October 5, 2007
Continuing to Fight
Bil sent me a link to a protest MoveOn Chicago had organized in response to Bush’s recent appalling SCHIP veto, so I headed on down last night to take part. Initially I’d intended to write a little play-by-play in the manner of my Ira Glass post, but frankly at the moment it’s a little hard to take a glass-half-full attitude about the current situation in our country. It brings me no end of misery at the realization that we have just barely under a year-and-a-half remaining with our current president; thus I believe ours is the generation that will see the collapse of this great nation, save the scenario in which we stop treating democracy like a spectator sport.
I will say this, however: I was greatly encouraged by the sheer volume of supportive honking from passing drivers, not to mention the presence of several resident physicians from UIC and Northwestern. Please, please contact your representative and urge them to vote to overturn Bush’s veto in two weeks. Please.
[EDIT: This clip of the fantastic Rachel Maddow going up against Pat Buchanan must be seen. Excellent!]
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Filed by Trevor at 8:32 am under GOP, Politics, Fightin' Words, Activism
So…I know this post is ancient, but I didn’t really feel like writing a whole new post. But I was thinking about the idea of a cigarette tax to support child’s health care.
I don’t know if I like that idea. There are a lot of things that we could tax to support it, but honestly…a cigarette tax is a little unfair. For one thing, it doesn’t affect everybody, it only affects only people who regularly buy cigarettes. So while it wouldn’t really affect me, it most definitely would affect Smokey McFarmer out in rural Idaho, who is probably as hard up for cash as I am (if not moreso). Furthermore, middle-class parents whose children would be the direct recipient of the health care program are the LEAST likely people to buy cigarettes.
So…not to sound like some windbag right-wing talking head, but I can’t in good conscience support a cigarette tax for this. Tax something else. What about an outsourcing tax, where we tax big businesses that outsource their labor? What about an aesthetics tax, where we tax people who wear Ralph Lauren Polo? What about higher taxes all around, so that no one group is singled out?
Better yet, how about we take the war money and spend it on children’s health care instead?
You raise an important point about the selectiveness of the cigarette tax, especially for those who may say, “Well, people shouldn’t be smoking anyway, so they should have to pay whatever amount.” It’s not about that at all — it’s about having us all share the tax burden, particularly those who are taking advantage of SCHIP.
Take it from the Iraq spending. God. Why is Bush turning into a fiscal conservative now all of a sudden? Not the first time that question has been asked, of course, but it’s still a valid one.