So you gotta love Jay’s comment in Digby’s first DKos diary:
Digby, you’re pretty smart… (0+ / 0-)
…so I’ll ask you this:I’ve been making it my business to let those four Democrats know that at least one Democrat supports their vote. I’ve been doing so not because I oppose health care for children, but because no one had come up with a meaningful explanation of why this plan should be funded entirely on the back of tobacco smokers except for political expediency.
If you can explain why else that should be in a satisfying way, I’ll stop trying to hurt your cause. I hope you see that as a decent deal.
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false face for the urge to rule it. ~ H.L. Mencken
Jay’s question is a good one. He asked me last night. As you can see, I did not have a good answer. Anybody else have a good one?
P.S. For the record, Digby and I go back in our blogging and I admire her greatly. HEr diasry is admirable. But Jay raises a good question.
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it was the only funding mechanism the Republicans in the Senate would go for.
we get hammered a lot. It is a fair question. But in this political climate, I mean, geez, does this one get a blip on the radar? I dunno.
also the little matter of applying economic pressure on smokers in order to encourage them to stop killing themselves.
You can argue, obviously, that the government should not be in the business of trying to pressure people out of their vices but, nonetheless, this is a reason why funding via a cigarette tax is acceptable to many, if not most.
btw, I say this as a smoker, myself.
It has nothing to do with fairness.
It is what they can get away with. Gasoline and Liquor and Gambling too, of course. They know that segments of the population are hooked and will put it up with it in order to get their fix.
But Jay!
As one of the few legalized drugs in America, certainly tobacco should be taxed….just to keep it legal!
If we legalize marijuana…don’t you expect it to be very heavily taxed?
But I kinda think that’s a fair inquiry re: why smokers pay for kid’s health.
On the other hand, I’m delighted at the vote and the veto.
What political strategist wouldn’t love it?
when he came to dkos to promote SCHIP – months ago now – why in the world they were funding the program with tobacco when there was every indication that Democrats were trying to eliminate smoking and even outlaw it completely. He responded by saying that they couldn’t get people to agree to fund it any other way. It was the only tax that appealed to everyone on both sides of the aisle.
I also noted in my original comment that I thought it was in the long-term sense a very poor strategy if they wanted to end smoking because in a twisted sense that one could only find here in Washington it would protect the tobacco industry because the revenue would become too addictive to allow it to dry up.
Irony alert… I smoke. I am guessing that “Doing it for the children” will probably protect my habit from those who would outlaw it for a while longer. It is a classic Washington DC construction.
to tie children’s health care to the devasation of smoking
i don’t smoke and i don’t have the energy to go through a whole big thing
but it’s an ugly way to fund it, let me leave at that and i DO NOT and WILL NOT support
once again, the little guy gets stuck… and tobacco, targeting 14-year-olds as customers for “life” and we yet we want to punish the smoker. sometimes i am at a loss, no really, i mean it. how do people think out things…
i knew i liked that Jay Elias!
why not tax the f’king polluters and strip miners and sub prime lenders and the f’king companies that put poison in tooth paste? how about manufacturers of inherently dangerous products… like guns or alcohol or tobacco
and then i read a comment it was because the republicans would only go for it funded from add’l taxes on cigarettes
which then pisses me off because then what the hell is Michelle stupid Malkin talking about?????
christ. couldn’t we just leave this day as Al Gore winning the nobel peace prize? would that have been sooooo hard to do????
tax the smoker?
hey Jay, you’re the subject of two essays, one after the other… what’s going on??? good for you
to see a formula that would allow everyone to contribute to healthcare. Put a small tax on all bottled drinks.
I’m looking forward to universal coverage, I suppose. I think our best shot of having a decent system is to have some kind of direct contribution mechanism in place. People take ownership of a program that they feel they have a stake in. Social Security would be the best example of this…politicians will not mess with Social Security…look what happened when Bush tried to privatize it. I want the same for healthcare. I want that same commitment and oversight from the average citizen.
I think most citizens do want children to have healthcare. For that reason, everyone should have the opportunity to contribute. We should share the burden equally…and ofcourse, the equal sharing of the burden means that we find a more progressive taxing mechanism.
temple of the soul defiling filth and should have to single handedly protect and secure our nation’s most precious resource 😉
is a very generous philanthropist for cultural causes in the U.S. See recent NYT article on the adverse effects of Altria pulling out of Manhattan. Huge effect on arts organizations.
Used to be, at the bottom edge of the printed program at dance concerts would be a big thank you to Phillip Morris and now to Altria for sponsorship. Why is this? Who are better customers for smoking cigarettes than dancers?
I agree with Jay Elias.
Funding increased health care with a gimmick tax is a way of avoiding the hard work of getting it through WashingtonCulture’s thick skull that health care is a national issue, to be funded by the nation. That means: a tax on everyone.
Americans are willing, happy, eager to trade the Bush tax cut for civilized health care. It is only Beltway elitism that can’t stomach it. The gimmick tax is a way of maintaining the Beltway disconnect and illusion that we are not one nation, under God, sick to death of our health care system.
No doubt, Jay Elias and I agree for disparate reasons, but we agree.
Because that’s why Gene Taylor (D-MS) voted no.
answer the question.
Query: Why has the funding mechanism just become an issue?
doesn’t buy the funding aspects. Find other ways because while this maybe an easy sell it involves “exploitation of a mostly poor, politically worthless subset of the population resource.” Hardly Democratic-like, eh?
Spread it around in a graduated tax kinda way; luxury anythings, polutocrafts (cars, boats, aircraft, gas lawn mowers, etc.), earning increases (got a jump of 33% or more in salary last year?), corporate earnings growth out ahead of the curve, investment returns above the mean in any quarter…
Can it be non-tobacco reliant? Certainly, but that’d require a level of imagination not on display inside the beltway just now.
…it would be morally wrong of me to front-page this, wouldn’t it?
tonight on Bill Maher.
If the government taxes smoking so highly that everyone stops smoking, there will be no revenue rolling in from the tobacco taxes, so then they’ll need to look for another sin to tax. And then those sinners will stop, and there will still be no revenue, and so on.
Does anyone see an endless regress here?
what counts as “selfish”?
nothing about living is “safe.” Not even the intellectual paralysis, inculcated by American culture. Once one accepts that one cannot control death, one may begin to live fully. Besides smoking cigarettes or chewing tobacco, one might even participate in the governance of one’s own life.