Con: Follow the money before voting on tobacco tax

• Since 2000, Missouri has wasted almost $1 billion in revenue from the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement that should have been spent on tobacco diseases and health care. Why should we trust politicians with even more of our tax dollars?

• If mandated and fully funded, Amendment 3 may end up costing all taxpayers $800 million to $1.7 billion per year in massive new tax increases or massive program cuts.

• More than $4 out of every $5 – 82.5 percent – generated by the tobacco tax increase is not required to be spent on tobacco-related diseases or cessation programs. Instead, it will fatten the wallets of greedy Corporate Health Care.

Amendment 3 is opposed by Missouri Right to Life, Gov. Matt Blunt, Attorney General Jay Nixon, House Speaker Rod Jetton, Senate President Pro Tem Mike Gibbons, House Speaker Pro Tem Carl Bearden, House Minority Leader Jeff Harris, Senate Appropriations Chair Chuck Gross and House Budget Chair Allen Icet. It sends a uniquely strong message when these disparate groups and individuals are unanimously opposed to an issue.

Politicians love to throw money at a problem instead of fixing the problem. Amendment 3 does nothing to fix Missouri’s broken health care system; it merely papers over the many problems with huge amounts of taxpayer dollars. Missouri’s statewide health care crisis deserves a statewide solution and not the taxing of a targeted minority population.

According to an Aug. 28 Associated Press story, the percentage of Missouri teens who smoke has decreased by almost 50 percent in the last decade and Missouri’s teen smoking rate is now below the national average. Amendment 3 proponents are just plain wrong when they say that Missouri is lagging behind other states, is not doing enough and that we need to throw more tax dollars at this problem.

Corporate Health Care likes to paint all groups that oppose Amendment 3 as “Big Tobacco.” You decide after considering the facts.

In 2002, Corporate Health Care spent $5.6 million. Missouri Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association, which represents the small businesses in your local communities, spent $50,000, and the voters defeated Proposition A’s 324 percent tax increase. This year, Corporate Health Care will spend more than $7 million to support Amendment 3, and MPCA will spend at most $150,000 to oppose Amendment 3’s even more outrageous 470 percent tax increase.

The tax would be proportionately the largest tax increase in Missouri’s 185-year history. After following the money, it appears proponents want to use our sacred constitution as their very own personal ATM.

Ronald J. Leone is executive director of the Missouri Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association.

For: Committee for a Healthy Future (a statewide coalition), American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and the Missouri Hospital Association

Against: Missourians Against Tax Abuse (a coalition of businesses and elected officials), Missouri Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, and tobacco companies including RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris