Liberal Oregon hates The Chiiiiiiiildren
Well, I hope the national Democrat leadership and their S-CHIP-peddling minions are paying attention. You know that brilliant idea of funding children’s health insurance with tobacco taxes? Liberal Oregon said no yesterday, voting down a massive tobacco tax hike ballot measure to pay for government-subsidized health care:
Oregon’s working poor will have to wait a while longer to get health-care coverage for their children.
Voters easily defeated Measure 50, a plan to raise tobacco taxes to provide universal health care for children after a record-shattering negative ad campaign financed by cigarette companies.
The measure went down by a wide margin, both statewide and in Marion and Polk counties.
Dubbed the Healthy Kids Program, Measure 50 was a top priority of Gov. Ted Kulongoski and fellow Democrats in the Oregon Legislature. Democrats placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot when they couldn’t get enough Republican votes to pass it outright or submit it to voters as a simple statute.
“The tobacco industry won this battle,” Kulongoski told a somber crowd of Measure 50 supporters in Portland. “But they will not win the war.”
In Salem, pediatrician James Lace said tobacco companies ran an effective campaign, “and they outspent us 4 to 1.”
“I think it failed because people got confused by the whole issue of the constitutional amendment,” he said .
J.L. Wilson, a spokesman for the RJ Reynolds campaign to defeat the tax increase, said the tobacco companies’ $12 million budget helped, but only because it raised legitimate concerns about Measure 50.
“Ultimately I think the measure collapsed under its own weight,” Wilson said.
Supporters of the measure blame the evil tobacco industry’s ad campaign for misleading voters. But it’s S-CHIP supporters who are the manipulators. The electorate in Oregon soundly rejected the plan not because they are gullible and stupid and “confused,” but because they looked past the kiddie human shields and saw the regressive tax increase and entitlement expansion Trojan Horse for what they were:
Bad, bad ideas.
***
Related: Love this ad so much, I’m linking again:
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- Michelle Malkin » Desperate Dems play with S-CHIP again
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Categories: Graeme Frost
Sister Toldjah
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I can hear the liberal weeping WAAAYYYY over here in Illinois.
(unless that’s the Conservative weeping normally caused by having Durbin and Obama as our Reps.)
Since liberals began exploiting children they figured that nothing could stand in their way, using them to jack up taxes on tobacco or any other focus of their evil.
Even Liberal smokers don’t care about the children. If they have to spend their own money rather than someone elses they whine.
The only people that truly hate children are people who either send their children to public schools, or superintendents who claim everything is fine as drugs, guns and child molesters overrun these facilities of waste known as public schools.
Respectfully,
eric
aka the Tygrrrr Express
The very definition of “tax”.
Income tax. – WHA? I get no income from this “tax”.
Property tax. – WHA? Where is my property from the tax I pay?
Self Employment tax” WHA?
Personal Tangible Property tax. WHA?
Like saying Internal Revenue Service. What service?
Tax by its very nature is a Trojan horse.
Tax tobacco for children’s insurance and after bureaucracy gets their cut, the pigs will be looking elsewhere for more tax to feed the monster they created.
“I think it failed because people got confused…”
Right. The REAL reason is because they are a bunch of maroooooons as opposed to the fact that they were intelligent enough to know for what they were voting.
P.S. Oh, and the children will still be without.
yes, liberals have figured out a way to tax the poor in order to pay for the entitlements to the poor.
let me see, we are going to impose laws that ban smoking, cause smoking is a leading cause of death and increases the cost of health care. oh and by the way we are going to create a tax to subsidize health care for the poor by taxing one of the leading causes of health care costs!!! yeah..
and they had a problem selling that to Oregon? Gee, and they think it was because RJ Reynolds ran an effective campaign? darn those evil capitalists!
It seems to me hating your children would be to saddle them with economic liabilities. That’s why ANY inefficiently delivered service is bad. Government is not known as the most efficient provider of services.
