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.
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