Prop 86 - Tax on Cigarettes. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute
My Summary: Taxes on a pack of cigarettes would be raised $2.60 (currently they are 87 cents). Most of the money would go to hospitals, and 10% to tobacco education programs.
My Opinion: As a conservative, taxes of any kind raise a red flag. There are three reasons I don’t like this proposition.
1) The taxes raised would mainly go to hospitals for a number of uses like "emergency services, nursing education and health insurance to eligible children." None of that has anything to do with smoking. Only 10% of the money goes to helping people learn about the negatives of smoking.
2) Taxing specific products like this isn’t fair. As much as I don’t like smoking and think it’s bad, it’s NOT the government’s job to tell people what to do. If people want to smoke themselves to death it’s their choice. Legislation regarding public smoking and secondhand smoke are entirely different issues. This is another example of the government poking their nose into the economy in a detrimental way.
3) Economically speaking this is a terrible idea. Just like high worker comp costs caused companies to move out of state, high cigarette taxes will move cigarette purchases out of state. Higher taxes only stifle the economy.
Bottom Line: I had a lenghty discussion with |<evin about this. He is very anti-public smokers, which I am also. As much as I would love to punish those people for their behavior, I don’t think this is the right way. I would much rather see legislation pertaining to smokers in public spaces. People will still be able to smoke and annoy me with this prop.
I am voting NO on Prop 86.
