Bush Will Veto Using Cigarette Tax to Give Children Health Insurance
Saying that he is “philosophically opposed” both to new taxes and to using government to insure uninsured children, President Bush is threatening to veto a new cigarette tax that would expand health coverage for children. Way to put your personal political ideology ahead of children, Mr. Prez. Let’s see, higher tobacco taxes, while not deterring adults from smoking, do prevent many children and young teens from starting to smoke–at just the age when most people are hooked. So, this could save lives, right? And insuring uninsured children (in a nation the World Health Organization has just ranked 37TH!! in overall healthcare) would presumably also save lives. So, what part of this veto will be “pro-life?”
5 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
About
Michael L. Westmoreland-White, Ph.D. I live in Louisville, KY USA with my wife, Kate, and our two wonderful daughters. My wife, Kate, is a Baptist minister who works at a Catholic charity (the Society of St. Vincent de Paul) to provide assisted housing to homeless people. Our daughters are Molly (’95) and Miriam (’99). I am a former soldier converted to gospel nonviolence and a once (and future?) academic theologian turned peace activist, author, and peace educator. Contact me at mlw-w@insightbb.com
The Levellers were a 17th C. movement during the English Civil War. They were a religiously-inspired political movement for democracy, human rights, justice for the poor, and peace. Their strongest leader was Richard Overton, a pacifist General Baptist influenced by Dutch Mennonites. Although I write on a wide range of topics, most often this blog deals with the intersection of faith, especially Christian faith, and work for social justice and peace. So, I have named the blog and dedicated it to the spirit of Richard Overton and the 17th C. Levellers.
Rules for commenting on this blog: 1) Respect everyone, even when you disagree strongly. 2) Keep comments relatively short. If you need a long post on your own blog, I’ll follow you there to see what more you have to say. 3) Stay on topic, please. 4) Don’t hog the conversation; let others have a turn. 5) This is a family-friendly blog. No profanity or language that my children and your children cannot read, please. Failure to follow these simple rules could lead me to removing your comment(s).
![[PDA - Heathcare NOT Warfare - Sign the Petition.]](https://i0.wp.com/pdamerica.org/images/ads/HealthNotWar_final.jpg)
Where Are My Readers?
Recent Comments
Levellers 
Michael. Did you happen to catch the recent Democracy Now interview with Michael Moore? It touched on this.
I believe it’s here: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/18/1326235
An MP3 version is available here: http://www.archive.org/download/dn2007-0618/dn2007-0618-1_64kb.mp3
I’m still trying so hard to love Americans. GB2 has not made my quest any easier.
I can understand the criticism of having less insurance for children, but I am “philosophically opposed” to sin taxes. I tend to see such things as social engineering, to which I am opposed.
“Social engineering” is a rightwing label for anything done to help the common good. It’s a libertarian mislabel.
“Common Good” is a right-wing and left-wing label used to justify any type of government expansion.
Let me elaborate on this. The “common good” is open to interpretation. Many people may think a higher tax on cigarettes is a good thing, but with that power comes the ability to tax other things that they may not agree with. What if a study somehow showed that heterosexual couples that stayed together brought about the best results for their children (better test scores, less counseling in the future, etc…). Should married heterosexual couples get tax benefits?
Also, cigarettes cause cancer, but some studies show abortions can raise the risk of breast cancer. We don’t want breast cancer, so should we tax abortions more for the common good?