>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

Gov. Ted Kulongoski is an advocate for kids. He believes, and rightly so, that all of our children deserve access to adequate health care and that to do that the state must step up and make sure that all children have health insurance.

No one can dispute Kulongoski’s passion for the cause. He’s right. Absolutely right. Our society should be able to ensure that children have access to health care services, regardless of whether their parents have insurance or not.

But the governor in pushing the cause for universal health care for kids misses the mark in how it should be funded. At his recent State of the State speech at the City Club of Portland, Kulongoski stressed that he would resurrect an increase in the cigarette tax to pay for expanding health care coverage for children in Oregon.

Never mind that Oregonians trounced Measure 50 by a nearly 60 to 40 percent margin. The governor reasoned that Big Tobacco bought the election result and that the concept, perhaps scaled back a little, is worth resurrecting.

Wait a minute. Perhaps some Oregonians bought Big Tobacco’s message. Perhaps a few might have even thought that tying the 84.5-cents per pack tax hike to the Oregon Constitution was a bit of a stretch. But 60 percent? No way.

The governor might think we’re a stupid lot who swallows every word of TV commercials. But we’re not all that stupid.

The fact is that children’s health care isn’t the sole responsibility of people who smoke.  Targeting one sector of the population for a cause that should be paid for by all is just plain wrong — even if  those people are easy targets. We were opposed to Measure 50 for the same reasons, not because Big Tobacco said we should be.

If Kulongoski is the advocate for children’s health care that he seems to be, he should get off his cigarette tax soap box, come up with a new proposal that spreads the tax burden evenly for all Oregonians and spend the rest of his term in the trenches fighting for it.

Anything less is nothing but politics and hot air.