Quote of the Day From UC Irvine Professor

Today's Orange County Register features this letter to the editor on another proposed tax for California (one of many).

IRVINE, Nathan D. Wong, Professor and Director Heart Disease Prevention Program at UC Irvine: The recent Register editorial “California hooked on tobacco taxes” [Feb. 22] missed the mark on Proposition 29. Prop. 29 is a responsible, scientifically based solution to saving lives. This proposed $1 tobacco tax – paid only by those who purchase tobacco products – will save 104,000 lives; stop 228,000 kids from smoking and generate more than $500 million every year to support advances in the prevention, detection and treatment of heart disease, cancer and other smoking-related illnesses.

Prop. 29 comes with important taxpayer safeguards and strict accountability. The money cannot go to politicians nor be used for their pet projects. The new funds will go directly to research physicians and scientists who work to find a cure for cancer, heart disease and other tobacco-related diseases.

While black-market smuggling and illicit tobacco sales were also mentioned in the editorial as being potential problems, Prop. 29 dedicates funds for enforcement of tobacco laws. Law enforcement across the state will have the resources to ensure that California’s tax laws are being enforced and that criminal drug smugglers are prosecuted.

I hope that you reconsider Prop. 29 for what it is – a reasonable, responsible solution to address America’s No. 1 preventable cause of death."

Our once and present governor, Jerry Brown, who ran on a campaign pledge of "no new taxes without voter approval" is trying to get multiple tax increases on the November ballot, so he can continue giving all those bennies to the government worker unions, who, in spite of a presentation I heard months ago in a UCI law class, is driving the state into fiscal ruin.

Now comes UC Irvine  Professor  Nathan Wong, who has come up with the precise formula and incontrovertible stats telling us what Prop 29 will bring. This sounds like that phony scientist that was hired by the California Air Resources Board to produce a study that found that over 100,000 deaths (or was it one hundred million) were directly caused by diesel gas fumes. Based on that, California now requires all vehicles with diesel engines to undergo revisions costing owners thousands of dollars apiece-or is it  tens of thousands of dollars?

And don't forget "strict accountability".

Frankly, I haven't heard such a wild prediction since 2004, when vice-presidential candidate John Edwards told us that once  he and John Kerry were elected, Superman hero Christopher Reeve was going to get up out of his wheelchair and walk again. We all know how that turned out. Superman is gone, and John Edwards is on trial in North Carolina for his own "strict accountability" with the people's money.

And don't forget this:

"Prop. 29 dedicates funds for enforcement of tobacco laws."

Can you say, "new government agency"? Of course, Brown could bring back the California Bureau of  Narcotic Enforcement (BNE), the state drug agency he abolished when he took office (money-saving idea, you know).

What's just one more tax compared to saving 104,000 lives? Or was it 103,000 lives?