The Ayes Have It: Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes

Editors' Note: Massachusetts voters will find four questions on their ballot today. These questions are binding referendums and will therefore become law if supported by a majority of voters. The following are The Crimson's endorsements of these four initiatives:

1 A chorus of complaints is sure to follow the proposal of any "sin tax," designed to increase the price of such products as cigarettes and alcohol. But when the status quo facilitates destructive and often lethal behavior, we don't think such measures are that bad at all.

Question One would raise the 26-cent tax on a pack of cigarettes to 51 cents and channel the added revenue into a newly-created Health Protection Fund. The estimated $130 million that would be collected would be used to expand current smoking prevention efforts.

More important than its assistance to public health efforts would be the proposal's effect on discouraging young people from taking up smoking. Supporters of the initiative estimate that a 25-cent hike in cigarette prices would result in 80,000 people quitting or deciding not to experiment with this deadly addiction.

According to the American Cancer Society, smoking causes more premature deaths than AIDS, fires, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, auto accidents, suicide and murder combined. In Massachusetts, over 11,000 residents die each year from smoking-related illnesses.

The key to reducing the number of deaths from smoking is preventing young people from taking up the killer habits in the first place. Studies show that 90 percent of smokers are addicted as children. In Massachusetts, 38,000 children begin to smoke every year.

Passage of this initiative promises positive results. Since 1988, when voters passed a similar referendum in California, smoking rates in that state declined 17 percent--double the national rate. And in Canada, the percentage of smokers among older teens fell from 24 to 16 percent after the national excise tax was increased from 1989 to 1991.

Opposition to Question One has been coordinated by The Committee Against Unfair Taxation. The group appeals for money to be spent not on smoking prevention programs, but on issues such as AIDS, homelessness and poverty. In fact, the committee is entirely financed by tobacco industry executives. Their sudden concern for social problems in Massachusetts is just a ploy to divert attention from the fatal dangers of smoking.

Passage of this initiative could well save many lives in Massachusetts. We strongly urge a yes vote on Question One.

2 Question Two would require banks, insurance companies and publicly traded corporations to disclose information from their state tax returns. In a state where 50,000 corporations still pay the minimum state tax of $456, it makes sense to check if everyone is playing by the rules.

The referendum would not alter the way corporations currently pay their taxes to the state. It would also not affect individual taxpayers or small businesses. Banks, insurance companies and public corporations are already required by law to disclose what they pay in federal taxes and this measure, say its supporters, only strives to inform the public how much big business is paying to the state. Opponents argue that much of the tax return information is confidential and that its disclosure could therefore harm businesses.

The two sides reached an agreement after the ballot question was submitted. Compromise legislation will therefore be submitted for adoption by the Legislature regardless of voters' preferences. However, voting yes on Question Two, say negotiators of the compromise, will still have a positive effect. A strong showing on behalf of the initiative will send a message to the Legislature to pass the compromise measure, which would require the state tax information to be published not by individual companies, but in aggregate from. The compromise proposal would also establish a task force to study all of Massachusetts' taxes on business.

In support of this compromise proposal to disclose big business tax payments, we encourage a yes vote on Question Two.

3 "Buy Naked, Vote Naked," say the slogans in favor of Question Three. And we agree. We citizens recycle and it's high time truant businesses did their share.

This binding referendum, if voted into law, would ban wasteful packaging and work to insure that the many recyclables now collected actually end up being recycled and not simply thrown in with trash in landfills and incinerators.

Certain Massachusetts environmental groups, the chief proponents of Question Three, convincingly argue that several major industries have not kept up their side of the bargain. They have proposed the Recycling Initiative to force industries to follow one of five possible solutions in order to solve the solid waste problem. Each of these guidelines will reduce "virgin" packaging by about 25 percent by 1996 and by 50 percent by 2002. Industries could either reduce packaging, make their packaging recyclable or recycle from already-used packaging. We endorse Question Three as a prudent pro-environment, pro-business answer to a major problem.

Opponents of the initiative would have you think differently and have invested over $5 million in a carefully crafted negative ad campaign. Using some of the most cynical rhetoric of this politics-as-sausage-making season, the "No on Three" campaign has attempted to depict the moderate ballot question as the embodiment of all the evils associated with legislation of this sort--President Bush with his repeated denunciations of the "spotted owl crowd" would be proud.

The reality behind each half-truth of the negative television advertising blitz reveals false anti-environment propaganda. The opposition claims that the measure would hinder small business and create unwieldy state bureaucracies. But an exemption stipulates that the law will only apply to businesses with over 10 employees and the state's Department of Environmental Protection has acknowledged that the legislation will require only about 10 more employees for enforcement.

