Posted on 10/17/2002 8:44:09 AM PDT by MindBender26
This Friday's John Stossel "Give Me a Break" on 20/20 is about that famous $200 billion tobacco settlement. Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute once called it "the foulest, rankest scandal." Now that the money is in play, I see what Horowitz meant.
President Clinton called the deal, "a milestone in the long struggle to protect our children." (The politicians always stress protecting "the children.") Washington State's Attorney General, Christine Gregoire said, "These lawsuits by these Attorneys General were on behalf of those 3,000 children who were addicted every day." But once the checks arrived, most of the promises regarding children went up in smoke. In North Carolina, politicians gave $200,000 to a place that holds horse riding competitions. A county golf course in New York got almost a million dollars; $200,000 for golf carts. And the lawyers got plenty. Dickie Scruggs, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott's brother-in-law, is said to be getting more than $800 million. Maryland attorney Peter Angelos, who was already rich enough to own the Baltimore Orioles, is getting another $150 million.
And guess who else got some money? Tobacco producers - Because there may be less demand for their crops because of the settlement. "Why shouldn't I get some of the money?" North Carolina tobacco farmer Bobby Bissett told us.
North Carolina has now spent more than $42 million of its part of the settlement with the tobacco industry. They gave money to a tobacco auction house, and a museum of tobacco farming. The states say these kinds of investments will help create jobs and stimulate the economy.
What's going on here?
Politicians and the lawyers cut a deal promising they'll help stop kids from smoking. But who was really helped? Rich lawyers and the tobacco industry.
Give me a break!
Hogan is simply trying to buy himself a seat, ala Senator Corzine
Uh, this is a surprize to who?
Boonie Rat
MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66
North and South Carolina only entered the lawsuit so as to lessen its effect on the tobacco industry from within. So it should come as no surprise that North Carolina would spend it to help the tobacco industry. North Carolina is probably the only state not being hypocritical with the money.
Cigarettes are one of the most heavily taxed consumer products in the United States. Federal, state and local governments have a virtual monopoly on tobacco profits. The government makes more money from the sale of cigarettes than anyone else, including manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers. In fact, the government profit per pack of cigarettes sold in the U.S. was $1.54, or 47 percent of the cost of the average pack. This represents more than 15 times the profit for the government than the 10 cents per pack profit for Reynolds Tobacco.
In the end, the massive 1998 civil settlement penalized those who light up, not the offending tobacco firms.
Attorney General Christine Gregoire watching in dismay as states around the country — including Washington — borrow heavily against their shares of the settlement to fill short-term budget holes.
Little U.S. Tobacco Settlement Money to Prevention
The state attorneys general who negotiated the settlement expected it to be used to fight the spread of smoking and prevent tobacco addiction, but the documents left it to the states to decide how their shares of the money would be spent.
More than half of the money is being used in ways unrelated to smoking, the study found.
Several states are tapping their tobacco settlement payments to make up shortfalls in their state budgets and bolster programs that have nothing to do with tobacco.
Tennessee will use its $557 million to meet budget shortfalls in 2002.
North Dakota is using 45 percent of its tobacco funds to pay for debt service on bonds financing a water allocation and flood project.
``It's moral treason to me,'' Mississippi Attorney General Michael Moore said in Saturday's editions of The New York Times. `` We got all this money, then legislatures and governors who were not even in this fight act like the money fell out of heaven and spend it on the political whim of the day.''
Partnership For a Tobacco Free Maine spending $10,000 plus $4500 at Wiscasset Race Track
OUTRAGEOUS? You bet it's outrageous.
The Tobacco Settlement money is being paid by people who pay the taxes on cigarettes. NOT the Tobacco Company and NOT Big Government. The Smokers are paying for all of this!
This is something that needs to be pointed out to Missouri taxpayers.
This money is not going where it's supposed to, it's just filling the pockets of politicians.
