Who cares? We can't just start eliminating sales taxes for very specific kinds of goods without any clear method of determining whether or not this is justified. I support eliminating the sales tax for particular categories of OTC medications, hygiene products and the like, among other categories of goods, but eliminating the sales tax for tampons and diapers alone strikes me as a Shibboleth for being a Good Liberal that accomplishes nothing in practice. How much money would consumers save from this? How many more diapers would people be willing to purchase as result of this? The answer is that they wouldn't save much money and that this would have a rather negligible impact on anyone's life. This is cultural politics. If you want to help low income families, do something meaningful for them.
I understand what you're saying, but there is an additional element to this which probably depends on what other items are exempt from the sales tax. Many states exempt medical necessities. There's no question that tampons should be classified as medical necessities. Women don't choose to have periods.
The fact is, by not deeming tampons and diapers to be 'necessities', California continues to require women to bear a disproportionate consumption tax burden.