Finally, the most ambitious claim forwarded by "No on Three," that passage of the initiative would cost each Massachusetts family approximately $230, is also the most specious one. First of all, any increase in cost of living will at least partially be offset by reductions in the amount of money we now spend on incinerators and landfills. But, "No on Three" arrived at this $230 per family figure by assuming that all industries would need to adjust expensively their packaging methods and would then pass that burden onto the consumers, an assumption that is patently false. Many packaging industries--such as aluminum canners--have already met the 25 percent requirement. In fact, most industries have met this requirement. It is only a few plastics companies that will have to adjust to new standards.

It should be no surprise that the companies leading the $5 million campaign against Question Three are the very same industries that manufacture virgin plastic packaging. These industries (92 percent of the opposition money comes from out-of-state) include major corporations like Dow and Dupont, who of course will lose if the initiative wins--at least in the short term.

Any economic losses incurred in the short term will be compensated in the long term with expansion from the recycling industry. In any case, Question Three regulations would not go into effect until 1996. Another plus is that the numerous options in the bill give the industries flexibility in complying. Even pro-business Governor William F. Weld '66 supports the initiative. And given the dwindling amount of landfill room and the tendency of both landfills and incinerators to toxify, it makes sense to make excess packaging obsolete.

Question Three will finally make a few unwilling industries do their part for the environment. And it will make these industries actually recycle the materials we have carefully separated. We urge you to vote yes on Question Three.

4 In terms of environmental problems, safe disposal of toxic waste remains one of the most problematic issues. Residents and non-residents alike will be surprised at the astounding number of toxic waste sites in Massachusetts: the state's Department of Environmental Protection lists approximately 2,700 confirmed sites and 2,500 suspected ones. The Cambridge-Boston area alone is home to several hundred toxic sites. In Woburn, about 30 minutes from Cambridge, several lethal toxics-related cases of leukemia among children were reported a few years ago. In Leominster (about 90 minutes away), in an even more publicized case, parents of over 100 autistic children claimed toxics as the cause of their children's disabilities. More generally, over 100 towns in the state have lost all or part of their drinking water due to contamination.

It is with this understanding that we support the Polluter Pay Initiative--Question Four on the ballot. If passed, this binding referendum would place an excise tax on toxic chemicals and industrial petroleum purchased by major users. The money raised will go to the state's Environmental Challenge Fund that will be used to clean up abandoned sites in Massachusetts and to hire environmental officials to monitor existing hazardous waste sites. Proponents of the legislation cite the grim statistic that only two of the 5,000 sites in Massachusetts were cleaned up in the last 18 months.

As with Question Three, many industries have a vested interest in seeing that Four loses and are campaigning hard on television. These advertisements vary: some are half-truths and some are persuasive. The claim that the money raised from the tax can be appropriated by the state legislature in any fashion and need not be used to clean up sites is, while technically accurate, practically fallacious. After all, the initiative would require the revenue to be placed in the environmental fund. While this technically would require final legislative approval, no politically astute legislator would openly undermine the will of the electorate.

The other major claim of the "No on Four" ads, that the initiative would cost all families a tremendous amount of money, is an exaggeration. One of the ads in fact depicts a woman rattling off a numerous list of items that will become more expensive and she mentions several that are specifically exempted by the initiative!

The opposition's basic claim, however, is true. Businesses will have to pass the cost of the tax onto consumers. Supporters of Question Four, however, have calculated that price increases will be negligible: Boston Edison, who will pay the most per year of any company taxed (the tax is proportional to the quantity of toxics), still will only need to raise fees by about 25 cents per month per household.

Question Four's biggest weakness has actually been ignored in the advertising, at least so far. Although proponents of Question Four have powerfully noted that the polluters of over 200 of Massachusetts' toxic sites--companies like W.R. Grace and Mobil--are paying for the "No on Four" campaign, this still doesn't seem quite fair to those companies currently not engaging in illegal dumping. Under the initiative, all companies using hazardous chemicals will be taxed, even ones with strong environmental policies.

But this problem with Question Four is inherent in all attempts to clean up sites where the perpetrator has skipped town. Someone has to pay the cleanup: either we tax the companies for their use of dangerous chemicals, and indirectly pay ourselves, or we choose to do nothing--an option that seems unconscionable when we consider that deathly sites like the Leominster dump still actively threaten citizens' lives. We choose the former and urge a yes vote on Question Four.