"For the children" is a ploy to fund more social programs until we are completely socialized. When cigarette taxes go high enough, the visits to the New Hampshire stores and the black market trucks from the Carolinas will increase. Taxing cigarettes is a flimsy way to have an on-going base of support. In spite of over 45 million each year from the tobacco settlement, the Democrats spent only a portion of it for tobacco-related problems, the remainder on their new and increased social programs. Yesterday the House Republicans had a press conference to announce our version of the remainder of the budget with NO NEW TAXES, yet funding all of the essential needs.
Why don't you folks write letters to the editors across the State. The libs do it we should do it to. Actually, I started up a rapid response team of people in my area of the woods. We need to get those letters out and haunt your legislators. Write to Governor King and tell him what a bunch of crud it is and that he should learn to live within the States means, cut programs such as Start me right. That program alone cost the State of Maine up to 170 million dollars, not sure if it all got funded. In his dumb budget he proposes to take 15 million from it. It is a program this state cannot afford.
Yes, they know how much it costs, but Maine has too many left wingers who have been allowed to get out of hand and therefore society has allowed them to be heard and has placed too much importance on their views. They have even infiltrated the Republicans.
I hated that cigarette tax and voted against it the first time. Of course, they hold over our heads that the government will shut down unless we pass a budget, and the governor and most everyone was ready to stick it to the cigarette smokers again.
I will not vote to increase cigarette taxes. You folks are paying enough in cigarette taxes now. But the Democrats need more funding to pay for the social programs they have instituted in recent years.
State Addicted to Tobacco Taxes
The above is from September 2002.
Now I know how much Missouri has collected from smokers and tobacco companies.
Any idea where to find information concerning what all that money has actually been spent on?
You go Girl!!!
North Carolina has now spent more than $42 million of its part of the settlement with the tobacco industry. They gave money to a tobacco auction house, and a museum of tobacco farming
Wheee!!! Where's this museum? Personally I don't have a problem with NC putting the money back into our state. The d#mn national government needs to get off our backs anyway. People like tobacco, many use it, and it's legal. Should have never had a lawsuit to begin with
Oh boy! I dig around the Net for the state of Maine and where the money goes here. It's a long and tedious task, believe me. But it's all in here. They can't hide it.
Here is how much MO is receiving from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to control, restrict and promoting higher taxes in MO on the smokers:
American Cancer Society, Inc., Heartland Division, Inc. Kansas City,MO
SmokeLess States: National Tobacco Policy Initiative
1 year, ending 05/31/02 $200,000 ID#041907
Saint Louis,MO
SmokeLess States: National Tobacco Policy Initiative
2 years, ending 05/31/04 $754,130 ID#045146
Saint Louis,MO
Linking peer-and neigborhood-based smoking cessation with clinic-based services for low-income African Americans
40 months, ending 09/30/02 $500,000 ID#036026
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation works with the American Medical Association and currently, there are 44 states in the pocket of the RWJ Foundation. The more control, restrictions, and higher taxes imposed upon the smokers in the state, the bigger the grants. Completely separate from the Tobacco Settlement Money.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation then click on Tobacco.
I have been researching this stuff for quite awhile. Just burns me up. You know it and I know it: it's all about money. The more they can bleed from the smokers! They double speak out of both sides of their mouths.
Tax us to death but say "it's for the kids," or "higher taxes will help you quit." Oh yes, right!
Then the Tobacco Settlement Money. Each state feel like they lost a rich dead uncle. And the DemocRATS are more guilty of misspending then any of them.
Burns me up! The Attorney Generals put Big Tobacco to their knees, but in the long run, it is trying to bring smokers to OUR knees. We are mad and we aren't going to take it anymore!
Oh no, that's where you're wrong.
It would increase it by an extra 20% (excise tax) and THEN add another 55 cents on top of that.
Or, depending on how it's written, add 55 cents and THEN another 20% on top of that.
I know, I've been fighting this for the better part of six months now.
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