Presidential Primary Election - Tuesday, June 5, 2012

[rydot]

This may be my last use of LiveJournal for blogging election recommendations. The Internet is getting small enough that I think the time has come to separate my rY.vote posts from the ramblings of my personal life. If you have any recommendations for a better digital soapbox, please let me know in the comments! Thanks...This is from my Los

Comments

[prokrstn8r]

28 actually only limits the amount of time legislators can serve if they hop around in different houses of legislature. If they stay put in one area of government, it actually increases terms. It seems to me that it would be much more likely for politicians to stay put than to hop around, meaning effectively this would actually INCREASE amount of time served instead of decrease it in many cases. I am extremely skeptical about this one.

29 sounds good, but there are basically no limitations on what will happen to the money. It doesnt have to stay in California, and probably wont actually do anything to help cancer. I went back and forth on the whole "well so what? Let's just tax smokers anyway," but i think in light of the current economy, it wouldnt be the best thing to do. A lot of nurses and hospital representatives are against this measure, and i think we shouldn't vote yes until there's a version that's better.

[rydot]

I'm disappointed that the hypocritical arguments of Big Tobacco may well find an audience with California's voters today.

First of all, let's step back and acknowledge the elephant in the room: Hiking cigarette prices encourages people to quit smoking!

Personally, I'd like to see the playing field leveled between tobacco and marijuana, so until the addictive carcinogen is on-par with the non-addictive-but-illegal carcinogen, I'd just as soon sock it to the nicotine junkies.

But my vendetta aside, what's with the other arguments?

there are basically no limitations on what will happen to the money.
There are certainly more limitations on what can be done with state-appropriated funds than there are on the profits of Big Tobacco. It's not like we get to vote on how those corporations choose to spend their "write-off" money. On the other hand, the language in Prop 29 is public and specific about what the funds should be used for: (emphasis added)

1. Grants and loans for biomedical, epidemiological, behavioral, health services, and

[prokrstn8r]

It would be really nice if every dollar we added to the cigarette tax directly came out of big tobacco's pocket, unfortunately, that's just not the reality. As you pointed out, cigarette smoking is addictive, and people do not generally respond to increased prices by quitting. Cutting down, perhaps, but realistically, the majority of cutting back will come from spending less in other areas of the economy, which is the last thing we should be doing right now.

And only 60% of the funds go to cancer research.

But I can agree to disagree with you on whether or not we should tax the shit out of smokers for the sake of taxing the shit out of smokers at all times, no matter what.

[rydot]

people do not generally respond to increased prices by quitting

"every 10 percent increase in the real price of cigarettes reduces overall cigarette consumption by approximately three to five percent, reduces the number of young-adult smokers by 3.5 percent, and reduces the number of kids who smoke by six or seven percent."
- Tobacco Free Kids, Raising Cigarette Taxes Reduces Smoking, Especially Among Kids

"To have a positive impact on public health, cigarette prices need to keep up with the general level of inflation as well as rising incomes to keep cigarette affordability constant, and preferably decreasing."
- treatobacco.net, Higher cigarette prices reduce cigarette smoking by decreasing smoking prevalence and reducing the number of cigarettes smoked by continuing smokers.

And only 60% of the funds go to cancer research....and 15% to grants and loans for facilities and equipment for research on cancer; 20% to tobacco prevention and cessation programs; 3% to law enforcement; 2% to administration costs

[queen_of_words]

Thanks again for the tips. Just got back from the polling place!