Prop. 29 funds research for cancer, but it's still a tax hike

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 4/22/12 | Debra J. Saunders

[SmithL]

The American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and American Lung Association wrote Proposition 29, the measure on the June 5 ballot to increase California's cigarette tax by $1 to $1.87 per pack. Lung Association President Jane Warner likes to emphasize the demarcation at play: She's with the good guys, while the bad guys, Big Tobacco, will spend buckets more money trying to fight the measure than her groups will spend trying to pass it.

It's the virtuous underdogs versus the nefarious moneybags. Good versus evil.

There's one unmistakable plus that comes with raising the tobacco tax: As Warner explained, "If you raise the cost of cigarettes, smoking goes down, especially among children."

The unmistakable downside: Prop. 29, which would raise an expected $735 million annually, represents the kind of me-first lawmaking that helped dig state government's $9.2 billion budget hole.

[kingu]

Look at all that money dumped into stem cell research, it really came to results. And this too will be nothing more than a propping up of the liberal machine. I doubt that more that a few pennies will actually result in more cancer research. More accurately, it will simply replace some of the money coming in from private research.

There aren't labs just sitting idle waiting for money, or new therapies or ideas waiting for funding. All of it, public and private, goes into the same kitty. Only thing is: research from public dollars results in private profit.

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

Nope, not even close to being true.

The dirty little secret is that Big Tobacco PRETENDS to object and makes a half-hearted effort to oppose all these new states and fed taxes, but going back to the MULTI-BILLION shakedown by the Attorneys Generals and Masters Agreement, the Tobacco companies did not get hurt hardly at all, cuz they simply passed the costs on to we the smoking consurmers and while they were at it, tacked on a nice sized increase for themselves which was hidden in the tax increases.

[Publius6961]

There's one unmistakable plus that comes with raising the tobacco tax: As Warner explained, "If you raise the cost of cigarettes, smoking goes down, especially among children."

Sanctimonious a*****e!

Give us an accounting of the billion$ smokers have already paid and will continue to pay until 2023... "for recovery of their tobacco-related, health-care costs"

The tobacco companies have not paid a cent; Smokers are paying all of it in continuing taxes.

Before even thinking of extorting more give us a full accounting of how the money has been spent so far, and to whom paid.

Tobacco-related health care costs? My hiney!