Oregonian Endorses Measures 49, 50
The Oregonian today endorsed both Measure 49 and Measure 50 in separate editorials focusing on the personal stories of two Oregonians. The first editorial supporting Measure 49 centers on developer John D Gray, known for developing the Skamania, Salishan and Sunriver resorts:
After property-rights Measure 37 passed three years ago, it got Gray's goat to hear property owners claim they'd lost millions under Oregon's land-use laws. (As of last week, roughly 7,000 claimants had filed for $19.7 billion in compensation from state and local governments.)It also made him angry to see the state's land-use agency, cities and counties sheepishly go along with such exorbitant claims. "That's just wrong," he says. "Wrong policy, wrong interpretation."
Since there's no money to pay off these property owners, they were instead demanding the right to develop strip malls, mines, quarries, other commercial and industrial projects and huge subdivisions on farm and forest land. Gray set out to discover whether such extravagant claims of loss had any basis in reality.
He and/or the Gray Family Fund have helped to finance three studies now by the American Land Institute, Georgetown University and Oregon State University. Using different methods, all three showed Oregon farmers, far from losing money under Oregon's land-use system, have generally enjoyed handsome returns on their investments in land and farming.
Measure 49 on the November ballot revises Measure 37 to curtail exaggerated claims of loss. Under the measure, compensation in the form of building rights could still be awarded, but it would have to be based on documented losses, not imaginary ones. Measure 49 is fair, though, ensuring property owners can build a few houses, more in some cases (four to 10) if they can show losses of corresponding magnitude.
By supporting Measure 49, we can keep our eyes fixed on the far horizon. We won't have Gray as our guide forever, but if we choose wisely, we can always have the Oregon he helped create:
A place built to last.
The Oregonian then gives a strong endorsement of Measure 50:
Confused about Measure 50?The tobacco industry is counting on it. The makers of Camels and Marlboros have spent a staggering sum in a cynical bid to keep voters from passing the cigarette tax increase Oregon needs to provide health care for more than 100,000 uninsured children.
Cigarette makers in faraway states have jammed Oregon airwaves with a $10 million barrage of increasingly disingenuous ads. They show adult actors pretending to fume about constitutional amendments and "unsustainable government programs," while carefully avoiding what Measure 50 is really about.
It's about choosing between cheap cigarettes or health care for kids such as Ellie Leach.Remember Ellie? We told her story last spring, but you won't see her in the cigarette makers' ads. Big Tobacco doesn't care about her. Nor does it care about the Oregon Constitution or the "unsustainable programs" it harps on in its insincere ad blitz.
The editorial focuses on the story of one Oregon girl struggling without health insurance:
The Clackamas County girl was born with a bilateral cleft lip. As a baby, she got the surgery she needed because her low-income family was covered then by the Oregon Health Plan. But later, by the time Ellie developed severe dental complications related to her surgery, her parents were earning a little more and were ineligible for state coverage.Ellie's parents simply couldn't afford health insurance. Nor did they have the $6,000 it would cost for her dental operation.
When we first visited Ellie's home last March, she had been suffering for months and her mother, Amanda, was in despair. Every few hours Amanda would give over-the-counter pain medication to Ellie, but still there were times when the 3-year-old would say, "Ow, Mommy, my teeth hurt."
Last week we returned to the home and found that Ellie, now 4, was doing better. A relative of the Leaches had agreed to co-sign a loan for the $6,000, and Ellie got her dental work.
She'll need more as she gets older, though. Her parents have no idea how they'll pay for it.
Ellie Leach is the true face of Measure 50. It's not perfect, but it's infinitely preferable to leaving 114,000 children like her without health insurance.
Read the rest of the Measure 49, and Measure 50 editorials. Will the Oregonian's endorsement sway some voters' minds?
Discuss.
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Oct. 21, 2007
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10:58 a.m.
