Oregon legislators should get back in the ring with Big Tobacco to fight on behalf of uninsured kids
Jump to full article: The Oregonian, 2008-06-14
Author: nice1
Intro: T ed Kulongoski knows how to take a punch.
As a young man in the Marines, he was a Golden Gloves amateur boxer. That's why today, as Oregon governor, he understands the need for lawmakers to get up off the mat and keep fighting for his request for a cigarette tax increase to help uninsured kids.
Kulongoski's plan does indeed deserve another shot. Voters defeated it last fall not because they oppose health care for low-income children but because they prefer to enshrine taxes in statutes, not in the state constitution. . . .
Taxing tobacco is fair and wise. Leaving children uninsured is unfair and profoundly unwise.
No Big Tobacco smokescreen can obscure this choice facing the 2009 Legislature.
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