Trojan horse and all
Richard Fulton
If you read Wednesday’s Forum you were hit with three pages of the smallest print in Christendom. It fulfills the state requirement that all constitutional amendments and propositions (state laws) placed on the November ballot must be advertised to the public.
If you are interested in reading them I have two hopes for you: one, you don’t go blind; and two that you have a powerful magnifying glass at hand.
Short of these two alternatives, let me attempt to explain what the more important of the issues on the November ballot are all about. This may take a couple of weeks of my column, mind you.
Probably the most important of these for you to understand before voting is Amendment 3. This is the one that adds a gradual increase in the cigarette tax so that it reaches an additional 60 cents by 2020.
The proceeds of this money ($300 million more or less a year) is to go to an Early Childhood Health and Education Trust Fund. Sounds simple enough, but the actual amendment takes up fully four columns of the fine-print in the paper.
Why? Because the amendment is sponsored by big tobacco and contains some zingers. Though it sounds lovely, it is a Trojan Horse.
Big tobacco sets in the amendment an additional 67 cent tax on cigarettes manufactured by small tobacco companies called “non-participating manufacturers” by the amendment.nWhat does this mean? Long story.
In short, the courts you might remember, fined big tobacco billions for their duplicity in selling their product. This money was distributed to states that brought the suit. Missouri was to get $50 million a year if they followed the rules of the court.
They didn’t in 2015 and it cost them the $50 million. Didn’t hear much about that did you. Anyway, they changed and got the money in 2016. Big tobacco has been ticked off because the judgement did not include the small manufacturers who could then sell their cigarettes at a cheaper cost.
Thus the part of the amendment that punishes the small manufacturers (the non-participating companies who did not have to pay the fine). But the worse is yet to come.
Also tucked towards the end of the amendment are several goodies. Ten to 15 percent of the monies goes to hospitals for child health and education. But, also added was a ban on monies to providers of abortions or education on abortion..
Why is this in the amendment? To get support of a special interest?
But there is more. It bans any monies for research on harmful affects of smoking and the targeting of young children. In addition it bans “tobacco research of any kind.” There’s more: it bans any recipient of grants from the funds from advocating for further controls on tobacco products.
They aren’t through yet. The amendment bans monies used for stem cell research. Why this is there is hard to tell. No monies for human cloning either, as if a tax on tobacco has anything to do with this.
Then there is the ban on non-Missouri residents from getting funds: i.e. immigrants..
Big tobacco is trading their tax for a huge hike in taxes for small tobacco companies while inviting support by adding spurious elements for special interests.
The amendment does set aside five to 10 percent of proceeds for smoking prevention. A small, but seemingly contradictory, insertion (remember the monies to hospitals for health and education of small children?) as a sop to health care interests.
Next week a discussion of Proposition A, another tobacco tax issue, and Amendment 2. The latter of which limits campaign contributions as described in no less than eight columns of that tiny print in the paper. It tries to plug every loophole it can think of.
Ain’t democracy fun?
