Part of the shtick of those who eschew political correctness is the utter disdain of protected classes. Well, in Dave’s world, three classes top the protected ladder: old folks, children and veterans.
Little infuriates me more than when people invoke any of those three in furtherance of their own selfish agendas and then once their goal is either achieved or not, then discard what was the focus of their alleged concern like yesterday’s trash.
This is never more evident than election season and the never-ending deluge of propositions. The winner of this year’s self-serving hypocrite award has to be the tobacco-industry-backed attacks on Proposition 56 which would increase the tax on a pack of cigarettes by $2.
These purveyors of death – face it, cigarettes kill – talk about how unfair to children Proposition 56 is because any revenues raised from it circumvents the minimum-school-funding guarantee, that only 13 percent of the proceeds helps smokers or prevent children from starting smoking and that the lion’s share of the proceeds go to insurance companies.
Well, while I will be the last person to carry the water for the insurance companies, just who does the tobacco industry think takes care of their victims? And to feign a concern for children just to protect their pocketbooks is almost as bad as it gets.
A not-to-distant second to tobacco is the pharmaceutical industry. Where by definition nothing good can every come from tobacco, the pharmaceutical industry sells itself a benevolent savior – savior yes, benevolent no way.
Big pharma has taken to hiding behind veterans to keep their pockets lined with gold. Proposition 61 is simple. In most cases, it limits the amount of money the State of California pays for drugs to what the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs pays.
I doubt very seriously that drug companies are going broke on what they charge veterans. But what these slick, deceptive ads fail to mention is that if this proposition passes, the only way prices will increase is if big pharma decides to gouge the veterans like they do the rest of us. Like Paul Harvey used to say – how about the rest of the story?
But the most disingenuous proposition on the ballot this time around is Proposition 55. Four years ago, adopting this proposition was sold to the voters as a temporary, stop-gap measure to tax the richest Californians to help minimize drastic school cuts and it had a sunset clause for 2018.
California has recovered from those financial doldrums, so that tax should go away. But those who ramrod education in this state are trotting out these slick ads that tug at our heartstrings about how if this funding vehicle is removed then our children will not thrive.
It is back-door moves like this that make it harder to get tax increases passed when they are needed. This would not be a tax cut – it would be a restoration.
This reminds me of years ago when the vehicle registration fee was slashed when times were good with the provision that if times got bad, the original level would be restored. Those arguing for Proposition 55 to fail screamed the loudest how raising the vehicle registration fees to their original levels was a tax increase. It was not – it was a restoration, just like voting no on Proposition 55 will be.
Sadly, I think I will come out on the losing end on two of these three propositions. I think that the voters in this state are smart enough to see through the tobacco smoke screen, but big phamrma and the education lobby will probably pull the wool over the majority of everyone’s eyes.