Reason Magazine - Staff

Politics Nixed In Cancer Stick Flick

info@reason.com (Brooke Oberwetter) — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 14:10:00 EST

When Christopher Buckley's novel Thank You for Smoking came out in 1994 it was a surprising satire of the vilification of the tobacco industry, the zealotry of health advocates, and the pandering of politicians. Just as the first big wave of congressional tobacco hearings got underway, Thank You for Smoking delivered the story of a sympathetic (if relentlessly disingenuous) tobacco lobbyist pitted against nefarious do-gooders and a manipulative media.

Fans had plenty to fear from a movie adaptation, which opened last weekend: Would Hollywood sanitize this irreverent satire of spin culture and demonize its tobacco-shilling protagonist, Nick Naylor? Would the open mockery of health crusaders and the easily duped American public be turned into a cautionary tale about the evils of corporations? Screenwriter and director Jason Reitman remains true to Buckley's message, but the dozen years between the novel and the film have rendered the once bold satire only mildly titillating: politically incorrect enough to make the audience feel like they're in on a naughty prank against The Man, but not politically incorrect enough to tip any sacred cows.

Reitman's decision to keep Buckley's early 1990s setting, rather than moving the action to the present, spoils a perfect opportunity to update the novel's politics and to comment on the implications of recent developments in tobacco control: Jurisdiction-wide indoor (and outdoor) smoking bans usurp both individual freedom and parental responsibility for protecting their children from avoidable dangers; the cartelization of the tobacco industry through the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (in which the major tobacco companies agreed to restrict advertising and cough up $206 billion in payments to state governments) places enormous burdens on would-be competitors to the tobacco giants; and the stigmatization and intentional inconveniencing of smokers, with no apparent health benefits, has begun attracting negative buzz, even from within the tobacco control movement.

That said, Reitman does take a jab at the fervor and radicalism of today's anti-smoking zealots, so that when Nick is kidnapped and covered in a lethal number of nicotine patches, it's not (as in Buckley's version) a frame-up by Big Tobacco, but a genuine plot by over-zealous foot-soldiers from some radicalized equivalent of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. The 2006 reality is that Big Anti-Tobacco seems far more likely these days to cook up underhanded PR stunts than Big Tobacco.

If only Reitman had similarly updated Nick Naylor's attempt to persuade Hollywood to put cigarettes back in the hands of likeable film characters, rather than the usual "psychopaths and Europeans" (think Alan Rickman in Die Hard ). With today's nannies-turned-film-critics trying desperately to get R ratings slapped on "any film that shows or implies tobacco," except when the depiction of cigarettes is prelude to a sermon on the dangers of tobacco or "is necessary to represent the smoking of a real historical figure," Reitman could have cooked up a hilarious brainstorming session in which a tobacco lobbyist and a Hollywood mogul hunt for ways to make emphysema look sexy and reasons to include historical figures in as many movies as possible.

Although the movie doesn't stake out much new ground in the tobacco debate, Reitman delivers an explicit message of personal responsibility and individual choice that rarely comes from Hollywood and is almost never associated with smoking in polite company. Whereas the novel's version of Nick Naylor views personal responsibility as a convenient diversion from the unfortunate lethal side-effects of smoking, Reitman's Naylor comes to see that it's the other way around: The emotional nature of the health appeals obscures the importance of individuals taking responsibility for their own choices—and parents taking responsibility for teaching their kids to make informed decisions.

Ironically, it's the tobacco companies themselves that are to blame for letting health—rather than personal responsibility—dominate the debate. When the enormity of the lies the tobacco companies had told came to light in the mid to late 1990s, it was all too easy for the anti-tobacco advocates to frame the debate in terms of innocent victims (who were shocked, shocked! to learn that smoking was addictive and harmful) versus the evil tycoons who had sent them to their graves. The way anti-smoking activists continue carrying on about the lies, you'd think the tobacco executives were still plotting away—but the reality is that the tobacco companies are funding a significant number of tobacco control efforts in one way or another, either through state programs funded from the proceeds of the Master Settlement Agreement, or by direct advertising against their own products. This too is a nuance that the film ignores.

