Proposition

What's to like about taxes? Most people view them at best as a necessary evil to help pay for robust government services - a public benefit. But cigarette taxes are an anomaly. In their case, the tax itself is a public benefit. Proposition 29, which would place a $1 levy on each pack of cigarettes sold in California, would serve the common good by making cigarettes more expensive. Economists have demonstrated conclusively that taxes on cigarettes are an effective tool for reducing smoking rates, which not only benefits the health of current and potential smokers but clears the air for people who would otherwise be exposed to secondhand smoke.

SACRAMENTO - Cigarette makers have a certified history of deception, distortion and lying. And let's not forget fraud and racketeering. Those aren't my words. Credit U.S. District Judge Gladys E. Kessler of Washington, D.C. She wrote in a landmark 2006 ruling that for more than 50 years the tobacco industry had "lied, misrepresented, and deceived the American public, including smokers and the young people they avidly sought as 'replacement smokers,' about the devastating health effects of smoking.

No state uses the blunt instrument of direct democracy more than California. With each election, Californians are asked to resolve ever more complicated questions via the ballot. And why not? We don't trust our elected representatives very much, and our representatives are all too eager to defer politically difficult decisions to us. In short, we get the dysfunctional government we deserve. For conservative voters, the choices this week seem straightforward enough, assuming we follow two simple rules of thumb: Any ballot measure that, on balance, limits state government power and strengthens local accountability is laudable.

Every morning when UC San Diego physicist Herbert Levine laces up his running shoes and chugs alongside Mission Bay, his earphones crackle with radio ads opposing a proposed $1-per-pack cigarette tax to raise money for cancer research. The ads are funded by the tobacco industry. They call Proposition 29, the tobacco tax that state voters will consider on the June 5 ballot, a bureaucratic boondoggle, an initiative that would raise mountains of cash for research but not a penny for treatment.

Now I've done it. I made a few idle comments last week about rethinking Proposition 13, and the column ticked off hordes of senior citizens — the most loyal of all newspaper readers. "The question I ask you is, would you have my husband and me homeless in order to balance the state budget?" asked Betty Vanole, 71, of Burbank. No, Betty, there's no need to start packing. "May we get together over a cup of coffee and talk about Proposition 13?" asked Barbara Menendez, 81, of the San Fernando Valley.

I don't understand why people are spending millions of dollars to defeat or support any of the propositions on the June ballot. I also don't understand why we should waste our time voting on them. California should just have the people who will truly decide if and/or how a proposition will be implemented vote on it: the federal judges in the state of California. Only after they get through with the proposition should the voters be bothered with voting on it. I can't think of one proposition that passed in the past 10 years that hasn't been held up in the courts for years, and when finally implemented looked anything like the proposition voted upon, except maybe some bond issues.

No matter how you feel about Meg Whitman, head of Hewlett-Packard, former head of eBay, you'd have to concede that one of her biggest contributions to the California economy was as candidate for California governor. She lavished about $160 million on her failed campaign, and we'd have to guess that most or all of that was spent within the state. It might be hard to get the engine of California's economy revving again, but we do get a good, if short-term, cough out of political campaigns, and the most recent proof of this is the spending on Proposition 29, the initiative that would impose an extra dollar-per-pack tax on cigarettes and use most of the proceeds on medical research for cancer and cardiovascular and lung diseases.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. won a legal fight Tuesday against California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown over the exact wording of an initiative proposal that will appear on the November ballot. The Jarvis victory: One word in the description of Proposition 23 was replaced by a Sacramento judge with three different words, and an "s" was removed to make the word "laws" singular rather than plural. Nitpicky? Maybe. But words do matter, especially on ballot descriptions, because for many voters these short summaries represent all they know about an initiative.

