tax a group that is more upwardly mobile and can more easily handle the increased taxes?
Mayble a 1% tax on all purchases of organic foods. Without a doubt, the demographic profile of the organic grocery buyer is much farther up the economic ladder than the cig buyer.
Maybe a 1% tax on all bottles of wine that retail above $10.00/bottle.
Maybe a userfee everytime a person posts on a blog. Aren't you willing to pay a dime to help the kids everytime you post.
If we consider ourselves progressive, shouldn't those that can most afford to pay, pay?
Posted by: LiberalIncarnate | Aug 9, 2007 3:21:35 PM
I do not see the use of cigerettes declining whatsoever. Rather, from personal experience, I see it increasing! Yes, you don't see smokers in many places because of smoking bans, but from my view point more people are smoking now in Portland than ever before.
Will a rise in taxes discourage people from smoking? I doubt it, which makes it all the more worthy as a tax source.
Posted by: js | Aug 9, 2007 3:21:42 PM
I for one and very excited about casting my vote in November in favor of the Healthy Kids plan. I'm proud of the D's who worked hard to push this in the Legislative Session, and will do my part to take it up from here.
Once Healthy Kids is delivering health care to kids, no one in their right mind will say, "gee, maybe we should take health care away from kids and make it cheaper to smoke."
Posted by: LiberalIncarnate | Aug 9, 2007 3:24:40 PM
-Dan,
Taxing the ability to speak would not go over well. It would also be unconstitutional.
Taxing alcohol would be viable as well as other luxury goods.
Posted by: Eric J. | Aug 9, 2007 3:28:50 PM
But JS - Someone could say " Its become too expensive to smoke, I am gonna quit"...and that part of the revenue will go away...if they are not too addicted to try to stop. That is why I have a question with all of this. There may be an unintended consequence to this issue - people may get the motivation to quit. Not because of the kids or in spite of the kids, but for their own health and for their own wallet.
Posted by: trishka | Aug 9, 2007 3:30:29 PM
or, we could just restructure our income tax brackets so that wealthy people didn't pay less taxes than middle-class people. that would help, too.
Posted by: js | Aug 9, 2007 3:33:39 PM
There may be an unintended consequence to this issue - people may get the motivation to quit.
Right, and that's a good thing. Quitting smoking is a good thing for people's health, of course, but also for the state budget. I heard a statistic once like for every pack of smokes sold, the state pays something like $11 in smoking-related health care costs. If people are priced out of the smoking market, perhaps that would free up some money in the state budget to, I don't know, insure kids.
Posted by: Dan | Aug 9, 2007 3:50:54 PM
Liberalincarnate,
I can appreciate the concern in your post,
"Taxing the ability to speak would not go over well. It would also be unconstitutional"
Except that we already do that. Ever looked at the tax you pay on your phone bill? That is a tax that allows you to use the system.
If you want to join a private club or association, most will charge dues of some type. It does in fact cost money to express your views in certain forums. A blog is just another forum, as is your telephone or a preferred social club.
Posted by: Steven Maurer | Aug 9, 2007 4:07:43 PM
Dan, go away. Your trolling is overwhelmingly dumb, even for a Republican.
While taxes can be imposed for access to a system (and are generally earmarked to help pay for the governmental costs of the system), taxing based on content is flat out unconstitutional.
And even if it weren't, yours is an intentionally stupid idea. Basic Econ 101 (which most Republicans fail at) says that if you tax something you get less of it. If you subsidize something, you get more. So we should be taxing things that are bad for people and society, and not taxing things that are good.
That's not how it always works, of course. People love their drugs, and boy it'd be a lot harder to be a wino if Thunderbird was $7 a bottle instead of $2.50. But the idea of taxing people for making healthy choices about their bodies (and thus relieving pressure on our overburdened health care system) is about as stupid an idea as you can get.
