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 On
June 20, 1997 the U.S. tobacco industry, state attorneys general,
representatives of the public health community, and plaintiffs'
attorneys crafted
a proposal that would transform the way tobacco products are
regulated, manufactured, marketed, and sold in the United States.
Tobacco companies agreed to pay $368.5 billion and accept extensive
federal regulation over their products and their advertising in exchange
for protection from future lawsuits.
Soon
after the agreed settlement reached money hungry Washington, politicains
began scuttling the agreement and drafted a classically liberal bill by
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) that raised the
agreed to price-tag from $368.5 billion to $516 billion to fund new
bureaucracies and reneged on the agreement to grant the industry
immunity from lawsuits. It was only after this betrayal and breech of
agreement that the tobacco industry broke off talks on legislation.
They
had an agreement with the tobacco industry a year ago! It was an
agreement that presumably fulfilled their stated desire to "protect
the children." But now, because of their greed, Democrats have
blown it. They had an agreement a year ago - now they have none.
Tax-and-Spend!
Championed
by recent settlements between states and the tobacco industry,
Congress attempted to pushing through one of the largest tax increases
in American history called the
National
Tobacco Policy and Youth Smoking Reduction Act.
The bill would:
- Increase cigarette taxes by $1.10 over five
years. Senator Kennedy has proposed even a higher increase of
raising taxes by $1.50 a pack. Those people earning less than
$30,000 a year would pay 53% percent of this tax increase and a
whopping 97% of the taxes would have come from people making under
$75,000. Section 404 of the bill specifically forbade the tobacco
companies from paying the tax on smokers’ behalf. This is not
a tax on the tobacco companies ... it's a tax on the American
people!
- Cap the amount of damages the industry
would pay plaintiffs at $6.5 billion a year.
- Limit the cigarette industry's ability to
advertise, with restrictions on billboard advertising.
- Give the Food and Drug Administration the
power to regulate nicotine.
- Impose up to $3.5 billion a year in fines
if youth smoking does not fall by agreed-on goals.
- An $18 billion buyout program for tobacco
farmers.
 The
media has largely mischaracterized this bill as a measure that would
punish tobacco companies by having them pay an estimated $516 billion
over the next 25 years. The truth is ... the tobacco companies don't
pay that $516 billion ... consumers pay and the American taxpayer
pays!
The McCain bill
required the tobacco companies to make annual payments to the
government, and to pass through the costs to consumers. McCain's bill
is not unique in this respect: All proposed tobacco legislation would,
through "pass-throughs" or direct taxes, raise prices for
consumers.
McCain's bill
represents the largest tax increase in American history being
disguised as a punitive action against an evil industry causing
millions of deaths of Americans. It is, in fact, a massive tax
increase to fund expansion of the federal bureaucracy. WAKE UP
folks, they are after your wallet! It is going to cost hundreds of
billions of dollars, spent on a myriad of programs, a lot of which
don't have to do with tobacco.
"Teen
smoking is not the central thrust of what's happening here. This is
a massive, massive tax increase on low income Americans and instead
of helping children it is very likely to end up hurting children and
hurting families." - Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.)
"Everybody
that has touched it has made it worse," said Senate Majority
Leader, Trent Lott, R-Miss. "It's become such a massive tax bill
now -- such a massive government program with incredible spending.
In
conrast to this huge tax bill, Republicans have introduced their
approach. "The time has come to say no to drugs, no to teen-age
smoking and no to tax hikes on middle Americans," said Rep.
Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio. The Republican plan does not contain the
provisions to dramatically drive up the price of cigarettes, as public
health groups favor, nor the limits on lawsuit liability that the
tobacco industry favors. It does provide for an anti-smoking
advertising campaign, restrictions on tobacco advertising aimed at
minors and limited regulation of cigarette manufacturing. In summary
the bill would:
- Deny tobacco companies the legal shields they demand.
- Approve new authority to the Food and Drug Administration to
regulate the manufacture of tobacco products.
- Grant the Federal Trade Commission ``enhanced authority and
penalties to vigorously police tobacco advertising to teenagers.''
- Launch a national advertising campaign, overseen by the White
House's office of national drug control policy to discourage teens
from smoking and taking drugs.
- Create federal guidelines for states to enact laws penalizing
sellers of tobacco to minors.
- Encourage states to penalize minors who possess tobacco by
notifying their parents, suspending their drivers' licenses and
requiring them to perform community service.
- Allow states that cap lawyers' fees to keep proceeds of their
lawsuits against tobacco companies.
Who
would have benefited most from the National Tobacco Policy and Youth
Smoking Reduction Act?
U.S. Government
The
Federal government expects to collect $860 billion from this tax
increase. A large part of the money taken from low income familes
will be spent to pay against the National Debt and fund 17 new
bueracracies. The Food and Drug Administration alone was to get an
additional $100 million in its budget for their Youth Tobacco
Prevention Program.
FBI and DEA
The
Senate approved a GOP-backed amendment to spend billions of
additional dollars on the war on drugs.
Trial Lawyers
This
National Lawyer Enrichment deal will not make attorneys instant
millionaires. . . . Some of them will become BILLIONAIRES! Rather
than spending huge amounts of money on children's health or health
in general, a small group of trial lawyers will be enriched with
limitless fees charged through tobacco related litigation.
