Posted on 11/19/2005 4:22:49 PM PST by John Jorsett
Hollywood director Rob Reiner warned the California Hospital Association on Friday to withdraw or rewrite a ballot proposal it's pushing for 2006, saying it threatens to snatch up to $34 million a year from needy preschoolers.
"If the initiative remains in its current form, I will have no other option but to actively and aggressively oppose it," Reiner said in a letter to C. Duane Dauner, the association's president.
At issue is the use of tens of millions of dollars in expected tobacco taxes.
Reiner, a longtime activist, championed a 1998 ballot proposal slapping a 50-cents-a-pack tax on cigarettes to fund health and education programs for children up to 5 years old, now known as First 5 California.
In his letter, Reiner argued that the hospital proposal, which calls for a $1.50 tax on each pack of cigarettes to fund emergency rooms and other health programs, would slash First 5 funding.
If the state increased cigarette taxes as proposed by the hospitals, purchases would inevitably decline as smokers shop elsewhere for lower prices or give up the habit. If fewer cigarettes are sold in the state, tax collections would decline. In turn, First 5 would receive less money.
The hospital proposal would compensate First 5 programs with $70 million a year to make up for the expected losses, according to an analysis by the state's Legislative Analyst's Office. Even so, analysts said, those programs could lose up to $20 million annually because of lower cigarette sales.
Reiner, who finds himself in the awkward position of arguing against a tax increase that could decrease smoking, pegged the loss at $34 million.
"We all share the goal of reducing the harmful effects of smoking and improving access to health care," Reiner wrote. But "an initiative which cuts funding for children's health and early education is bad for California."
When asked whether the hospitals' campaign would drop or revise its proposal considering Reiner's complaint, spokeswoman Kris Deutschman said, "We have to move forward with the priority of keeping emergency rooms open. We would invite and encourage all parties to come join us."
In a later phone call, she said the group would be eager to discuss the issue with Reiner.
If enacted, the hospitals' proposal would raise an estimated $1.4 billion yearly. About two-thirds of it would go to fund emergency and trauma care services, with the rest distributed to a host of programs, including nursing education and those that discourage smoking.
State law requires that any increase in cigarette taxes also be applied to other tobacco products, such as snuff or loose tobacco, in an equivalent amount.
Earlier this week, Reiner announced that he collected more than a million signatures to get a separate initiative on the June ballot that would fund preschool for all California children, expanding on First 5. It would raise income taxes on wealthy residents to fund a year of preschool for all 4-year-olds.
Gee, Rob, what a pity that other parties want to horn in on the action and tax the same bunch of people you're already shaking down. Wait till you see how many other groups are about to jump on your "millionaire's" tax and get their share of the booty. Like all good libs, they want to help you spend the same money twelve times over.
Who would've thought that a liberal would be effectively be encouraging others to smoke so they can have enough taxes for the kids.
ping
Mr. Reiner is addicted to tobacco.
"We all share the goal of reducing the harmful effects of smoking and improving access to health care," Reiner wrote
hmmm seems to me that is a little bit inconsistent and hypocritical to me he wants the same amount of people that smoke today to smoke next year but he wants to reduce the harmful effects of smoking don't you just love seeing libs twist themselves into pretzels trying to have everything both ways
Didn't Rob Reiner kill someone in Ireland in the late '80s? I remember hearing something about a car accident he had while there - he apparently was driving on the wrong side of the road .. supposedly he spend some time in an Irish jail for this vehicular homocide.
In the wacky world of liberal wackjobs like Rob Reiner, people who give up smoking are now selfish and taking money away from the children.
Now this is funny.
It's a 40-year-old social experiment that just keeps on giving -- to the bureaucrats.
That was Matthew Broderick, if memory serves.
That was some other liberal I think
But seriously, folks...
I wonder if Reiner realizes that the role that made him famous may very well kill any chance of him being elected governor...or, if he is elected...make him the mockery he deserves to be...
"Governor Meathead."
"... I will have no other option but to actively and aggressively oppose it," Reiner said in a letter..
OOOOOOhhhh, I'll bet that has them quaking in their Birkenstocks!! Not!
California is a bizarre place. They elect a moderate celebrity and now they might elect a radical leftist celebrity. One must wonder where it will all end. Will the latest pop star get him/herself elected next? Platform: "I'm famous, and I want to make California kool!"
If the state increased cigarette taxes as proposed by the hospitals, purchases would inevitably decline as smokers shop elsewhere for lower prices or give up the habit. If fewer cigarettes are sold in the state, tax collections would decline.
I thought that the tax money that Reiner conned out of Us was supposed to be used to educate people to quit smoking?
Evidently His program works well for Hospital managers, they figured out a way to make people quit. Reiner ought to be overjoyed.
The problem is that Reiner's Money windfall is not going to education, In fact we dont know where it is going because he wrote into the bill that there would be NO accounability for where the money is spent.. If ever there was a program that needed to loose all of it's money, It is Reiner's little slush fund.
Does he chew? Or is it cigarettes or cigars? Does he puff them madly whenever he gets a spare moment, ala Reefer Madness?
You're correct about Broderick. He killed a mother and daughter while driving in a car with Jennifer Grey. He was driving on the wrong side.
I wonder in Robbie has figured out how many aborted babies would have grown up to be tax-paying smokers by now...
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