Posted on 06/07/2012 8:07:02 AM PDT by 92nina
Despite having the second lowest smoking rate in the country, voters in California have rejected Proposition 29, which would have more than doubled the tobacco excise tax.
Proposition 29’s supporters purported that the measure would raise $775 million in funds for cancer research, but the results from California show that smokers and non-smokers alike saw that Prop. 29 would’ve funneled taxpayers dollars to an unaccountable bureaucracy.
It's clear that because of this, Proposition 29 was never really about smoking at all.
This remarkable victory comes at a crucial time in California. With a budget deficit of over $16 billion accrued through years of profligate spending, voters sent a clear message to the politicians and special interests in Sacramento: stop adding more layers of bureaucracy that don’t fulfill their mission, stop taking money from the taxpayer’s wallet to send out of state, and stop killing job-creating activity in the Golden State.
At 10.9 percent, California’s unemployment rate is painfully above the national average. Jobs are without doubt at a premium during this failing recovery, yet Proposition 29 would have driven shop owners out of business or simply out of California. Worse still, Proposition 29 would have duplicated the bureaucratic agencies already tasked with reducing cancer prevalence in the state and through the nation. This is evidenced by the federal government’s spending $6 billion per year on cancer research and California’s spending $70 million on tobacco prevention programs.
Though Mayor Bloomberg is busy restricting the size of the soft drinks you can purchase and Illinois is preoccupied with raising tobacco taxes as well, voters in California have demonstrated a recognition that when it comes to taxation and waste doled out from Sacramento, enough is enough.
Read more: http://atr.org/voters-reject-percent-tax-increase-cigarettes-a6943#ixzz1x7Vv37of
Take this article and others I found to the fight to the Libs on their own turf; put the Left on the defensive at Digg and at Reddit and in Stumbleupon and Delicious
Either ban the damned things outright or be forced to admitting it isn’t about health at all. M-O-N-E-Y and control is what this about, and a continued targeted means to prop up a government that is mired in corruption, deceit and unwillingness to respond to their voters.
Not only did Prop 29 go down, pension reform measures passed in San Diego and San Jose. Perhaps one day sanity might prevail here in the People’s Republic...
This is really good news.
It means that when faced with the choice of taxing a minority; Californians are against.
It also means that Californians saw through this as a genearal tax increase and decided that government has enough and the Californians are taxed enough.
It means that government will have to change, rather than figure ways to confiscate citizen wealth, even if it is from a minority of citizens.
A lib judge will overturn this. Just like One Man, One Woman.
I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a spending limit initiative yet. I can imagine it like this:
If in the previous year, the state budget was not balanced, in the current year, no increases in spending for any reason, and the legislature must reduce the current budget by twice the amount of money needed to pay for the former year’s deficit. If the legislature refuses to do this, then automatic across the board spending cuts will be instituted by the state Treasurer.
What a growing number of Californians are telling Sacramento and D.C. is NO MORE NEW TAXES and REDUCE THE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT!
Either ban the damned things outright or be forced to admitting it isn’t about health at all. M-O-N-E-Y and control is what this about, and a continued targeted means to prop up a government that is mired in corruption, deceit and unwillingness to respond to their voters.
I smoke because i enjoy smoking.
That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
I smoke also, but that is beside the point. If the government can’t conclusively prove danger (they have but curiously have done nothing but tax tobacco) and subsequently remove the danger, then something else is going on.
This being the case, constitutionality is out the window for them because government is violating its first law - public service and protection. In practice, government is violating the 14th Amendment - equal protection under the law. By excessively taxing tobacco while simultaneously talking outside the other side of their mouth about the health risks, are placing revenue above public good.
Either they tax it like other privileges, or they should ban them, leaving the black market to move in and take all the revenue from them. Greedy bastards just in it for the money, that’s all.
I smoke also, but that is beside the point. If the government can’t conclusively prove danger (they have but curiously have done nothing but tax tobacco) and subsequently remove the danger, then something else is going on.
How ever i see nothing in the law of the constitution that permits them to protect me from myself, no matter if their reason is to collect more extortion money or if they are really concerned about health.
The government people are now a unity unto them selves even the small town Governments, they think of them selves as our over seers instead of our servants.
And like i said i see your point, if they were really concerned that smoking is bad for your health they would ban it or try to.
They will do anything to make war against the people because so many of them has no reason to be in government at all so they have to invent reasons for their being there.
One day I asked a Pulmonary Specialist what the cancer rate actually was for smokers. His answer, “About ONE percent”.
That doesn’t mean that smoking doesn’t damage lungs or impair health in other ways, but the figure he gave for lung cancer was shocking! I expected to hear a figure closer to 90% from the way MSM advertises it.
I thought that somewhere along the line, the increased tax on tobacco products was supposed to go to medicare/medicaid to offset costs of tobacco related illnesses? Apparently that didn’t really happen? Did I misunderstand?
Proposition 29 was never really about smoking at all.
That’s it in a nutshell. No more money for any reason and from any source should be given to these thieves. Our legislators must be starved of funds for any purpose and under any circumstances. There is no other way to deal with a serious spending addiction.
One day I asked a Pulmonary Specialist what the cancer rate actually was for smokers. His answer, “About ONE percent”.
That doesn’t mean that smoking doesn’t damage lungs or impair health in other ways, but the figure he gave for lung cancer was shocking! I expected to hear a figure closer to 90% from the way MSM advertises it.
I thought that somewhere along the line, the increased tax on tobacco products was supposed to go to medicare/medicaid to offset costs of tobacco related illnesses? Apparently that didn’t really happen? Did I misunderstand?
I have had two different doctors tell me when i went to get a dot physical that they were required to advise people to quit smoking, the Government is controlling their very lives.
I sure would not say that smoking is not harmful in one way or another but i have watched people who i knew that never smoked in their life to die off at young ages some with lung cancer, some with other problems, or accidents.
I have also known several who committed suicide because they got so old they could not take care of them selves.
I am grateful that I will never have to answer to my Creator for selling a product that I knew would make slaves of children and the destroy their health.
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