Oct 21, '07
Neither of which the vast majority of Oregonians will spend a dime on if M50 is passed/not passed.
It's easy to criticize Big Tobacco's ads for "carefully avoiding what Measure 50 is really about" while yourself carefully avoiding the context of how M50 would work. How is that not a textbook example of demagoguery?
11:57 a.m.
Oct 21, '07
I was surprised when The Gresham Outlook came out for Measure 50.
I'm still waiting to see what they're going to say about Measure 49. They had a story about both some time back, but I can't recall if it was actually an oppose/support editorial or not. And thus far I haven't located it on their web site.
Oct 21, '07
I was at a small store, discussing with the owner what this measure does to his business. The gentleman opens his store at 7 am and closes at 10 pm, seven days a week he is building his American dream. He is a foreigner, I am not certain of the nationality.
He told me he makes a dollar on the sale of a carton of cigarettes while the state government makes $11.80. He said he makes a bit more selling single packs, but nowhere near the $1.18 per pack the state makes. He knows his customers will find alternative means to obtain their cigarettes and that leaves him working long hours for even less profit. He bitterly asked me who has the greater interest in the tobacco selling business thesmall business owner or the state?
He made some good points, he came here and invested everything he had in this small neighborhood store hoping for a better life for himself and his family. I guess he chose the wrong type of business.
Oct 21, '07
Wow, alijane, your story reads like it came straight out of my voter's pamphlet, the one where tobacco vendors join tobacco manufacturers to tell us how terrible Measure 50 is. I would suggest to your new immigrant friend that there are more productive ways (in every sense of the word) of making money in America than profiting off the sale of carcinogens. Also, while your friend makes a profit off cigarettes (one that seems inline with typical retailer profit margins for most goods), the state takes a loss on his sale. We may get $1.18 in taxes, but we lose over $7 (2002 CDC study) in health costs and lost productivity with each pack sold. When the societal costs (read "externalities") of a product are not priced into the sale of a product, that's a market failure, which is a reasonable place for a governmental body to step in, such as with taxes.
7:11 p.m.
Oct 21, '07
alijane,
The kind of struggle you describe has been going on in the U.S. for nearly 200 years, when the first evangelical Christian antecedents of today's liberal public health and social protective regulations and the first U.S. trade unions developed. If you study the details of local and state politics you will find them replete with examples of small business people whose margins are hit by regulations on where and under what conditions alcohol and tobacco are to be sold, unadulterated and fresh food, structurally safe and sanitary tenements and other rental properties, safe and sanitary working conditions in small manufacturing shops and "home work" piece labor supplying such shops, and on and on.
I have sympathy for this man's (and probably his family's) hard work. In a sense businesses like his are economically addicted to their customers' nicotine addictions. But the cultural tide has turned against smoking, and business people will need to adjust to that just as clothiers have had to adjust to declining popularity of men's hats.
When push comes to shove I just cannot say it would be fairer to lower the price of tobacco by cutting or eliminating taxes, in order to encourage sales for this kind of business's benefit. That would increase the numbers and sufferings of nicotine addicts whose drug is delivered through combustion of toxic tubes of organic matter. Forced to choose, I think it is fairer raise the price and cut down on such addiction and suffering, even if it causing such businesses to suffer.
I've voted yes on 50 for reasons like those outlined by John Kitzhaber, but I believe that Kevin is right, and this is an unfair way to pay for something we all should pay for. But I would also support raising the tobacco tax as much or more, if all of its proceeds were dedicated to smoking prevention and cessation.
One possible approach to a solution for such local small stores would be to develop policies that would subsidize them for being vehicles for health promotion. New York City and a couple of other places have started programs that give tax benefits or direct subsidies to small stores to carry fresh healthy foods in poorer neighborhoods not adequately served by full service groceries easily available to people with limited money, time and transportation. Lack of such healthy food access is a significant contributor to diet related health problems such as cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
A coordinated positive approach to structural elements of chronic health problems that also served to build community strength could include 1) support for healthy food supply, taxation of tobacco and alcohol 2) networks of local preventively oriented clinics staffed by nurse practitioners, nurses and health coaches, able to provide basic well child services, immunizations for children, elders and others, and adult advice and support for behavior change around diet, exercise, smoking and other addictions, and referrals for early stage treatment of developing conditions, and 3) networks of local opportunities for healthy physical activity and recreation.
