Vote NO on 29

Slow day. Only 1,758 hits.

With California due to vote on Tuesday on Proposition 29, which will pretty much double the tax on tobacco, and rake in $730 million, I’ll take one last look over there.

Not content with screwing the New Yorkers he’s supposed to represent, NY mayor Michael Bloomberg also wants to screw Californians as well.

Mayor Bloomberg is taking on the tobacco industry again — only this time, in California.

Reaching across the country, the mayor yesterday [14 May 2012] pledged up to $500,000 to support a June 5 referendum to increase California’s tax on a pack of cigarettes from $1 to $1.87.

The mayor said he was putting up the money to help counter a $40 million ad campaign by tobacco companies to defeat the measure, Proposition 29.

“It’s time to level the playing field,” Bloomberg said.

Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson said health groups supporting the ballot proposition have spent about $5 million.

Olympic bicycle champ Lance Armstrong, a pal of the mayor’s, is leading the effort. Bloomberg has offered to match new donations up to $500,000.

I wonder if tobacco companies are really spending that much? From what I hear from California, it’s wall-to-wall antismoking ads all day every day. But the predatory Tobacco Control Industry always likes to portray itself as underdog.

I wonder how much Bloomberg makes out of it? Is he really giving away money? Or is he making an investment? Only 60% (see below) of the $735 million the new tax is expected to wring out of Californians is earmarked for ‘research’. That leaves some $300 million that can leave the state and go anywhere. Where?

Best I can see is that it’s the little guys on the ground who are fighting the antismoking juggernaut. People like Matt Lanford, Marsha Kramer Keller, and Geoffrey Mogilner, all proprietors of California tobacco shops, and authors of Vote NO on 29. 

Lanford writes:

Californians face a $16 billion budget shortfall this year and more than $200 billion in long-term debt. Because you are not California residents and do not pay California income tax, you may not care that our state is slashing budgets for schools, parks, libraries, and programs for the poor and needy. Sales and income tax increases will be on the November ballot, in a state already known for high taxes.

In the midst of this dire situation, Prop. 29 imposes $735 million in new taxes on Californians. Yet it will do nothing to help our finances. The money raised by this tax does not even have to be spent in California or in the U.S. Mr. Bloomberg, you are a mayor of New York City. Mr. Armstrong, your Lance Armstrong Foundation is located in Austin, Texas. For your $500,000 and $1.5 million campaign contributions, are your states and associates going to receive the cancer research funding from Prop. 29 if it passes?

Furthermore, only 60% of the money raised by Prop. 29 is required to be spent on cancer research. Every year, $125 million will be spent on creating a new government bureaucracy, hiring more state employees, and buying buildings and real estate. Now we will have more state employees whose salary, health insurance and pension liability we have to worry about. This will then place yet another financial burden on California taxpayers, including non-smokers.

California has been suffering from 11% unemployment, one of the highest rates in the nation. California taxpayers’ money should be spent in California, not in New York or Texas. Why should Californians be responsible for cancer research for the whole nation, including New York and Texas, when our unemployment rate is 11%, our budget deficit is $16 billion, and our long-term debt is $200 billion? What is your real motive? Are you determined to bankrupt our golden state?

Well, my guess is that Bloomberg is trying to do just exactly that. It’s how the bloated TC theft-machine works, sucking money out of ordinary folks’ pockets, supposedly to fund cancer ‘research’ which seems to have made zero progress in the 60+ years since the ‘researchers’ supposedly discovered that smoking causes lung cancer. What kind of pickpockets ever hand back the wallet with a $10 bill still inside it? None. They take everything.

And since California seems to have had more smoking bans and tobacco taxes for longer than anywhere else in America, it may go a long way to explaining why the Golden State is flat broke – for the kind of reasons I set out here a while back. The last year the budget was balanced was back in 2007.

On April 3, 1987, the City of Beverly Hills, California, initiated an ordinance to restrict smoking in most restaurants, in retail stores and at public meetings. It exempted restaurants in hotels – City Council members reasoned that hotel restaurants catered to large numbers of visitors from abroad, where smoking is more acceptable than in the United States.

In 1990, the city of San Luis Obispo, California, became the first city in the world to restrict indoor smoking in all public places, including bars and restaurants.[35]

In America, California’s 1998 smoking ban encouraged other states such as New York to implement similar regulations. California’s ban included a controversial restriction upon smoking in bars, extending the statewide ban enacted in 1994. As of April 2009 there were 37 states with some form of smoking ban.[36] Some areas in California began banning smoking across whole cities, including every place except residential homes. More than 20 cities in California enacted park and beach smoking restrictions.

16 Reasons Why California Is The Next Greece