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Nasty Nellies Lose Big In Sin Taxes In Oregon
Gamblers get more choices. Smokers inhale cheaper cigarettes. And tipplers can hoist a round to Oregon lawmakers who kept state alcohol taxes among the lowest in the nation.
Even gluttons came out OK in the just-ended legislative session, which rejected efforts to require more nutritious school lunches and more time in PE classes.
"Sin had a fabulous session," summed up Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland.
In the past, Oregon legislators have come under muttered criticism for their "nanny" approach to state government, frequently looking for ways to curb residents' baser appetites.
Not this time.
Gov. Ted Kulongoski took an expansionist approach to gambling, calling for and getting video slot machines as part of the state-run lottery program, and approving a new tribal casino at Cascade Locks.
Kulongoski justified the growth into slot machines as a way to raise money to pay for additional state police patrols. Instead, lawmakers spent the money on other state programs, while cutting the number of troopers.
Meanwhile, lawmakers from both parties made runs at notching up taxes on beer, wine and tobacco, but ran into a brick wall of tax opposition in the House.
"Nothing could get any traction," Burdick said. "It was very, very frustrating."
Early in the session, a number of lawmakers from both parties backed a proposal to reinstate a 10-cent-a-pack tax on cigarettes that had been eliminated in 2004 as part of a statewide vote against a temporary income tax increase.
Their logic: Voters earlier approved much higher increases in tobacco taxes, other states were raising their taxes, and Oregon didn't need the distinction as the only state in the country that reduced cigarette taxes. At the beginning of the year, Oregon ranked 13th in the amount it taxes cigarettes.
Rep. Vicki Berger, R-Salem, introduced a bill to restore the 10-cent tobacco tax. It died in committee without so much as a hearing. Rep. Billy Dalto, another Salem Republican, offered a plan to put a 60-cent tax on cigarettes to voters in the next general election to pay for health care. It met a similar fate.
Democrats who controlled the Senate decided it was a waste of time to try to force the issue.
"There was no way in hell the House Republican leadership was going to increase taxes of any kind this session," said Senate Majority Leader Kate Brown, D-Portland.
That would be accurate, said Chuck Deister, spokesman for House Speaker Karen Minnis, R-Wood Village.
"We said at the beginning, if you brought a tax idea forward, it was dead," Deister said. "The House followed through on that."
Taxes weren't the only issue. Tobacco and convenience store lobbyists also helped stop a drive by some retired firefighters to require sales of "fire safe" cigarettes in Oregon, meaning they go out if they're not being puffed on. The idea, approved in New York and Vermont, is to stop house and forest fires caused by discarded or neglected cigarettes.
Lobbyists argued for a national standard, a stance Minnis adopted as well.
Lawmakers also pilfered from a state fund that pays for anti-smoking programs. Under the terms of a 30-cent tax on cigarettes voters approved in 1996, $15 million was to be earmarked for such programs in the 2005-07 budget. Lawmakers siphoned off about half of that for other programs.
"From a tobacco perspective, we didn't fare well at all," said John Valley, Oregon government affairs director for the American Heart Association. His group also pushed for anti-obesity bills, such as ones requiring healthier school lunches and more PE classes.
But a full-court blitz by restaurant lobbyists kept the lid on any attempts to legislate against excessive or unhealthy eating
"Nothing happened," Valley said. "You can give the governor and the Legislature an F."
...or an A, for letting people live their lives, unmolested by those who just can't stand it when other people have fun.
Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-08-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=126518