Every 2 years California voters have been approving a bond for “Clean Water”.
Of course, those who campaigned against it where demonized for “wanting dirty water!”.
Never mind the question of “What happened to the billions we gave you two years ago?”
Hint: It wasn’t used for clean water, but rather to fund private entities to ’study’ the problem of clean water. And for government Boards comprised of legislators’ spouses, friends, etc.
I’m glad to hear that somewhere the people are catching on!
Somebody should let CA in on it –
This bit is a new one though –
I know that the state of WA already sold off its share of the tobacco settlement for cash up front a few years ago, but selling off the lotto? That’s a new one. I seem to remember the CA lottery was approved in the 80’s as a means to fund education.
If you love children, pay for their health care yourselves. It’s that simple. Don’t force others to pay for your own liability.
And I can’t help but agree with Eric (Tygrrr).
The knuckle-dragging troglodytes from the very blue state of New Jersey also voted against public funding for stem-cell research, despite last-minute pleas from Michael J. Fox.
Another take.
Many rural parts of Oregon are pretty impoverished. In some cases it was like stepping into a third world country. Very sad.
I also noticed that there were many more smokers then I see here in California.
In Oregon you are not allowed to pump your own gas as a motorist because allowing others to pump gas creates jobs.
As Blue as Oregan is (and when I say blue, Portand and Ashland come to mind) , you can’t ignore the fact that if you are going to be making a significant financial impact on your voter base – no matter what the bill is, it just simply will not pass. No matter how many childrens faces you put up there.
Fact is, this bill will be crippling financially those who probably do NOT even have healthcare themselves (or even a job) so that liberals in that State can feel warm and fuzzy!
Well, if it’s for the children…
Besides, maybe now I can have multiple random breaks througout the work day like my smoking co-workers.
Isn’t Oregon majorly, overwhelmingly liberal? Are the measure 50 folks calling fellow Dems confused and unable to comprehend the issue?
Can’t pump your own gas in NJ either, feebs.
Oregon is not Overwhelmingly liberal. however, the majority of the population is around large cities and College campuses..hmmm.
Clovis, Eugene, Portland, and Ashland.
Those are all VERY liberal. Ashland is like a little berkeley.
But many of the rural districts are pretty red. From what I saw, anyway.
#16 – interesting.
The liberal Trojan Horse: Children as victims and taxing the crap out of the parents.
It’s all Rove’s fault, lol
Feebiebabe – basically the cities and areas near the coast are heavily liberal but the further inland you go the redder it gets.
Soap is in Florida and they can pump my gas when they pry the nozzle from my cold dead hands.
As a resident of Marion County, Oregon, it is nice to see common sense prevail. It is unusual for those of us with a conservative mindset to overcome the Socialist Republic of Portland in the political arena, so when it does occur, we celebrate.
Rock on, Soap!
at $3.00 a gallon here they should pump my gas, the ##$^^%#$!!!.
If they did AJ, you would be paying $3.50 per gallon.
$3 for gas.
$0.05 for the new employee
$0.45 for the bureaucracy to get they new employee his new job (and 3 drivers licenses).
This is a typical liberal agenda at work. It’s okay to tax other state smokers to pay for our healthcare, but it’s not okay for us to pay for it. Elitism.
#27 – just to clarify, the coastal comment came from Defector responding to me.
I am not sure because I’ve never been to the Coast in Oregon. I can tell you that the larger cities Ashland, Clovis, Eugene, and Portland are without a doubt liberal. My encounters with people in Merlin, Medford, specifically ,,,I can tell you those areas were pretty red.
I have no idea how that ommision got by their editors…
Living in OR, I can offer a few tidbits to add some perspective on this.
1). The bill largely failed owing to the huge spending by tobacco companies to defeat it. (The opponents outspent the proponents significantly)
2). In the political sense, there really are 2 ‘Oregons’:
a). the urban, larger cities, which are overwhelmingly dominated by Democratic or even third-party people and
b). rural, small-town conservative Oregon.
