Posted on 04/14/2008 9:37:36 AM PDT by dr.zaeus
COLUMBUS - Ten years ago, Ohio won the tobacco lottery.
It was among 46 states to join a lawsuit accusing tobacco producers of using unfair advertising to get smokers addicted to nicotine. Smelling bankruptcy, 11 tobacco companies and industry trade groups agreed to a settlement, promising the states $260 billion in payments spread out over 25 years.
Bob Taft, as the newly elected governor, convinced the state legislature to budget nearly half of Ohio's $10 billion share of the settlement for school construction projects - the state was entangled in a major lawsuit over school funding at the time - and the other half for anti-smoking programs sponsored by the new Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation.
But years of successive raids on the tobacco foundation - mostly to balance the state budget - have depleted its original $330 million endowment...
(Excerpt) Read more at tobacco.org ...
Government is largely an extortion racket. “Pay us, or there will be trouble. But feel good about it, because we’re helping the children.” And then the politicians give the loot to friends and family and when they realize that they spent all the money, they shrug their shoulders and say “We’ll have to get more. We know where there’s an inexahustible supply, you know.”
The government has behaved the way fools do when they win the lottery; they promptly manage to piss it away.
malfeasance–noun Law.
the performance by a public official of an act that is legally unjustified, harmful, or contrary to law; wrongdoing (used esp. of an act in violation of a public trust).
Sign up? No thanks.
Pigs at a trough.
Sorry about the source. I couldn’t link directly to the Enquirer article. You can find it on their website without a registration, however.
The scam was sold as reimbursing the states for the "unfair" public expense of tobacco-related illnesses...
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Their advertisements tend to contain a little truth and a considerable number of lies. Smoking is disgusting enough without lying about it. The people running that foundation should be tossed in jail for a very long time for fraudulently using taxpayer funds to advance their agenda through lies.
Taxpayer's interests aren't served by lying to them. These people are frauds, and should be prosecuted.
That and it was going to pay for 'anti-smoking campaigns'. That's what they told us anyway.
Sadly there were plenty of Freepers who went right along with it, quite joyfully as I recall.
So now we're all supposed to be 'shocked, shocked I tell you' to learn that politicians pissed it away on things that aren't even tangentially related to smoking.
I'm going to step outside for a minute, light a cigarette, and have a good, long laugh.
L
I wish I could tell you that you are wrong, but I cant...
That was the exact reason that the money changed hands in the first place.
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