Opinion: In today’s pages: Exit strategizing, snack taxing, ad targeting
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Tina Dupuy says forget the cigarette tax and institute the snack tax:
Democratic leaders in the Legislature, in the latest bid to get uninsured Californians covered, this week proposed to tax (drum roll) . . . tobacco . . . .I have a better proposal: a snack tax. We had one for about 18 months in the early 1990s. Granted, it was shot down in the polls by a huge margin, but that never stopped George W. Bush or Richard Nixon, or Dennis Kucinich for that matter, from making a comeback. In fact, a tobacco tax also was voted down here last year. So we’re clearly not afraid of reruns. I have a motto: Alliteration makes for good legislation. So we can sell the snack tax like this: Tack 10 cents onto anything beige, battered or bite-sized.
Demos fellow and American Prospect co-editor Robert Kuttner accuses government of forgotting the fiscal lessons of the 1920s. Akbar Ganji, a leading Iranian political dissident living in exile, calls Iran’s government the master of the double standard. Former Times columnist and editor Bill Boyarsky tells how Jesse Unruh’s shrewd power plays gave California its civil rights law.
The editorial board is grateful that the surge is bringing down violence, but notes that it hasn’t sped up reconciliation or an exit strategy. The board examines targeted advertising, particularly the mixed-results model provided by social networking site, Facebook.com. And the board defends the 1st Amendment rights of a Kansas church, despite its hateful message.
Readers react to columnist Rosa Brooks’ claim that torture is replacing abortion as the litmus test for GOP candidates. Mary MacElveen of Sound Beach, N.Y. asks, ‘Although I abhor torture because it goes against everything America stands for, as a person who recently changed her position from pro-choice to pro-life, I ask: Where are these same humanitarians when it comes to abortion?’