Uncle Teddy Will Provide (And The ODE Nod Approvingly)
To further waste my time mocking the student daily at a school where I haven’t been a student in over two years (what does that say about me?), let me opine for a moment on today’s ODE Editorial. Essentially, they’re in support of taxing stupid poor people more, and in support of making sure the government provides for the upper-middle class.
I’m usually the last to trot out “what about the poor” as a reason for anything, but let’s think about this logically for a second. One of the primary reasons given that native Oregonians have an almost pathological aversion to the sales tax is that it’s “regressive”, coming down harder on those who make less. Well, guess who buys the most cigarettes? Poor people! So if you ostensibly care about helping out the “less fortunate” or whatever the hell, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to go heavily taxing something they buy in disproportionate numbers. Especially when that tax is going to be used to subsidize the health care of people making $70,000 a year.
That’s right $70,000 a year, that’s 1.12 times Oregon’s median four-person family income. If you’re making $70,000 a year, it hardly seems reasonable for you to expect the state to pick up any of your bills, let alone your health insurance.
