California is notorious for ballot box budgeting. Prop. 98 (education) Prop. 10 (mental health), and Prop. 49 (after-school programs) are prime examples of initiatives that have been placed on the ballot that mandate that their revenue be spent on certain things – and only those things – with the money being spent badly, or not at all. Proposition 29 is the newest contender in the ballot box budgeting sweepstakes.
Sponsored by a career politician, Prop. 29 will generate $735 million in new revenue by imposing a $1 tax on cigarettes. But instead of this money going to education, health care, job creation, or balancing our $16+ billion budget deficit, it will create a huge uanccountable bureaucracy packed with political appointees and cronies.
Cancer research is a good thing, which is why the federal government spends $6 billion a year on it. California doesn’t need another tax increase to contribute to an already well-funded program.
Let’s face it — California is broke. Yet Prop. 29 essentially says, “Here’s hundreds of millions in new revenue, but you can’t use it to fund California’s most basic and essential needs.” Funding cancer research in our current fiscal crisis is like a family paying for premium cable when they can’t pay their mortgage.
