NIHAC is a member of Health Coalition for Children and Youth

>
> Dear Children's Alliance Staff, HCCY and Stakeholders:
>
> We have an urgent need to respond to a Seattle Times editorial printed
> today (see below) by a Times columnist, Bruce Ramsey.
>
> The email address for letters to the editor is
> mailto:opinion@....
>
> It is very important that we respond swiftly and with volume. Here are a
> few arguments, but please use your own arguments as well - it won't be
> effective if the messages are all the same. The most important point to
> get across is that we need to raise new revenue to protect children's
> health. Feel free to make your comments ironic they might be more likely
> to be printed-
>
> * $32,000-$46,000 for a family of four is not middle class. The
> poverty line is $18,400 for a family of four. Is a family of four who
> makes $19,000 a year middle class? The poverty line has never been an
> accurate measure of need and everyone who works with families in need
> knows this. For example, the poverty level is the same for a family in
> Seattle as for a family in Walla Walla, despite wild variations in the
> cost of living.
>
> Food in our state can and should be exempt from sales tax. As a society
> we have agreed that this is the right thing to do, because food is
> essential to life. As this theory goes, non-essential foods such as candy
> and gum should be taxed. For example, soda pop is not exempt from the
> sales tax, so it is only fair to end the sales tax exemption for candy and
> gum.
> * The sales tax on candy and gum will hardly be felt - while the good
> it will fund will be essential to children's health.
>
> * The real question here is how do we pay to support the heath of our
> children? Many recent polls of voters show strong support for funding of
> children's health care. There is strong agreement that all kids need
> access to high quality health care. Until recently, Washington has been a
> leader in caring for the health of our children. This is something
> Washingtonians should be proud of. Ask any recently unemployed parent
> whose child now qualifies for free or subsidized health insurance if they
> are grateful that we have been a leader in children's health.
>
> What we really need in this state is a fair tax structure, anchored by a
> state income tax that would ensure that we would not have to tax sins to
> pay for what we hold dear: the health of our children.
>
> * 67% of the cost of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
> that provides health insurance for children between 200-250% of the
> federal poverty level is paid for with federal dollars.
>
> * Both the House and Senate are proposing to add premiums to
> children's health between 100-200% of the federal poverty level - national
> research tells us that 35-45% of children would fall off health insurance
> as a result. When children are insured, it leads to better health which
> studies show leads to improved school performance. We need to raise
> revenue to pay for what our children and families need.
>
> Bruce Ramsey / Times editorial columnist
> It's enough to make a tax donkey fume
> A sales tax on candy bars and an increase of 50 cents a pack in the tax on
> cigarettes: that is the joyless way the House Democrats propose to pay the
> doctor bills of 40,000 children of the middle class.
> Advocates don't call them middle class, of course; they call them poor.
> But poor means below the federal poverty line, and these are kids in
> households 75 to 150 percent above that line. We're talking two parents
> and two kids with a household income of $32,200 to $46,000. These children
> have been getting Medicaid in Washington only for a few years, and would
> not qualify for it in Idaho, Montana or Oregon.
> Well, the subsidized care exists, and we are asked to pay more. Why not
> load the entire burden on smokers? That might be a popular decision. In
> November 2001, Washington voted by a ratio of 2-to-1 for Initiative 773,
> which raised taxes by 60 cents a pack, with money to go to the Basic
> Health Plan. That put our tax at $1.425, then the highest among the
> states.
> It was a distinction many were proud of. Since then, four states back East
> have raised their tax to $1.50 or $1.51. Shall this state go to the
> proposed level of $1.925?
> First, someone ought to question fairness. Why should smokers pay the
> doctor bills of kids too young to smoke? This is not money for emphysema
> and lung cancer. It is for ear aches and broken arms.
> The answer is that smoking is bad, and we need to discourage it. Thus,
> smokers are taxed "for their own good," though the state does not really
> want them to quit. The state's concern is rhetorical only. It needs a
> group of tax donkeys who will smoke and pay.
> Smokers may have other ideas. They will be comparing Washington's $1.925
> tax with $1.28 in Oregon, 28 cents in Idaho, 18 cents in Montana and zero
> at certain Indian smoke shops, military bases and on the Internet.
> Price-sensitive smokers purchase by the carton. The price of a 10-pack
> carton of Marlboros at a Safeway last week was $47.32. Assume the House
> Democrats add another $5, then add sales tax of 8.8 percent in King
> County. That carton is at $56.92. Plenty of U.S. Internet sites sell the
> same product for $22 to $30. A Swiss Internet site, www.yesmoke.com
> <<http://www.yesmoke.com>>, which also escapes the 39-cent U.S. government
> tax, is offering a carton of offshore Marlboros delivered postage paid for
> $14.95.
> Is it legal? No - unless you send in the taxes just evaded.
> Is it easy? Apparently.
> Are the people doing this consumed with guilt? Maybe a few are. Others
> take the attitude of Dave in Everett, who writes to an Internet site that
> he buys all his tobacco out of state, he knows it's illegal and doesn't
> care.
> Already, tens of thousands of fellow citizens are taking this attitude.
> The Department of Revenue estimates that already 35 percent of cigarettes
> smoked in Washington are smuggled. If the tax goes to $1.925, Department
> of Revenue folks forecast lawful sales to drop to a level at which
> (assuming the amount of smoking stays the same) 44.7 percent of cigarettes
> will be smuggled.
> Will raising the tax to $1.925 produce net revenue at all? The Department
> of Revenue says it will. But smuggling will probably cut the gain by more
> than half.
> The other new tax offered to pay for state medicine is sales tax on candy
> and gum, which have been classified as tax-exempt food products since
> 1978. Like cigarettes, candy and gum stand condemned as unhealthful, so
> that politicians can claim to be doing people a favor by taxing them.
> Under this proposal, sales tax would apply to such products as Double
> Bubble gum, See's Candies, Snickers bars and Pez. It would not apply to
> Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Snickers Ice Cream Bars, QFC German chocolate
> cakes, Oreo cookies and Krispy Kreme donuts.
> Why one group and not the other? Obviously, the distinction is not health.
>
> My theory it that it's mostly kids who will most notice the price of a
> candy bar going from 65 cents to 71 cents (in King County), and kids don't
> vote.
> That's one theory. Another is that the House Democrats are saving ice
> cream, cakes, cookies and donuts to tax next year.
> Bruce Ramsey's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times.
> His e-mail address is bramsey@...
> <<mailto:bramsey@...>>
> Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company
>
>
>
> Laura Strickler
> Communications Director/Policy Adviser
> The Children's Alliance
> Seattle, Washington
> 1-800-854-KIDS- Extension 13
> www.childrensalliance.org
>