Prop Spotlight: 55 & 56

From Republican Women Federated:
​ Please talk to voters EVERYDAY.
Prop 55: Prop 30 Tax Extension- OPPOSE

• Remember Prop 30? The “temporary” tax increase touted by Governor Brown and the Democrats? Well, the legislature and Governor Brown want to extend the personal income tax portion of Prop 30 for 12 more years.
• This means that income taxes for single earners of $250,000 a year, joint filers of $500,00 a year, and heads of household filers of $340,000 a year
• This INCLUDES small business whose owners file their small business earners within their personal income taxes
• Prop 55 spells out yet another broken promise made by Governor Brown and legislative Democrats to our taxpayers
• Prop 55 extends taxes while higher taxes are not necessary. California takes in more tax dollars than we need each year — we currently have a $2.7 billion surplus. Let’s use the revenue we have wisely, not tax and spend more than we need.
• -California’s critical spending- healthcare, education- can be funded without this tax unnecessary tax extension. Unsurprisingly, education and healthcare spending skyrocketed since the original passage of Prop 30. Education spending has soared by $24.6 billion since 2012 — a 52% increase. Medi-Cal spending has increased by $2.9 billion a 13% increase. Let’s get back to 2012 spending instead of extending Prop 30.

Prop 56: Cigarette Tax Increase- OPPOSE

• Increases cigarette tax by $2.00 per pack, with equivalent increase on other tobacco products and electronic cigarettes containing nicotine.
• Prop. 56 allocates just 13% of new tobacco tax money to treat smokers or for school education to prevent smoking.
• The authors of Prop 56 purposefully wrote in a loophole so that revenue will fill their pockets and not go to school funding. California's Constitution (through Proposition 98), requires that schools get at least 43% of any new tax increase. Prop. 56 was written to undermine our Constitution's minimum school funding guarantee, allowing the authors to deceptively divert at least $600 million a year from schools to health insurance companies and other wealthy special interests. 
• $147 million a year from the higher cigarette tax revenue will go towards just overhead and bureaucracy alone.
• This is an intentionally deceptive and regressive tax on a small (generally poor and less educated) population of Californians that will pay the increase because of an addiction. The higher tax does nothing to help prevent or decrease smoking or tobacco usage. It is a farce.