Tobacco Facts.

More than seven out of 10 California voters support a $1.50-per-pack increase in the state cigarette tax as a way to narrow the state’s budget deficit, according to poll results released Tuesday.

Republican leaders said Tuesday they remain staunchly opposed.

The poll of 600 registered voters — 500 randomly sampled plus an oversample of 100 more Republicans, surveyed June 25-28 — found 78 percent of Democrats, 75 percent of independents, and 65 percent of Republicans support such an increase.

The poll was commissioned by the American Lung Association, American Cancer Society and American Heart Association. Paul Knepprath, the American Lung Association’s vice president for advocacy and health initiatives, said the tax increase would bring in about $1.2 billion per year, 85 percent of which would go to the state’s beleaguered General Fund and the rest to existing tobacco-prevention programs as well as to tobacco disease and lung cancer research.

Knepprath said tobacco kills more than 40,000 Californians each year, and American Heart Association Senior Legislative Director Jamie Morgan estimated this tax increase could save the state $8.1 billion in health care costs.

Dave Metz of the Democratic polling firm of Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates, which conducted the poll with the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, said when given three choices for reducing the deficit, 13 percent of voters called

for a primary focus on tax and fee increases, 50 percent preferred a mix of spending cuts and tax increases, and 25 percent preferred a primary focus on cutting services. Even among this latter group — the quarter of the California electorate most opposed to tax increases — 52 percent backed this tax increase, he said.

The poll also found 57 percent of voters would be more likely to back a state legislative candidate who supported this tax increase, while 20 percent would be less likely to do so. Among Republicans it was 48 percent to 29 percent, noted Lori Weigel from Public Opinion Strategies, adding this “might be somewhat surprising to some of the legislators.”

maintaining a hard line against any tax increases.

State Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta, still opposes such an increase, spokeswoman Melanie Reagan said Tuesday. “Tax increases aren’t the answer. Neither is tying programs with increasing costs to a tax source that is declining.”

Aaron McLear, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s press secretary, said much the same. “We’ve already raised taxes by $12 billion in this budget, and voters overwhelmingly rejected further tax increases in May. The governor is standing firm in his opposition to further tax increases. We need to live within our means.”

Assembly Republican Leader Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, likewise continued to oppose the tax, issuing a statement through a spokeswoman that “working California families are hurting. Raising taxes again will only further damage the economy.”

The margin of error for the new poll’s statewide sample is 4.4 percentage points, while the margin of error for the 280 registered Republicans is 5.9 percentage points.

The Field Poll in April found 75 percent of California voters support increasing the state tobacco tax.

Voters in November 2006 rejected Proposition 86 — which would have raised the state tobacco tax from $0.87 to $3.47 per pack to fund various health programs, children’s health coverage and tobacco-related programs — in a 52 percent to 48 percent vote. But Knepprath noted Tuesday the tobacco industry spent about $62 million to defeat that measure, and Metz said polling at the time had shown most voters supported some tobacco tax increase, just not that one for those purposes.
© Copyright: Mercurynews

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