FYI – In parts of rural Oregon they often refer to Portland in a derogatory way – “The Great State of Portland”. Other bastions of progressivism include: Eugene, Salem, Ashland, etc – each for their own specific reasons and circumstances.
3). Recall, that we have 1 Dem Senator (Wyden, from the Portland area) and 1 Rep Senator (Smith, from NE OR).
And, our US Representative situation is also somewhat mixed as well.
HTH
And btw, I’m been claiming to be a better American because I smoke for years…
I smoke because I care.
#14 Thanks for the memory! The gas station attendant pumped gas, washed windshields, checked tire pressure and oil level. Gas was rationed during WWII and the military had unequivocal support.
This is OT, but our grandson in Iraq is very aware what the Dems are doing and it makes me sick.
Taxes are normally coded as statutes, not written into the constitution. We knew the day would come when not enough people were smoking and funding would be mandated under this measure, preventing us from stopping any other tax increase through the legislative or initiative process (constitutional initiatives require more signatures than ballot measures). Gov. K’s blame on the cig companies shows his contempt for those of us living outside the Salem/Portland iron curtain who saw through this scheme.
I loved that ad because it cut right to the truth on how stupid Congress was with the funding on this.
Although I suffer from asthma, pretty badly, I guess I should start smoking for the sake of my son and daughter. Getting health care for them far outweighs the future health problems I’ll suffer.
About the price of gas, I convinced my wife that a Harley-Davidson would save a lot of gas. That might work for you other guys, too.
tre, where do you reside?
It’s cold here in NJ…I wish my husband would.
Gramma, thats what I’m saying for the price here in cal. they should do all those services. As soon as you cross in to Arizona , instant 50+ cent drop in price. so.cal gets hosed you might say.
I live in God’s country.
OKLAHOMA!
As an Oregonian, I voted “no” on 50 because of its ham-handed attempt to rewrite the state constitution. The legislature here has tried and failed before to follow the ordinary voter approval procedure for raising taxes for its socialist fantasies, and the voters have thumped them repeatedly.
So this time, they decided to do an end-run around the voter approval requirement and tried to snooker us instead into sticking a product-specific tax directly into the constitution.
Too clever by half, as they say.
That’s a pretty good summation – except for the “Clovis” part (I think it’s a reference to Corvallis, which I wouldn’t describe as a particularly liberal town). I’d describe Oregon as a handful of deep blue islands surrounded by a sea of red. But as the Portland metro area has perhaps more than half the state’s population, it forces the issues to go lib most every time.
But not this time…
Oregon is a bit like Washington State. The big cities, full of people who rely upon the state for their livelyhood (gov. workers, students, the deserving poor) vote liberal. The rest of the state, full of people who have to deal with reality every day, is pretty conservative.
The big cities, though, in both states swing a lot of the votes to the left. But I could see where there might be a difference here (some people are going to hate me for saying this).
Both Eugene and Portland (liberal Meccas) are know for their large, powerful homosexual populations (Eugene is just chock full of large, power lesbians). Many homosexuals smoke and most don’t have kids. You do the math. And don’t say that I’m gay-bashing. I have had plenty of gay friends and one of the things that I heard them gripe about most is paying for the public education of the state’s children when they don’t intend to have any children of their own. Can’t say that I blame them.
I’m just saying maybe…
Oh, and speaking of voting…
Support Your Local Blogger (true, she’s no James Garner, but he’s no Michell Malkin either).
I’ve just got to respond to feebiebabe’s #14:
“Many rural parts of Oregon are pretty impoverished. In some cases it was like stepping into a third world country. Very sad.”
I am 50 years old, very conservative, and have lived in Oregon all my life. In fact in Portland. I’ve been everywhere in Oregon, and I’m here to tell you that feebiebabe’s statement is absolute crap.