Posted by: JTT | Aug 9, 2007 4:11:14 PM
The Healthy Kids Initiative would increase the cigarette tax by $0.845. The current state tax on cigarettes is $1.18, so the Healthy Kids plan would raise the state tax to $2.025, the same level as Washington. The CDC estimates the social cost at $7.18/pack ($3.45 for medical/$3.73 for lost economic productivity). The federal tax on cigarettes, by the way, is $0.39 per pack. So if the voters pass Measure 50 in November, total cigarette taxes in Oregon would be $2.415 and Oregonians would only be subsidizing the effects of smoking at $4.765 per pack.
I see Healthy Kids as a cost recovery initiative, not a regressive tax.
Posted by: FF | Aug 9, 2007 4:23:42 PM
1) Kids deserve health care
2) A tobacco tax in order to do so does not deserve to be in our state constitution.
Posted by: Cathy | Aug 9, 2007 4:55:59 PM
The social costs of cigarettes are staggering: In 2002, 7,000 lives and over $1 billion in direct medical costs. We lose money and lives with every pack of cigarettes that are sold. Measure 50 allows us recoup some of the medical costs and spend the revenue on something nearly everyone supports: health care for children.
Some here criticize the tobacco tax as placing an undue burden on low-income Oregonians. It's true that Oregonians below the poverty line have a 10% higher rate of smoking than those above the poverty line. But here's what is also true: tobacco companies disproportionately target advertisements at low-income people; these higher rates of smoking greatly contribute to the gross health disparities that exist by income; and studies have shown that higher cigarette taxes are one of the best ways to reduce smoking in low-income populations.
A higher tobacco tax will prevent smoking among children. When cigarettes cost more, far fewer adolescents move beyond the experimental stage to regular, addicted smoking.
Our current way of doing business is fiscally and morally irresponsible. We recover only a mere fraction of the cost of cigarettes in taxes. We don’t provide a way for every child to be insured, so every time an uninsured child gets sick and goes to the emergency room it costs us.
Cigarette taxes are a stable and adequate funding source, particularly when compared to the income tax, even in an economic downturn.
The health of Oregon’s children cannot wait. YES on Measure 50 is the right choice.
Posted by: mrfearless47 | Aug 9, 2007 5:31:52 PM
trishka writes:
"or, we could just restructure our income tax brackets so that wealthy people didn't pay less taxes than middle-class people. that would help, too."
Show me the beef. Where does this happen? Give me a concrete example of where wealthy people (definition please?) pay less taxes than middle-class (definition please?) people.
I'm sure I would be considered wealthy by your criterion. My wife and I paid 6 figure federal income taxes in 2006 (on 6 figure combined income), while we paid mid 5 figure Oregon income tax. Exactly where do we "wealthy" get a break and pay less than you do. Show me either in percentage terms or in absolute terms? I'm willing to bet you can't do it, because it is fiction. Now it may be the case that Bill Gates can finagle his taxes to pay less than I do and that's a problem. The issue isn't the wealthy paying less than the middle-class; it is a question of the superwealthy (political donor class) paying less than the wealthy. I dare you to provide a single example where ordinary wealthy people - people whose income is nearly 100% derived from W-2 and/or 1099R income pay less tax than another less affluent group. The code doesn't let it happen. If you have a counter example, please provide it. Otherwise, let's get off this offensive line of thinking.
Posted by: Steve Maurer | Aug 9, 2007 7:53:09 PM
"Ordinary wealthy people", MrFearless47, is not what most people are referring to when they talk about the rich. The rich are the property owners, people for whom the bulk of their wealth is in business ownership.
Take, for example Bill Gates, who has (depending on stock price) 37 to 44 Billion Dollars. He's paid taxes on nearly none of it. He will never pay taxes on it unless he sells. His children will pay some small percentage as inheritance tax, unless he happens to die in 2009, the last year of the GOP tax giveaway, in which case they'll pay absolutely nothing. All that money will not be taxed one small dime.
Compare that to the standard income that middle class people earn. Not only do they pay tax on everything they earn each year, the interest on whatever they manage to save is taxed as well too.
And Bill Gates (and his father) are, in terms of tax policy, some of the good guys. They're not pulling any shenanigans with off-shore front companies, or pretending that he was taking capital risk when he wasn't.
