Were tobacco lobbyists behind the failure to overcome Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill?

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The Wall Street Journal reports that tobacco companies spent over $12 million swiftboating a bill that would have funded a child health care program. This was similar to the program that a bi-partisan congress passed, which Bush vetoed.

While it was obvious that the congressional legislation used a tax on cigarettes to pay for the national program to fund the SCHIP program, this Oregon ballot measure makes it seem obvious that it is very likely that behind the scenes, tobacco lobbyists were leaning on southern legislators, in particular, to block the overturn of the veto.

Somehow this should be made much more visible. Shame on the tobacco companies for blocking healthcare for children.

The WSJ article reported, "Oregonians Against the Blank Check Committee, which was funded by Reynolds," as the group that ran the campaign. Sounds like swiftboating to me. A front group attacking an item on the ballot.

The article stated,

Supporters of the Oregon measure charge that the companies misrepresented the purpose of the tax. "They know that cigarette taxes are popular with the voters," said William V. Corr, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, "and what they have done is change the subject to anything but raising tobacco taxes to fund health insurance for children or to fund tobacco prevention."

Let's face it, tobacco IS a dwindling industry. It represents a huge "tax" on the nation's healthcare system. The people who smoke disproportionately "tax" the money spent on diseases caused by smoking.  Every pack of cigarettes that is sold costs taxpayers $7 in health care subsidies.

It's not fair that an industry can spend millions of tax-exempt dollars to oppose vote initiatives that are good for the people, while 501(c)3 non-profits are restricted from lobbying for healthy initiatives.

Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.

Rob Kall Wikipedia Page

Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel

Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel

Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.

Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.

To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.

For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.

Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..

To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.

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