I challenge feebiebabe to tell me exactly where in Oregon people are dying of malnutrition. Where exactly in Oregon are people literally dying from NO medical care and NO appropriate treatment with drugs? Where exactly in Oregon can you show me people living in hovels with no potable drinking water and no way to get it? Where in Oregon are people dying of malaria or cholera?
You know what’s sad? You are sad with your over-the-top ridiculous comparisons that don’t have anything to do with reality. It must be very nice in your community in the Golden State if you are so inexperienced in your contact with poor folk that you can’t tell the difference between poor Americans who yet still live and thrive compared to real third-world country poor who die from starvation and from illnesses unknown to even America’s poorest citizens.
So stop spreading this ridiculous idea that there are pockets of “third world” poverty and destitution in Oregon and maybe next time you visit your neighboring state to the north, you can deign to cast your holier-than-thou gaze a little closer and find out how the wee poor folk manage to get along fine and are PROUD of their own efforts. In the rural areas of Oregon the crying, sucking-off-the-state-teat types are fewer than you imagine. In fact, I’m sure they’re the ones that helped defeat Measure 50 so solidly because it was a ridiculous proposition. They may be poor, but they’re not stupid.
Have you checked the hovels in your own state lately? Possibly where you come from the stupid outnumber the poor.
Aaagghh. And now I see you’ve published a later post admitting that you’ve never even been to the Oregon Coast. Try to pick a subject next time wherein you have some actual knowledge to impart instead of sensational hyperbole.
Go OU!
I suppose that with the tobacco tax shot down, they will next try the lottery.
FWIW, Did you mean U of O, home of the Ducks (and the only part of that univerity that I can say I’m proud of)?
Or Oklahoma University, per tre in #37?
The latter…
Sorry.
Regulus –
Yes, I did mean Corvallis. Thanks for the good catch.
(Clovis is here in California) -
Here’s a thought:
If you have kids, you have the responsibility (There’s that R word that some people just despise!) to provide insurance for them.
Don’t make the rest of us pay it for you.
Boomer Sooner !!!
Oregon State Beavers 06 and 07 college baseball world series champs, thought I’d throw some love.
Didn’t they get it handed too them in the Big 12 Championship on ‘03?
OK-U!
Always wondered… Which part of that fight song is the verse, and which part is the refrain?
Not nice swj. Keep the gloves up.
Thanks aj. Both my kiddos are Oregon State students. Nice to have something to be proud of on the National stage!
30 pcs of silver
I graduated OU’s rival, OSU, Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, OK. The OSU Cowboys.
I like to say that God likes OSU because Psalms 23 says “He leadeth me beside Stillwater.”
Sylvia Marie – thank you for your spirited and civil debate.
Californian’s get the “arrogant” statements a lot. I am going to let your tone and your accusations speak for themselves. I am not into the whole “State” war thing, never was and to tell you the truth, I never understood it.
I don’t think it is necessary to sit here and elaborate on my third world country comment. Other than to say if it was not meant to be pejorative to the poor or ALL Oregonians for that matter. Apology extended.
Really Marie, I never said people there were stupid. I never said EVERYONE was poor. I never said anything about potable water.
I can’t really say anything else here for fear of looking like a real jerk. I would like to mention that I’ve visited your State and I have friends there . I’ve driven all over your state(except the coast) and every city I’ve mentioned I’ve been actually been to. These were MY observations.
As far as being full of crap…I get that a lot. Thanks for setting me straight!
Oregon may have taken this down for various reasons, but the SCHIP program is a whole different issue.
Republicans are trying to debate the issue in good faith and standing for the proper reasons.
From the Dem side they are pushing a bill they know will not get by.
They are using SCHIP just like waterboarding…purely as dog and pony show items to parade around for their special interest groups to whip them into a frenzy for the next election cycle. Nothing more nothing less.
You could also plug the dream act and comprehensive amnesty into the same bin.
They are simply looking to expand their power base of votes in congress and then after the election bring out their real agenda which will make these issues look like small potatoes.
