Free Republic

Maybe, just maybe the people of California are somehow becoming aware of the disaster that the left wing politicians have brought down upon them. Last Tuesday, while Scott Walker was smacking his recall down in Wisconsin and San Diego and San Jose were cutting the public employee pension funds, there was another possible bellwhether going on. With 100% of the votes counted in California, Proposition 29 seems to have gone down to defeat. This would have put an additional $1.00/pack tax on Cigarettes. Why is it that this may a be a "Jig is Up" bellwhether? Well, according to the...

Asking voters to slap a $1-per-pack tax on cigarettes to fund cancer research seems like a cinch in health-crazy California, where lighting up already is banned in bars, public buildings and on many of its golden beaches. But the tobacco tax, pitched to voters under Proposition 29 in Tuesday's primary, teetered on the brink of defeat Wednesday just months after opinion polls showed widespread support. The measure was trailing by about 63,000 votes, although still-uncounted ballots could number as high as 1 million, by some estimates.

The fate of California's controversial Proposition 29, a proposed tax on cigarettes, was still unclear early Wednesday. By 3 a.m. (6 a.m. ET), 98.6% of the precincts had reported. The vote tally stood at 49.2% in favor and 50.8% against the proposed law that would raise taxes on every pack of cigarettes by $1, yielding an estimated $735 million a year for the state, election officials said. About three-quarters of money raised would go to cancer research.

Proposition 29, a nearly $1 billion tax hike slated for the June ballot, has already stumbled into an ethical gray area. Before voters even cast their first ballot, the San Francisco Chronicle exposed Don Perata, the career politician who wrote the measure, for paying out a long time political crony who he was also simultaneously lobbying [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/28/BA3N1NR09G.DTL]. Yet, read the nearly 4,500 words that comprise Proposition 29, and one will find that the conflicts-of-interest seen on the campaign trail would pale to the insider dealing permitted by this flawed measure. Proposition 29’s sole safeguard against sweetheart deals is the nine...