Portland's Parks Bureau goes a significant way toward providing an infrastructure for #3 above, and schools are beginning to do so as well. It is not an accident that the Parks Bureau is well regarded by the public, as it contributes to the quality of many people's lives.
Anyway, much of this could be done in ways that support local small businesses.
7:43 p.m.
Oct 21, '07
M50 doesn't seriously attempt to recover the difference. In fact, it doesn't seriously attempt to recover much of any of the direct costs. All it really does is to shift some recovery into other areas that won't put any appreciable dent in the continued incurrance of said societal costs.
If recovering or mitigating the cited societal costs were really important then wouldn't it make a great deal more sense to plow REAL money into cessation efforts instead of the token trickle that is the status quo?
Isn't it self-evident that proponents of M50 don't WANT those societal costs to go away because in so doing they would bankrupt their own funding scheme?
Oct 21, '07
No. That's not even close to being self-evident. And arguing against something good because it doesn't go far enough is pretty unconvincing in my book.
7:55 p.m.
Oct 21, '07
Well, I'm a proponent of M50, and I would be very pleased to see the number of smokers go down, reducing those societal costs. We'll figure something else out if we have to, to keep providing health insurance for kids. But I personally would be thrilled to see smoking rates come down.
Oct 21, '07
So I am a big supporter of measure 50 even have canvassed for healthy kids this summer. What happened to my water polo team this fall really made me support measure 50 more. A couple of my teammates went to a smoke shop when they turned 18 and brought this new type of snuff that is really powerful and while they liked said they would never do it again because its to expensive. The same logic applies to measure 50. Long time smokers will contuine to smoke its a fact of life. But we can stop new smokers from getting addicted. While some think its unfair to tax smokers more I disagree. Like the CDC study cited in this thread showed smokers cost soceity more becuase of thier decision. They decided to smoke and now I have to pay more because of the health costs incurred becuase of smokers. Measure 50 will help reduce the amount of new smokers which is as good as we can hope for while pouring some money into tobacco prevention and health care for the poor. When I get sick I go the doctor and get medicine. I have a really bad cold right now but my health insurance enabled me to get some really strong cough medicine so I was able to got to a speech tournament and get 1st place. Without the medicine I would have been to sick to go the tournament. No kid should be forced to miss school or extracuilers because his family is too poor to afford medicine.
8:46 p.m.
Oct 21, '07
Stephanie, if all or even most of the monies raised by M50 went directly to smoking cessation efforts (education, ad campaigns, school campaigns, etc) then I would never have voice any opposition to it in the first place. That would be one scenario where I'm absolutely fine with regressive taxation because it would be very much akin to teaching a person how to fish rather than giving him/her a fish. The very disadvantaged people being taxed would be directly benefitted and arguably would be financially better off in the long run to boot.
Unfortunately I don't see ANY meaningful desire to seriously reduce smoking on the part of those who brought us M50 nor those who are leading it's campaign.
Citing the societal costs of smoking as justification for M50 strikes me as essentally the same thing as BushCo retroactively justifying the Iraq War on the basis of wanting to help Iraqis. The claimed causes may be good and worthwhile, but they are clearly not why either was brought in the first place nor are either more than token justifications for continuing the respective campaigns.
9:12 p.m.
Oct 21, '07
Undoubtedly a few will be dissuaded from picking up the habit due to higher prices. But most of them will most likely just delay it briefly until they can better afford to pay the prices, as the linked study indicates.
9:56 p.m.
