If a ballot measure to repeal 1998's Proposition 10 passes next March, children and working families will be the real beneficiaries, the Libertarian Party of California announced today.

Secretary of State Bill Jones announced today that an initiative to repeal Proposition 10 had qualified for the March 7 ballot. The repeal is led by Ned Roscoe of Cigarettes Cheaper! Stores, a libertarian who announced the launching of the repeal at the Libertarian Party's state convention last February. ``We congratulate Ned Roscoe for leading this effort and we look forward to a challenging but successful campaign to repeal a tax that should never have passed in the first place,'' said Hinkle. Proposition 10, which was spearheaded by actor-director Rob Reiner and raised taxes on cigarettes by 50 cents a pack to pay for early childhood development programs, passed last November by a margin of just under 80,000 votes. The Libertarian Party of California opposed the tax from the beginning. ``Last year we said that this tax was unfair because it punished one group of people for having an unpopular habit. We said that passage of this tax would lead to an increase in black market cigarette sales, smuggling, and crime. And we said the tax money would be misspent on a bloated bureaucracy while stranding children in nebulous government programs,'' said Hinkle. ``We were right then, and we are still right today. ``Thanks to Rob Reiner, working parents are now spending more of their income on cigarettes than before. And bureaucrats are salivating over how to misspend the millions in Prop. 10 money they're getting,'' Hinkle noted. ``Libertarians believe parents -- not the government and not Rob Reiner -- should be raising their own children,'' Hinkle added. ``We urge Californians to roll back this harmful tax and give parents, children, and smokers the freedom they deserve to make decisions for themselves.''

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