Certainly, if there weren't massive tax loopholes in our system for the wealthy owners, the rich would probably pay more than enough of their fair share at our current tax rates. But the fact is that there are massive loopholes. In fact, I would say that Democrats aren't really asking for much of a tax increase at all. We're just asking to plug all the plutocratic giveaways the Republicans shove in the tax code every chance they get.
Posted by: mrfearless47 | Aug 9, 2007 8:22:29 PM
Steven Maurer:
"Ordinary wealthy people", MrFearless47, is not what most people are referring to when they talk about the rich. The rich are the property owners, people for whom the bulk of their wealth is in business ownership."
I wish this were true. You might investigate what many, if not all, the current Democrats are saying about the Bush tax cuts (which, incidently, didn't do anything for me). The magic number is $200,000 per year. It's those guys who need the repeal of all those plummy benefits they got from GWB. Memo to Democrats: I don't know anyone in that income bracket all the way up to about $600,000 per year who counts any benefit from the Bush Tax cuts. Every penny Bush cut simply exposed more and more of our income to the AMT so that we pay MORE in taxes under the Bush tax cuts than we did before. But now we're stuck. The AMT is killing us and no matter what you do we're still gonna be paying a disproportionate share of taxes.
I agree fully with the loophole closing, even raising capital gains and dividend rates, but the Dems HAVE to take a stand on eliminating the AMT, even if it means raising marginal rates on upper income brackets. Don't index my deductions to some phantom number and only let me deduct the amount exceeding these phantoms numbers. Raise the marginal rates back to Clinton rates, get rid of the AMT, and don't limit ordinary tax deductions.
As someone said in another thread. "Time for the DEMS to grow some balls". Decide once and for all who "the wealthy" are, stick to that definition and stop alienating all of the "ordinary wealthy" who find their values more with Dems than R's but feel alienated by both. The old saw is "too rich to be a Dem, too poor to be a Rep". We represent a huge support base for the Dems, but I know way too many of us turned off by the Dems lack of courage and inconsistency to form a lasting bond.
P.S. to Kari and apropos of nothing. Why doesn't your darn website remember my personal information. I allow cookies and they work for every other site but this one. It is tiring to have to fill in my personal info every single time I post something here. I do use multiple Macs, but it doesn't work on my Windows VMs either.
Posted by: Stephanie V | Aug 9, 2007 9:51:30 PM
>It is tiring to have to fill in my personal info every single time I post something here.
mrfearless, here's what you do: leave those fields blank, type your comment, and then click the Preview link. On the three different Macs I generally use, either Safari, Firefox, or BlueO will then fill in the fields for me, and once I have proofed my comment I just click Post.
Posted by: Kari Chisholm | Aug 9, 2007 10:26:46 PM
To all the people advocating a fast-food tax...
Let's say that we all agree with you. How exactly would you construct the tax?
Would you tax food based on its fat content? Sugar content? Speed of preparation? Greasiness? Lack of waiters?
Would grocery stores be exempt? Would Krispy Kreme donuts at Krispy Kreme be taxed, but at Safeway be tax-free? Would a "six dollar burger at Carl's Jr be taxed while a real six-dollar burger at a sitdown/menu restaurant go untaxed?
How would you collect the tax? Would we need to create a whole new tax-collection regime to collect money from restaurants?
Say what you want about the cigarette tax, but all we're doing is changing the value of the tax - not taxing new products, or building a new tax collection and enforcement system...
Posted by: Kari Chisholm | Aug 9, 2007 10:27:28 PM
P.S. to Kari and apropos of nothing. Why doesn't your darn website remember my personal information. I allow cookies and they work for every other site but this one. It is tiring to have to fill in my personal info every single time I post something here. I do use multiple Macs, but it doesn't work on my Windows VMs either.
Before typing in your info, check the "remember" box. It should automagically appear.
Posted by: Pete Forsyth | Aug 9, 2007 10:36:59 PM
Kari, I think that's the point: the automagic don't work like it should oughtta. Not for me on Macs (Safari, Firefox), anyway...I don't post from my PC much, so I'm not sure about that.