Thank You for Smoking is groundbreaking only insomuch as it manages to plant its libertarian message by making Nick Naylor a sympathetic character the audience hates to love, rather than loves to hate. While the film's friendly critical reception is heartening, I doubt that anyone will watch Thank You for Smoking and suddenly reject the orthodoxy in favor of any new truth.

Social Security: Bad for the Democrats

info@reason.com (Brooke Oberwetter) — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EDT

When he broke ranks with his party's leadership last month and proposed an alternative to President Bush's push for personal retirement accounts, Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida said, "I have the largest amount [sic] of Social Security recipients of any Democrat anywhere in the country. My allegiance to seniors is greater than my allegiance to the Democratic Party."

Wexler seems focused on preserving the legacy and structure of Social Security, which he calls "the most successful government program in history."

His plan certainly suggests that keeping the system solvent in its current structure is worth almost any cost. He has proposed the largest marginal tax increase this country has seen in decades: a 6 percent tax hike on all income over the current $90,000 payroll tax cap.

Let us pass over the discussion of how ever-rising marginal tax rates lead to tighter labor markets, reductions in productivity, and declines in reported income. Let us forget in their entirety the issues of tax revenue and solvency and instead try to figure out why, exactly, Democratic lawmakers are so hell-bent on preserving the basic current structure of Social Security.

As Wexler noted in his press conference, his party should be looking for "alternatives that are true to our Democratic values." But is Social Security's current structure consistent with Democratic values, as Wexler—and the Democratic leadership—has declared, or are the Democrats falling all over themselves to defend a legacy of discrimination?

As it has evolved, Social Security has attempted to provide American workers and their families with three things: retirement benefits, disability insurance, and survivor benefits. Those are solid liberal goals. But because of the program's age, aspects of Social Security discriminate against many modern families, particularly gay couples, unmarried couples, dual-earner couples, and divorcees.

Fully one-third of all marriages end before the 10 years necessary for spousal benefit eligibility—among blacks, nearly a half of all marriages end in divorce within 10 years. Considering that many women take time off from work to raise children during those first 10 years, they are unable to make Social Security contributions of their own yet not eligible for spousal benefits upon divorce. Women who do remain married beyond the eligibility period but divorce later not only have a lower earnings record (if they raised children) but are forever tied to the earnings of their ex-husbands and are ineligible to receive the possibly higher benefits available from a subsequent marriage that doesn't last a full 10 years—this feature can be particularly harmful to older Americans who wish to marry.

Even on the rosier side of marriage and commitment, Social Security discriminates. Dual earning couples, for example, often end up subsidizing the benefits of single-earner families. This is because workers are entitled to either their own benefits or the equivalent of one-half the benefits of a higher earning spouse—but not both. Women who work for a number of years but who would do better by accepting one-half of their husbands' benefit level don't see any increased benefits for their payroll taxes; those women lose the 12.4 percent of income that was taken from them during their working years. The money goes to subsidize the benefits of a single-earner couple.

Consider also the bias against couples who for whatever reason are unmarried. Gay couples and heterosexual co-habiting couples are unable to share the benefits of their status as workers protected by the Social Security system. An unmarried couple that has decided on a single-earner structure cannot take advantage of survivor's benefits or spousal retirement benefits in the same way a government sanctioned married couple can.

The overwhelming support for the status quo from the political left is shocking, and should be appalling to members of the Democratic Party or anyone who holds the liberal values that Wexler extols. Bringing the system into solvency through tax hikes on labor and productivity will do untold damage to America's economic growth in order to protect a system that systematically discriminates against core constituencies of the Democratic Party, a system that disproportionately benefits white women who have never worked a day in their lives over all other groups. Is that a status quo that the Democratic Party wants to be associated with?

While the Democrats demand that Social Security's current structure be maintained through plans like Wexler's, millions of women remain tied to their husbands' earnings and millions of non-traditional families are denied access to the system. It doesn't seem out of line to ask, why aren't the Democrats taking the lead on transforming one of America's most discriminatory programs into a program that treats individuals as equals?