The esoteric subject of who draws California's political districts has morphed into a high-drama affair this fall, a multimillion-dollar struggle with political intrigue stretching from Sacramento to Washington and even, some suggest, to Israel. It's a battle about power, Nancy Pelosi and control of Congress, pitting a Los Angeles billionaire against the son of Warren Buffett's business partner. There's racial strife and even a full-length documentary in the mix. All this over two competing ballot measures, Propositions 20 and 27, which would overhaul the arcane, once-a-decade redrawing of political districts in the nation's most populous state.

If your dream — most likely fantasy — is to install public financing of California state political races, then Proposition 15 is worth voting for. Barely. It would create public financing — sort of — for only one office, the low-profile secretary of state. But it could pave the way for a much broader system later. I'm one of those who shares the pipe dream but doubts it ever will become a reality. I've always felt that if the public doesn't buy the politicians, the special interests will.

WASHINGTON -- Few strategists watch American politics with greater sophistication than Peter D. Hart. In addition to his work for Democratic candidates, the Washington-based pollster has been conducting opinion surveys for NBC News and the Wall Street Journal since 1989. He's one of the rare individuals in politics whose judgment is respected by insiders in both parties. So, when he has something to say, he's well worth paying attention to. Hart has just sent out his preview of the 2012 election, now less than six months away.

Re "A truly loopy tax loophole," Column, May 3 It's deja vu all over again. A provision of Proposition 24 on the November 2010 ballot would have eliminated the option that multi-state businesses have to choose between two tax formulas. Proposition 24 was defeated. Sandra Wolber Granada Hills ALSO: Letters: Getting Bin Laden Postscript: An anti-Vatican bias? Letters: A truth filter for political ads

What's to like about taxes? Most people view them at best as a necessary evil to help pay for robust government services - a public benefit. But cigarette taxes are an anomaly. In their case, the tax itself is a public benefit. Proposition 29, which would place a $1 levy on each pack of cigarettes sold in California, would serve the common good by making cigarettes more expensive. Economists have demonstrated conclusively that taxes on cigarettes are an effective tool for reducing smoking rates, which not only benefits the health of current and potential smokers but clears the air for people who would otherwise be exposed to secondhand smoke.

No matter how you feel about Meg Whitman, head of Hewlett-Packard, former head of eBay, you'd have to concede that one of her biggest contributions to the California economy was as candidate for California governor. She lavished about $160 million on her failed campaign, and we'd have to guess that most or all of that was spent within the state. It might be hard to get the engine of California's economy revving again, but we do get a good, if short-term, cough out of political campaigns, and the most recent proof of this is the spending on Proposition 29, the initiative that would impose an extra dollar-per-pack tax on cigarettes and use most of the proceeds on medical research for cancer and cardiovascular and lung diseases.

Economists generally don't go into politics, which is probably a good thing for Christopher Thornberg , who has declared war on Proposition 13 . The popular 1978 ballot measure that capped property taxes in California is “one of the most horrendous, unfair, regressive taxes in the history of the United States,” the former UCLA economist declared at a televised hearing in Sacramento earlier this month. (You can view it here , starting at about 31:36 minutes.) Zap!

The New York Rangers' success has been the big story in the East, and rightfully so. The Philadelphia Flyers draw attention thanks to quirky goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov , who can be riveting or terrifying. And most hockey observers have narrowed the most-valuable-player contenders to Flyers winger Claude Giroux , Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist and Pittsburgh Penguins center Evgeni Malkin . In the meantime, another East team has been positioning itself for a strong playoff run. The defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins, almost written off after a 3-7 start and later plagued by inconsistency, have quietly won four of five games and solidified their hold on the No. 2 seeding.

An initiative on the June ballot to alter California's term limits law has support from a narrow majority of registered voters, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. Proposition 28, which would shave two years off the 14 years legislators are allowed to serve in Sacramento but permit them to spend all of the remaining 12 years in one legislative house, is favored by 51% of voters. The survey found that 32% oppose it and the remainder are undecided. Currently, lawmakers are limited to six years in the Assembly and eight in the state Senate under a law passed by voters in 1990.