Recommendations by San Francisco Tenants Union

This member of the San Francisco Tenants Union for some 30 plus years has never been asked to vote on the San Francisco Tenants Union endorsements. Shame on the Democratic Party machine lackeys for endorsing a regressive tax on the workingclass, a beverage tax, namely Proposition E, for a slush fund for the cronies of this rotten machine, which if allowed to pass, will be followed by a food tax on really fattening food such as hamburgers, bacon, cheese, potato chips, French fries, salad dressings, pizza and pastries. The tax is going to be levied on the distributor, who will pass it on to the retail merchant who will pass it on to the consumer, and we all know that fact. The price increase will be as follows:
From: http://votenoonprope.com/
"Prop E would levy a 2¢ per-ounce tax on the distribution of all beverages containing sugar, adding $0.40 to the cost of a bottle of soda and nearly $3.00 to the cost of a 12-pack!"
and
"A 2¢ per-ounce tax on the distribution of beverages containing sugar will increase the prices of hundred of beverages, including soft drinks, juice drinks, sports drinks, and even many teas. But it doesn’t end there: These extra costs could then get passed on to us in the form of higher prices on all types of groceries—not just beverages."

This writer is a tea drinker, with no sugar or anything else added, counts calories, read labels, gets lots of exercise and does everything possible to minimize weight. Being over age 60, it is just not easy for some of us to be thin. In fact, the largest group of overweight people are old people, AND IT IS THE OLD WHO VOTE IN EVERY ELECTION. Half the voters nationally are over age 50, and in San Francisco, where only 13% of the 856,000 residents are children, probably more than half of the voters are over age 50. We bitterly resent being scapegoated for a slush fund or for any other reason! The Board of Stupidvisors, who put this slush fund on the ballot, are very unrepresentative of the average voter in San Francisco when it comes to weight and age. In fact, it appears that the Board of Stupidvisors live on another planet! They have no concept of the cost of living in San Francisco nor what they should be doing.

The one thing the San Francisco Board of Stupidvisors should do RIGHT NOW is HOUSE THE HOMELESS, by taking over all of the empty apartments, which number in the thousands in San Francisco, by right of eminent domain, and HOUSE THE HOMELESS permanently. They can pay for housing the homeless, who cannot pay rent by definition, by obtaining money from the State and federal government, who must increase the progressive income tax on the rich, those making over $200,000 a year.

ALL SALES TAXES ARE REGRESSIVE AND ANTI-WORKINGCLASS because we the workingclass, the 80% of us who sell our labor for less than $80,000 a year, who in San Francisco are tenants with such a low income, pay a greater percentage of our income for necessities such as food and beverages than the rich.

Scapegoating anyone, whether it be obese people or by mental disability or by skin color or any other means, can have disastrous consequences, as we know from American history as well as from the Holocaust.

The pretext for this slush fund proposition is to end obesity of the minority of San Francisco schoolchildren. THE TOP PRIORITY FOR ALL PHYSICAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS must be to teach (1) NUTRTITION and (2) PHYSICAL EXERCISE for HEALTHY LIVING. If the San Francisco schools are not providing this basic nutrition and physical exercise for healthy living, you need to take your complaints about the comparative handful of San Francisco overweight schoolchildren to the San Francisco School Board, which is an elected board. As to money, San Francisco voters always vote for all school bonds, the State of California and the federal government provides money from their respective general funds, commonly known as tax the rich, to all schools, and the State of California has a budget surplus!

IT IS LONG OVERDUE that we abolish all sales taxes as they are all regressive by definition and demand that the progressive income tax on those making over $200,000 a year be increased to pay for ALL OUR NEEDS. San Francisco has some 18 billionaires and the State of California has some 750,000 millionaire households so it would not take much of an increase in the progressive income tax to pay for education, transportation, housing, medical care, old age pensions, child care, food for the needy, parks and recreation, disability compensation and everything else we need.

Saying what it means to me,
NO ON E!