Oct 21, '07
but the relationship between age at start and smoking addiction is very strong, Kevin. The more you delay, the less likely you start. PM and RJR have internal memos showing how very disturbed they were by reductions in youth smoking as a result of tobacco taxes. They're noted in the voter's guide.
10:25 p.m.
Oct 21, '07
TJ, from the linked study:
Compounding that is data on what age different ethnic groups initiate smoking. Both Caucasian and African American women have identical smoking rates. Yet Caucasian women pickup the habit at a younger age than African American women do. The later group don't initiate smoking until they are nearly 20 years old. Which means that using high prices (or even school-based education) to dissuade teenagers from starting is almost entirely lost upon them. Yet their adult smoking rate is identical to that of Caucasian women.
Oct 22, '07
"We'll figure something else out if we have to, to keep providing health insurance for kids. But I personally would be thrilled to see smoking rates come down." Thanks Stephanie V for coming right out and stating the liberal line!
I want it, it makes me feel good, it should help out, if it gets too costly we'll just figure out another way to pay for it.......
I call that the Scarlett O'Hara school of political thought. Fiddle dee-dee, I'll worry about that tomorrow.
Your so cogently written thoughts are EXACTLY what is wrong with M50 and why most thyinking voters will mark "NO" on their ballots. I am FOR better access to helathcare for all. I am FOR reduced smoking, especially in those under 25. Linking the two via a regressive tax on tobacco is foolhardy and doomed to failure.
Oct 22, '07
One question about M49 that I have delayed asking until now: What about those of us who do not own any property or never will get any chance to own any property? I feel that I am sticking my nose into someone elses business (where it does not belong) by voting on M49. I have no dog in the fight, yet I am being asked to tell those who have propety what to do when I have no stake in, or no property to say anything about it. I am compelled to vote NO on M49 because I feel I do not have the right to stick my nose into other's people's business.
And about M50, other than the constitution arguments - most of these kids have no insurance becuase their parents have no idea on how to use thier money wisely. In fact, many parents had no idea how much it costs to have a kid and shouldn't have had one in the first place. Why should I shell out money for a situation that isn't my fault to begin with?
I guess it's vote NO on everything....
Oct 22, '07
Eric, you had lunch today, didn't you? That came from a farm. There's your stake in passing 49.
As for 50, if you believe in punishing children for their parents' failings, and feel no responsibility to any greater good, then there's probably nothing I can say that will change your mind. If you're merely confused, you might want to review the above discussion on "externalities" for a good reason to vote Yes.
Oct 22, '07
This product needs to be banned. The cost to society as pointed out here is high, so why kill it with a thousand taxes - why not just ban cigarettes and be done with it?
That was my thought during the hearing in Congress, ban them. The states allow cigarettes to be sold exactly as they have always been made even though they know the cigarettte companines manipulate the nicotine levels and add chemicals to make the even more addictive. It seems to me the state sold out their citizens for $$$. That to me is disgusting. The states are on no higher ground then the cigarette companies.
Oct 22, '07
Yes, I had lunch. But it still does not answer why I should stick my nose into something that isn't my business to start with. Don't we do get items from farms in other states as well? What they do with their farms is none of my busness either. Until I own some land, I have no dog in the fight (so I have been told).
Oct 22, '07
Alijane:
This product needs to be banned. The cost to society as pointed out here is high, so why kill it with a thousand taxes - why not just ban cigarettes and be done with it?
Bob T:
If tobacco becomes a criminalized item, it will become a black market item and get taken away from the BATF and given to the lovely DEA. Will there be T-shirst sold with tobacco leaf images on them? Do you really want to see tobacco become illegal? Would you advocate making it illegal even if it can be grown in pre-manipulated form?
One of the advantages mj has over tobacco from a free society, individualistic standpoint is that it can be grown in small quantities indoors etc, which is why the tobacco companies support keeping mj illegal. If that becomes legal, the tobacco companies will not be able to be the major suppliers of it because people can grown their own, unlike tobacco.