Posted by: Jon | Aug 10, 2007 8:52:17 AM
For what it's worth. USA Today has a piece today showing the impact on cigarette consumption following the imposition of steep new taxes:
- Cigarette sales fell 18% in North Carolina last year after the tax was raised in two steps to 35 cents from a nickel. The tobacco-growing state resisted higher cigarette taxes until 2005.
- Connecticut has increased its tax to $1.51 from 50 cents per pack in 2002. Since then, per capita consumption of cigarettes has fallen 37%.
- New Jersey raised its tax to $2.40 from 80 cents in 2002. Smoking has dropped 35%.
- California raised its cigarette tax to 87 cents per pack in 1999 but hasn't changed it since. Smoking is down 18% since the tax increase.
This would suggest that (a) as expected, there are diminishing returns from tobacco taxes; (b) also as expected, states should expect a public health benefit from the decrease in cigarette consumption over time.
Posted by: trishka | Aug 10, 2007 9:04:23 AM
mrfearless, calm down, you were reading a lot into my statement concerning "middle-class" vs. "wealthy". steve maurer did a better job than i could have in elucidating the disparities.
it's about semantics - perhaps i should have said "super wealthy" instead of "wealthy". but by all accounts, it sounds to me like your family falls into what i would categorize as "upper middle-class", rather than "wealthy". so it wasn't about you.
btw, i'm married to a doctor as well, and we pay 50% of our income to taxes. so believe me, my post wasn't about you.
Posted by: Dan | Aug 10, 2007 9:21:01 AM
Steve,
Having you lecture me on economics is rich.
Higher taxes on items that are in demand does not drive away demand. It only creates a black market.
I'm not at all in favor of slapping taxes on blog posting. I'd hoped that even you would be able to see through my sarcasm. Apparently not.
Posted by: Steven Maurer | Aug 10, 2007 10:15:44 AM
Dan,
It's always hard to "see through" the sarcasm of hypocrites: you can never tell when they're being serious.
You guys, after all, are the people who are in favor of massive increases in Federal spending, military (foreign) nation building, overwhelming pork barrel earmarks, the government spying on its own citizens, and torture. You've got Congressmen chasing around underage pages, and the Chair of your National Young Republicans giving unwanted head to another Young Republican, who was in a very serious Republican manner, passed out drunk. And I'm not even mentioning the every day, ho hum, revelations of massive corruption among the GOP elite. This week it's (spin the bottle) Alaska!
And yet, I'm sure you'll tell me you're the Party of Small Government and Moral Values.
See how hard it is to tell if you're being sarcastic? Or not?
Oh, and by the way, as much as you are in favor of lawbreaking, taxes almost never create black markets. That only happens when you have outright bans on economic activities, like drugs and prostitution. (Two markets which Republicans heavily participate in.)
Posted by: mrfearless47 | Aug 10, 2007 10:20:40 AM
triska writes:
"mrfearless, calm down, you were reading a lot into my statement concerning "middle-class" vs. "wealthy". steve maurer did a better job than i could have in elucidating the disparities."
I'm sorry if I overreacted to your post. I haven't seen too many posts from you so I don't know what your history is with BO. My history is such that I've been reading and posting for a long time. There is a large group of commenters who have advocating increasing taxes on the rich for some time, and the figure always bandied about is those earning "above $200,000". I've been fighting this for a long time, not getting too much traction. So forgive me if I recoil when someone on this site starts talking about raising taxes on the "wealthy" since by any criteria, your family and mine are in the upper 2%^ of wage earners, but are nowhere near rich or wealthy by any objective criteria espoused here. Forgive the generalization, but my impression is that many posters here believe that anyone who makes more than they do is "rich" or "wealthy". So, I apologize for my crankiness, but it is a really sore point with me.
Posted by: Kevin | Aug 10, 2007 10:33:03 AM
Kari,
FYI... I've always had the same issue that Pete mentions. I've never had Blue Oregon's script remember any of my info, and I've tried it on I think it's been four different computers, all with different access & settings. Other scripts like Blogger or especially HaloScan always remember my info, regardless of which computer I enter it with. But BO never has.
