Cigarette Tax to Aid Children

Re “A Worthwhile Gamble,� editorial, Oct. 15: How can you support a piece of legislation that places such a heavy toll on a small group of people? As a single homeowner with no children, between property, income and sales taxes, I already pay more than half of my salary in taxes to develop other people’s children.

Even the logic behind Prop. 10 is flawed. Granted, smoking is not a healthy habit, but neither is drinking alcohol or eating fast food. Notice there isn’t anyone pushing additional taxes on these products. Rob Reiner chose a minority that is popular to bash right now and did it in the name of the “children.� Isn’t it funny how whenever government is looking for a greater handout, it is always for the children? If The Times is so concerned with the welfare of the children of California, why doesn’t it fight Sacramento for a larger cut of the already bloated state budget to address those needs, rather than jump on the anti-smoker bandwagon?

ROBERT LoBUE

Aliso Viejo

* * Sixteen years of Republican governors have brought our once golden state to the current state of infrastructure failure. The Times’ editorial endorsing Prop. 10 as a worthwhile venture to help poor children in the state will be opposed by Republicans as another tax on the poor. Another more realistic way of looking at this measure is that it will save lives.

We need to spend money in California to rebuild our educational programs, fix our roads, clean up our air and oceans, provide adequate water resources, clean up our cities etc., etc.

California has the money to become, again, a world-class state. However, the Republican strategy is give tax breaks primarily to the upper 2% of Californians and then wait for the big contributions to finance their campaigns to continue domination of state politics. Where do you think the big tobacco money will be this year?

SANFORD DUROFF

Tarzana

* * Reiner almost has the right idea about Prop. 10. However, instead of taxing tobacco, add more tax to movie tickets! This tax should be used to help all the victims of violence perpetuated by movies. Perhaps the tax should be graduated according to the number of violent acts per movie. Now with all the money collected we could do the social programs he espouses. Wouldn’t the Hollywood crowd love that!

BURTON GOLDSTEIN

Laguna Niguel