Everyone is someone else’s “child”. But I’m sure it never crossed the Dems’ minds that someone would interpret the language in such a creative way – everyone knows that they are such strict constructionists and could never be that devious….
If I smoke will this program provide me health care for my tobacco-related illnesses?
Let me get this straight. Liberals have been on “big Tobacco” for a very long time, touting the evils that it brings to health care, second hand smoke for children and others, get them out of business, etc….now it seems they are dependent on selling tobacco for their other liberal scheming “for the children”. Treacherous leeches all. No end to the vermin.
I had no idea that Liberals were smart enough to see through the charade. Maybe there’s hope for them yet. Now, if they could only see through Hillary for the fraud she is, we have hope for the country.
secondsite
No. If you smoke you get what you deserve. Now…if you get sick from having unprotected sex with multiple partners, now that’s a different story…
chtongueeek
I quit smoking 1 1/2 yrs ago at the request of my two young daughters.
I feel like such a lousy father now.
Why would Oregonians vote for this now when they are hoping to get it all handed to them by the Feds in just about one year?
From Oregon: I’m with Sylvia Marie, I don’t see any third world conditions around here.
Oregon described: Yes, Yes! Blue Islands surrounded by a sea of red.
Measure 50: The local news and papers here are all describing it as a victory for the big tobacco companies and a loss for the children. They don’t give us credit for any independent thought at all.
Feebiebabe,
Thank you for extending your apology. That was nice of you.
You didn’t answer the question, though.
You replied: “I don’t think it is necessary to sit here and elaborate on my third world country comment.”
Hmm. That’s a weasel answer. Sort of like a politician’s non-answer.
Seriously, you must have had something in mind, some memory of what you saw that caused you to make this comment. I ask you again: Where, when, and what did you see to substantiate your claim/observation that you stepped into a third world country environment when you visited Oregon?
By the way, I would be asking anyone who claimed to have made these observations, no matter what state they hailed from, to back it up with specifics.
Have you got ‘em?
Waiting.
Sylvia:
Gee, there’s a dilemma. I told you what I saw so you can call me an arrogant jerk, and throw me under the buss…or I don’t and I’m a weasel, and you throw me under the bus. Ummmm, Im gonna take door number three!
I am not going into specifics because quite frankly, I am a little afraid of you!
Besides it being a clearly off topic posting. I took the comment back, already. It was an overstated hyperbole. If you don’t know what I was talking about, well perhaps it was the hit I took to the head from a few of your State dwellers trying to run me off the interstate for having California plates….
Look, you wanna make observations about the bay area…be my guest! I do it all the time. With pleasure in fact – and no holds barred. How about for fun you correct my spelling and grammar errors!
Sylvia, if I was a politician, we’d all be in trouble. I wouldn’t even vote for me!. Unfortunately, I suffer from a certain affliction that prevents me from beating around the bush. But a mean spirited person, I am not/.
Ask anyone here, I’ve made fun of myself on numerous occasions. My posts are ripe with retarded comments. I just don’t take myself seriously. Some find it charming and childish…others want to ring my neck, for sure.
Sorry, you are not getting specifics from me (*feebs is gently tip toeing out of the big mama lions den….)
Can’t we just all get along?
Feebie, I know what you’re talking about with the drivers trying to run you off the interstate. Too bad they’re all California transplants.
Sorry, I just couldn’t let that one go by. Love Ya!
#72 – Wink wink! Thanks.
feebs … in AZ in the winter when we have all the “winter visitors” … if I get in a rush hour stoppage on the freeway and the radio says there is a wreck up ahead … I always hope for 2 things when I pass the accident scene … first that no one was injured and second that all the car plates are from out of state so it won’t raise MY insurance rates …
DL – yeah, tell me about it!
(*feebs suffering from a massive headache…HeadOn – Apply directly to the forehead)
lol, How bout dem bears? lol
And such unbiased reporting. No one can guess where the reporter stands.