Posted by: mrfearless47 | Aug 10, 2007 11:10:51 AM
FWIW:
After Kari's initial response to my aside, I began to investigate and discovered the counterintuitive way that whatever blogging system he's using works for me. When I want to comment, I JUST discovered that "Remember personal info?" box can be clicked BEFORE entering any personal information and voila, my personal information appeared. So this question seems to function in two completely different ways: 1) it is a query initially to set a cookie after personal information is entered and 2) it functions as a trigger to pull that cookie information from my browser AFTER it has already been saved. For some reason, it doesn't work properly once you've started to enter the personal information, before clicking on that checkbox.
Give it a try. It has worked for me on all my Mac's and in Firefox 2.0.x and Safari 3.0xb. Maybe this will clear the mystery.
Posted by: Eric J. | Aug 10, 2007 11:31:51 AM
So, Jon, if I read your post correctly, if there are diminishing returns from tobacco taxes, would not the money for kids (if those taxes aquired from the smokes go to them) diminish as well?
Short term, M50 looks great. Yet long term, based on the logic above, the money will diminish for the kids while the health of the parents gets better.
This issue really isn't about rich vs. poor vs. the overweight - it is about whether or not taxing a marketable commodity (that every social class and wieght uses) would be worth the diminishing returns in the long run if approved by voters.
My question is this: Do we say yes now and wait for the returns to diminish and panic later, or say no now and create a better taxing alternative for a fund of this nature or tax another maketable commodity that does not have such expected long turn diminishing results?
Very compelling.
Posted by: Jon | Aug 10, 2007 11:40:56 AM
My take: support M50 here now, and S-CHIP nationally.
The health care crisis is too serious and immediate to wait to build consensus around ideal, long-term funding mechanisms.
As for the drop-off in cigarette consumption as taxes are boosted, that is no doubt built in to the revenue model.
Posted by: mrfearless47 | Aug 10, 2007 11:49:04 AM
I will support M50 unreservedly. As for the diminishing returns, I wouldn't sweat it. It is almost surely built into the economic model as most do. It isn't any different than when a University decides how far it can raise tuition. They factor in the expected losses from crossing some unknown threshhold of affordability for some students. It is pretty common.
As for a better recurring source of money that cuts across broad socio-economic classes, I would suggest increased beer, wine, and hard liquor tax. Starbucks has demonstrated that you can raise prices with little or no loss of business. Alcohol is a commodity that most people expect to be somewhat more expensive than water. I doubt you'd drive many drinkers away if you raised taxes about the equivalent of $.25 to $.50 per glass or individual drink.
Posted by: trishka | Aug 10, 2007 11:52:34 AM
Alcohol is a commodity that most people expect to be somewhat more expensive than water.
only in america. in parts of europe, restaurants include wine with your meal, but charge for water. gotta love it.
Posted by: mrfearless47 | Aug 10, 2007 12:00:23 PM
triska writes:
"only in america. in parts of europe, restaurants include wine with your meal, but charge for water. gotta love it."
I must be visiting the wrong restaurants in Europe. I keep getting charged for potable water and for wine.
Posted by: lestatdelc | Aug 10, 2007 12:10:17 PM
Interesting point made today over at Think Progress about the false assertion made up-thread that taxes on cigarettes doesn't reduce smoking:
A USA Today report “finds that higher state taxes on smokers have produced sharp declines in consumption. The amount of decline in smoking is directly tied to the size of the tax increase.” Some examples:
– Cigarette sales fell 18% in North Carolina last year after the tax was raised in two steps to 35 cents from a nickel.
– Connecticut has increased its tax to $1.51 from 50 cents per pack in 2002. Since then, per capita consumption of cigarettes has fallen 37%.
– New Jersey raised its tax to $2.40 from 80 cents in 2002. Smoking has dropped 35%.
By contrast, South Carolina has kept its lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax at 7 cents, and cigarette consumption there has fallen only 5 percent since 2000. Congress is currently considering raising the federal cigarette tax as a way to pay for expanded government health care for children.
Posted by: lestatdelc | Aug 10, 2007 12:11:52 PM
Doh... Posted by: Jon | Aug 10, 2007 8:52:17 AM posted the same thing I did.