But anyway, I think your hatred for tobacco is based on corporation bashing rather then the tobacco itself.
Bob Tiernan
Oct 22, '07
Eric J.:
You are a citizen of Oregon (at least I hope you are, otherwise you shouldn't be voting on M49). That is your stake. All citizens of Oregon are stakeholders in how development changes Oregon's economy, environment and livability.
As a resident and voter, you are one of the stewards of Oregon. Excercise good stewardship.
Oct 22, '07
I found the Oregonian editorials unpersuasive and a little insulting. I'll be voting no for both measures. I don't like M49 since I prefer to maintain as many property rights as possible. And I don't like M50 since the existing entitlement programs are already dragging us towards bankruptcy so why add another one.
Oct 22, '07
unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk unsk
Oct 22, '07
I have a question for all of those who are for measure 50. Why should we increase taxes and spending when every county in Oregon has a health clinic. Over a decade ago when my son was young and needed to see a doctor for an ear infection, immunization, or stitches; I used the Multnomah County health clinics for care. I didn't have to go to a private doctor or an Emergency room. We should be publicizing the availability of good medical care.
Oct 22, '07
I forgot to add, that if society feels that children need access to private doctors at the higher cost, then why doesn't society share the burden for the costs.
Oct 22, '07
I agree, soociety should share the burden. Raising tobacco taxes is a poor substitute for the federally funded health system we need. But in practical terms it's all we can do right now, so we should do it. The choice we face isn't Measure 50 or health-care utopia. It's Measure 50 or nothing. Clinics serving the poor are facing a double whammy of funding shortfalls and increased clientele. This will enable them to continue giving the kind of care you received for a little longer.
Oct 22, '07
Yes, I would vote to ban cigarettes. Don't they already become a blackmarket commodity when the taxes are high? It rings hollow to this voter to say tax the product that causes so much harm to make people quit. It just doesn't make any sense to me. The cost of health care will never be re-couped if people are allowed to continue to smoke.
The day the legislature refers a ban to the ballot I will vote for it, but I won't vote to tax addicts, no matter how good the clause.
3:58 p.m.
Oct 22, '07
Excellent question. Google it and you'll find that New York has a long and sordid history with that very problem.
Oct 23, '07
OddsyGirl:
I'll assume for the moment that your question is sincere -- though it looks for all the world like anti-M50 talking point. Here's the problem:
If 100,000 kids started going to the county health department in the 36 counties, that's 2,778 kids per county. Now if we assume that each child was only sick twice per year and only went to one check-up per year, that would be 8,334 appointments per year, per county.
That's about 250 appointments per day, or if the clinic is open 12 hours, about 15 simulatneous appointments at any given moment. That means the county clinics would have to employ at least 15 nurse practictioners or doctors (if they're willing to work 12 hour days with no breaks). It also means that they would have to expand their facilities to add a lot of exam rooms, waiting area, parking, etc.
In order to provide adequate care, most of the clinics would have to add diagnostic machines (like X-ray, CT, etc.). They would also have to add labs for blood tests, UA, and so forth. They'd end up looking like medium-sized community hopsitals.
Could you convince the voters to increase their property taxes enough to pay it? If I were a voter in one of these counties, I'd ask "why should the county take my money to build and staff a facility that is already available in the private sector?"
And what do you do with the 100,000 children while you're building the clinic and trying to find the doctors and nurses?
Oct 23, '07
Oops. Big math error. 8,334 appointments per year is only about 35 appointments per day. So divide all the subsequent numbers by 7.5. In the end, there's the same basic problem, though.
<h2>Where does the money come from to provide health care for 100,000 additional kids? The county health departments barely have the capacity to provide the services they're currently being asked to provide. Without more resources, they couldn't tale on the additional burden. So we'd have to increase taxes to get them more resources.</h2>