From the Leader of the Stupid People

Bush hails the defeat of Measure 50

The president is out of line when he interprets Oregon's vote as support for his veto of a children's health bill


(from the Oregonian-Monday, November 19, 2007)

In its $12 million campaign to bring down Oregon's Measure 50, Big Tobacco's strategists created a dense fog of ominous warning about the proposal to raise cigarette taxes.

They claimed that it would irresponsibly amend the state constitution. That it would be fiscally unsustainable. That it would be unfair to low-income smokers. That it would lead to the taxing of other products.

Not once, however, did the tobacco ad blitz ever claim Measure 50 would mean excessive spending on children's health care. Yet that didn't stop President Bush last week from shamelessly asserting that defeat of the measure showed Oregonians to be fed up with overspending by Democrats.

Oregon voters, he said last Tuesday in a speech in Indiana, "rejected the plan to raise tobacco taxes to further enlarge a government health program."

The president is entitled to crow about Measure 50's defeat. His side won, and the victory was a blow to congressional Democrats' goal of raising federal tobacco taxes to help expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP.

But Bush distorted the truth in his interpretation of the vote. Oregonians rejected Measure 50 not because it was too spendy but because they were swayed by the tobacco industry's misleading claim that most of the increase in cigarette tax revenue would not go to children's health as promised.

That may have been the single most influential attack on Measure 50. If not, it was certainly the most dishonest attack.

Yes, of course, most of the new revenue would not go directly to children's insurance during the program's first phase. How could it? Enrolling tens of thousands of uninsured kids would take months; much of the initial new cigarette revenue would have to be held in reserve.

After the Nov. 6 trouncing of Measure 50, Bush got on the phone and reportedly congratulated Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., the only member of Oregon's congressional delegation to oppose the SCHIP bill, which the president vetoed last month. Bush should be more influenced instead by a different Oregon Republican, Sen. Gordon Smith, one of the most persistent voices in Congress in support of increasing spending for the children's health program by $35 billion over five years.

One of the anti-50 campaign's fascinating successes was the splintering of Oregon's political left. Already furious with Bush for eroding the constitutional balance of powers and for vetoing SCHIP expansion, many socially progressive Oregon voters were open to Big Tobacco's dire warnings about tampering with the state constitution and taxing smokers to pay for health care that the state general fund should provide.

Tobacco strategists skillfully channeled that liberal anger into a drumbeat that always began: "I'm all for children's health care, but . . .."
Bush may be right that Americans, like Oregonians, aren't enthusiastic about raising federal cigarette taxes to help provide children's health care. But he's dead wrong to interpret that as support for his refusal to insure more needy kids.