Posted by: Kari Chisholm | Aug 10, 2007 12:35:08 PM
Any of the "let's tax fatty food!" people planning on answering my questions? Or did they scare you all off that point?
Posted by: Eric J. | Aug 10, 2007 1:14:28 PM
There already is a fatty food tax, Kari, in Canada (or something close to it) - It's called a Goods and Services Tax (known as GST by the locals). In the State of Washington, it's known as the sales tax - the one that gets tacked onto your meals and burgers when you order them up in a fast food restraunt. Glad we don't have that one in Oregon.
Just my two cets on that...now back to your regular postings about M50...
Posted by: Kevin | Aug 10, 2007 2:41:44 PM
Kari,
The questions were off point in that they didn't address the regressivity issue, which was my sole point of contention.
BTW the log-in trick of clicking the "remember personal info" box doesn't work for me and, without scrolling back up to double-check..., I think Pete said he'd tried it to and it hadn't worked.
Obviously it hasn't stopped me from commenting here. But I figure you'd want to know 'cause you undoubtedly already know that navigability is crucial to building and maintaining traffic to any web site.
Posted by: torridjoe | Aug 10, 2007 2:50:38 PM
So forgive me if I recoil when someone on this site starts talking about raising taxes on the "wealthy" since by any criteria, your family and mine are in the upper 2%^ of wage earners, but are nowhere near rich or wealthy by any objective criteria espoused here.
earning more than 98% of American households doesn't make you anywhere near rich? Come again?
4 out of 5 households in this state don't even make as much as $80K, much less 200K.
I'm not sure what kind of sympathy you're seeking, but anybody pulling down more than 100K in Oregon well deserves the label "rich."
Posted by: Steven Maurer | Aug 10, 2007 3:21:23 PM
You'd think so, torridjoe. But 100K doesn't get you anywhere near as far in NYC or the Bay Area. Further, rich is a relative term. Compared to Africa, we're ALL rich. Hell, even homeless people in the U.S. have nearly universal access to safe drinking water, parasite abatement, and a minimum-wage job that will feed you.
Maybe it's just me, but I think that attacking people for "wealth" is as as mindless and counterproductive as attacking "government spending". Both gloss over crucial distinctions that extremists don't want considered.
I have no problem genuinely deserved economic success and no problem with government spending on bridges, or health care. What I do have a problem with is wealth derived from corruption, fraud, or predation on vulnerable citizenry, and government spending on no-bid contracts, and bombs to make useless holes in the desert.
If we simply focused on making government spending good spending, and taxes good taxes (discouraging self-destructive behavior, compensating for the true cost of externalities, and removing loopholes for filthy-rich plutocrats), our nation would be in much better financial condition, even if the tax rate stayed exactly the same. If we didn't punish "the rich" at all.
Posted by: trishka | Aug 10, 2007 3:44:17 PM
the point that (i believe) mrfearless is trying to make is not that it matters whether you call people who make over $200K/year "wealthy" or "upper-middle class".
the issue is that within that 2% of the population there is a huge disparity in tax burden, in that people at the lower end pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes than anyone else, while those at the upper end, the truly super-wealthy, pay practically nothing. so "tax the wealthy" more can mean a lot of things.
it can mean raising the tax burden on people who already pay more than anyone else, percentage-wise, or it can mean raising the burden on the people who *really* have a lot of money, and pay practically nothing at all.
that's the problem with how horrendously skewed the income and wealth distribution is in this country, it's hard to get an accurate picture of what's going on at the upper end.
and yes, we're all wealthy compared to people in developing nations.
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Posted by: Kevin | Aug 9, 2007 1:06:36 PM
The numbers support him because only a small minority of Oregonians smoke, and those are statistically tilted towards the bottom of the economic and educational ladders.
Ironically, while the number of smokers continues to slowly decline, the number of those who are overweight continues to rise... But eating fattening, under-nutritional foods such as fastfoods appears to be distributed much more evenly across the socioeconomic spectrum. Which explains why an emerging and growing contributor to health care needs of poor kids wasn't targeted. Some of US might have to pay it...
I continue to be amazed at how many self-described "progressives" seem so supportive of such a patently regressive funding source.