U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole says a proposed expansion of a popular health care program hurts tobacco farmers unnecessarily.
At a meeting of the Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina today at the N.C. State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, Dole said Congress doesn't understand the importance of tobacco to North Carolina.
She argued that the proposed $35 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program should not be paid for with an increase on the tobacco tax.
"It's all being done on the backs of one state's economy," Dole said. "A 156 percent increase in tax on tobacco and all related aspects affects 255,000 people. Why should one state be paying for something that affects 50 states?"
She said she supports better health care for children, but not the recent bill.
"I think any elected official saying they were for that provision ... they just really don't get it in terms of how much it would hurt the economy," she said.
Blog RSS feed
Re: Dole: Health care bill hurts tobacco
Sen. Elizabeth Dole has taken a politically courageous position against the runaway commodity-taxing train as the first-resort vehicle for general policy financing, in this case, health care. Two Democratic members of North Carolina's congressional delegation also held to this position for a certain period of time but have recently moved to the other side of the political lineup on this issue.
Public policies ought to be financed through appropriate, constitutional revenue allocations, and these general revenue allocations should not be exclusively commodity-specific but broadly derived from the entire system of public finance whether at the federal or state level.
The proximity of many ideologically fortified political interest groups in the Triangle region notwithstanding, Raleigh is nonetheless the capital of the entire state of North Carolina, and the people of this state should not agree to the targeting of the economy of one single state--or two if you include the annual tobacco manufacturing yields of Kentucky and North Carolina--as the only source of revenue for funding important general-purpose public policy initiatives including even the urgent area of children's health.
Sapping the economy of its fundamental strength, whether across-the-board nationally or in certain states, regions or localities in particular, is a penny-wise, pound-foolish methodology. Much better to meet fiscal responsibilities for public policy financing with a full team of horses rather than with the reins to a single plow-horse.
David P. McKnight