Editorial

No on Measure 19

As badly as Oregon schools need an infusion of cash, this is the wrong way to get it.

Measure 19's $150 million "rainy day fund" is another money-shifting ploy that helps the legislature avoid a stable, long-term program for funding education.

Without stable funding, every day will be a rainy day for schools and this fund won't fix the problem.

The fund is supposed to be replenished from lottery dollars -- but only by taking money from other programs. Incredibly, much of that money will be taken from the State School Fund.

That's like using one credit card to pay the balance on another credit card.

We must decide what state services matter to us and how we can fund them properly. We cannot continue to live beyond our means or pretend that we can have excellence in education, health care or transportation without paying for it.

Oregonians need to face reality. We cannot afford any more political or fiscal illusions.

J.C.

Yes on Measure 20

Raising the cigarette tax and directing the revenues to the Oregon Health Plan and tobacco use prevention is simple common sense.

Cigarettes create health problems in smokers, those who live with them and their children. Everybody pays for those problems.

The whining that cigarette taxes impose upon a minority doesn't wash. Even with this 60-cent per pack increase, taxes don't begin to make good the burden of smoking-related economic and medical costs, which are estimated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at $7 per pack.

That's a burden every Oregonian has to carry. Now that's an unfair imposition.

J.C.