Benefit of beverage tax? Health coverage

The June 17 OpEd “Maine residents fed up with undemocratic taxes” by Newell Augur, paid lobbyist for the beverage industry, takes the grand prize for confusing fact and fiction. His outrage about Mainers paying a few pennies more on soda, beer and wine is simply not justified given the trade-off of 18,000 working families (including small-business owners) losing their health coverage. He wants you to believe that it’s not worth a few pennies on his client’s product to finance the new market reforms to help lower insurance premiums for an additional 40,000 people. The truth is it’s really about the bottom line of the corporations he represents, but if he told you that, you might not sign his petitions.

Augur claims the Legislature raised $70 million in new taxes for healt care. Let’s get the facts straight. Maine Revenue Services says the beverage tax raises $19.5 million by increasing excise taxes at the manufacturer and distributor level by less than a nickel a bottle. When Augur talks about a surcharge on health premiums, he misleads you into thinking this is a new tax. The surcharge actually replaces and lowers the unpredictable and heavily litigated “savings offset payment.” The Legislature reduced the assessment companies have been paying on insurance claims.

Who’s really paying for the massive signature-gathering drive to repeal the beverage tax? Who would hire professionals from away to come to Maine to tell us that we don’t want health coverage for working families? Coke, Pepsi and Anheuser-Bush combined spent more than $9 billion in advertising last year selling us their empty- calorie products. Coca-Cola’s annual report lists the No. 1 business risk to its profitability as any link to obesity and health. A couple of million bucks spent to protect that is a drop in the bucket for them.

Augur and his corporate clients don’t want to talk about health care. They think Mainers are gullible enough to believe that no one will lose health care if they repeal the law. They know that Maine people don’t treat their neighbors like that, so they simply say that it won’t happen. Unfortunately, Maine people will lose their coverage. The funds will run out with the current funding method if Augur and his group collect enough signatures.

For 10 years, the Legislature has worked diligently to lower taxes – homestead exemptions, expanded circuit breaker, lowering sales tax, personal property tax reimbursement for businesses, Pine Tree Zones – the list is quite long. The Legislature only raised these few discretionary beverage taxes at the manufacturer and distributor level so that 18,000 working Maine people would not lose health coverage. It is that simple.

Just in case you can’t be fooled by the tax angle, the lobbyists try to appeal to your sense of good government. Augur claims that this tax had no public hearing and passed in the dead of night.

This issue had two full public hearings and was fully discussed by the Taxation Committee. Let me know if you’d like a copy of the testimony from the American Beverage Association. The Legislature heard from the industry. We got e-mails, phone calls and personal visits. Anyone paying attention this session knew a revenue source must be found to prevent the loss of health coverage. Legislators turned to adverse health-related funding sources endorsed unanimously by the Blue Ribbon Commission on Dirigo Health. Remember: Coke does not want you to think of soda as a health issue.

Augur totally misrepresents Maine’s open, accessible legislative process by saying this law was passed in the middle of the night without a public hearing. Offering amendments (changes) is not new or different – it is how every Legislature operates. The Legislature enacts thousands of amendments each session to proposals that have already had a committee hearing. Maine’s legislative sessions and committee hearings can be observed live over the Internet. Reporters cover the action. Both private citizens and paid lobbyists have access to meetings and debates. Legislators even list their home phones so that you can call them personally.

Don’t be fooled by tall tales. Who is more likely to care about you? A lobbyist paid to look out for his corporate client or the state legislator you know and can hold accountable at the ballot box?

Elizabeth “Libby” Mitchell is the majority leader of the Maine Senate.

Coke, Pepsi and Anheuser-Bush combined spent over $9 billion dollars in advertising last year selling us their empty calorie products.