I have been told by my doctor that I must quit smoking (COPD). I have quit (on day 9 now), but if I go back to smoking… you know, for the chiiiiildren… and I die, wouldn’t that make me a glorious martyr for the cause?
/sarc
yes leepro, and when you get to paradise there is 72 horny hotties that own liquor stores, chain smoke, and cuss like sailors waiting for you.
I used to drive through OR going between WA and CA. It always seemed like a backwards, boring, lonely place.
Then I lived there for four years and found out how wrong I was.
# 79 aj –
Thanks for the intended encouragement
but I’ve had to correct someone else here in the past (who addressed me as “dude”) that I am a dude-ette.
Now, if those horny hotties are of the male variety, I might…
What am I sayin’?!!!?? I quit smoking! I gotta STAY quit!
ITs amazing, AJ, you managed to make a bigger a$$ out of yourself than me on this posting….
ummmm maybe not.
leepro, just imagine your own Chippendale whispering “you can do it…”
Feebiebabe,
Yes, you must fear me. My requests for specifics are intimidating and fear-inspiring. Look out! I might send another missive with a pointed barb!
Haha. Oh, brother.
Let us remember that it was not I who ever used the word “arrogant” or “jerk” or any epithet offensive language when writing to you. On the contrary, it was you who referred to yourself that way. Also, I did not call you a weasel, only pointed out that your non-answer fit that category.
I threw no one “under the bus”. What a tired phrase. It does not fit this situation.
Okay. I understand that you withdraw the statement. If you did not take yourself or your own comments seriously, that could not be told by the statement that opened your first post in this thread.
I guess you could color me among those who do not find certain of your comments “charming”.
All right. I’m done.
Fixed that for ya Feebie.
Holy moly leepro, I’m sorry.
SWJ, bite me.
Sylvia,
I’ve been to some of the more “out of the way” places in OR, and they make the deep south look like the 22nd centure. There are towns that are there merely by the grace of god and retirement/Social Security payments, because I swear one didn’t even have a gas station that wasn’t closed.
Guess what? Every state has places like that.
Hell, my sister was recently in a hospital in NC that was run by a couple of nurses, and two GPs.
And the rest of the regulars find Feebie plenty charming. Thankfully, your approval of her is not required.
LOL
But wait… aren’t those “guys” mostly queens? I think I’ll take the regular flavor, thank you. Got my own male at home who’s very helpful (trying to quit with me).
And yes! I can do it!
You seem prone to gender-confusion today, aj…
I’m a guy. My mouth ain’t goin’ anywhere near any part of you.
If you needed CPR, I’d miss you terribly when yer gone…
It was more polite than . pi$$ off…
in a nice way u know….
all right troops … no bickering amongst the Malkin 6 forces …
’s okay, aj.
I get mail addressed to Mr. Lee Pro—— all the time. Prolly shoulda made my nic MSleepro, but some people would read that Mississippi leepro. What’s a girl to do?
Read AlohaGuy #83, and my response #89. This is getting crazy.
/DONE WITH OT, Michelle!!!
(* feebs fumbling through desk drawer for more sticks of HeadOn, chocolate, and neosporin for bite marks…..)
Sylvia….anytime you want to take aim at the bay area, have at it…
As long as you are not glorifying Che or ripping on the Gipper, I am sure we’ll do just fine.
good thing I stayed indoors today.
given my geographic area. scary.
Image: Bear1909 surveying the battle smoke and nicotine withdrawals from high atop the mountainside.
I wake up every morning and give thanks I don’t live in Portland.
Hey! I’m biased. Get over it already.
Image: Bear1909 ponders the utility of his time tested headache remedy for the young Feeb-o-nator.
I guess the hot chocolate might make you nauseous!!!!!!
Image: Bear1909 sending aj a smoke signal— Dude00000ooooo00000Hitting town0000oooooBig Bird Weekend00000ooooo
Go Ducks!