Provisions of the proposed tax legislation before Congress allows
families to be taxed in order to pay plaintiffs attorney's as much
as $4,000 an hour to pursue tobacco related lawsuits.
Sen. Orrin Hatch
(R-Utah) defended trial lawyers ability to collect huge fees,
calling them the "last bastion of freedom." Republicans
have sought to ease this massive enrichment of attorneys by limiting
them to only $1,000 an hour! Yep, that's right, $1,000 an hour!
While that may be a whole lot less than $4,000/hr., it's still a
whole lot more than most people earn in a week.
Prosecution
for profit. The vulture mentality of trial lawyers now
use the court system as a legal playground for the purpose of
extortion of funds from targeted defendants. Today it is tobacco,
tomorrow will be a different target, take your choice. They will use
the billions of dollars they get from a tobacco bill to file suits
against other industries creating a nightmare in our legal system.
Individual States
The
states attorney's generals are looking to the deep pockets of
tobacco companies and those who choose to smoke to pay for their
failing medicare systems. A large part of the money raised through
this tax increase would be returned to the states to help pay their
medicare costs.
The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) released a report
in 1994 claiming that smoking-related disease in the United States
has an enormous economic impact. In 1993, it was estimated that the
direct medical costs associated with smoking totaled $50 billion.
For each of the 24 billion packs of cigarettes sold in the United
States in 1993, about $2.00 was spent on avoidable medical care
costs due to smoking. The study also found that smoking is
responsible for approximately 7 percent of total U.S. health care
costs; Federal and state funds pay more than 43 percent ($0.89 of
the $2.06 per pack expenditure) of all smoking-attributable medical
care expenditures; and in 1993, hospital expenditures accounted for
54 percent ($27 billion) of all smoking-related medical costs. Other
costs were for physician expenses (31%), nursing home expenses
(10%), prescription drug charges (4%), and home health costs (2%).
Hillary's Village
A
substantial amount of money ($23 Billion) was earmarked to pay for
Hillary's government sponsored child care - one piece of her failed
health care industry takeover. According to a
press
release from the Children's Defense Fund, "Any tobacco
legislation this year, with or without a settlement, ought to make
sure that tobacco money is used to ensure the healthy development of
future generations. Quality child care and after-school activities
are cornerstones of our children's healthy development."
Advertising Companies
P
art of the money is slated for new anti-smoking advertising. The
American taxpayer is expected to pay for the government's propaganda
campaign.
Foreign Governments
A
significant amount of money ($350 million a year) raised by this tax
increase would be sent to foreign governments to help them study
smoking in their own countries.
Nearly
1,500 anti-smoking activists attended the 10th World Conference on
"Tobacco or Health" in Beijing where one of the big
issues was how to get some of the dollars from the massive U.S.
settlement distributed worldwide - especially in China, the
world's single largest producer of cigarettes. The conference was
organised by the Chinese Association on Smoking and Health and the
Chinese Medical Association under the auspices of several
international bodies, including the World Health Organisation
(WHO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the
International Union Against Cancer and the American Cancer
Society. The co-organisers and sponsors are Bionax, the Australian
and Hong Kong-based healthcare company.
This
information from the 10th WCTOH is originally published by
UICC GLOBALink
What About Families and
Children?
Families
don't benefit nor do the children in those families. Those same
families and children this bill is supposed to help will actually
lose. The lions share of the tax burden will be borne by those
families with incomes less than $30,000. Money these familes could
save for their children's education or health care will be collected
by the government in higher taxes.
Raising
cigarette taxes was paramount to telling my 80-year-old
Marlboro-smoking mother that "she´s been victimized all
her lifetime because Joe Camel is making her smoke and now we´re
going to victimize you more [with taxes].” - Sen. Phil Gramm
(R-TX)
In
an effort to placate some opposed to the tobacco bill because of its
high cost to familes, Congress passed an amendment crafted by Sen.
Phil Gramm, to cut taxes and eliminate the Marriage Tax Penalty in
exchange for higher taxes on smokers. What likely was an attempt by
Sen. Gramm to kill the Tobacco Bill with this amendment, turned out
to backfire. Democrats and Republicans both can now focus on the
return of an unfair tax in exchange for a greater tax and say they
have done something for families. What a betrayal to the American
taxpayer!
Read
more about this Clintoneze stealth tactic to make you feel
good about having your taxes raised.
A Victory for Whom?
Even
in defeat, liberals continue to press their mantra, "Big Tobacco,
or your Children." Just prior to the vote killing the bill, its
author, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said, "If this bill fails,
have no doubt, the tobacco companies win and the children of America
lose." Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said, "Joe Camel wins and
our children will lose."
It is a win for the
tobacco industry. They have survived being taken over by the federal
government.
It is a win for the
children of America. Their parents will not be taxed the thousands of
dollars a year this bill would have imposed. They can now spend that
money for things their children really need like health care, food,
clothing, etc.
 It's
a defeat for Bill Clinton. The Clinton White House failed to take over
the Health Care industry, and for now have been held back from pushing
through some of the provisions of their failed health care takeover.
The bill would have funded several Clinton intiatives: $13 billion for
anti-smoking programs, $13 billion for cancer research, and $23
billion for child care.
Moreover, it's a defeat
for the Clinton Whitehouse in taking over yet another American
industry: the tobacco growers. Following his defeat, Bill Clinton
said, "I want the tobacco lobby and its allies on Capitol Hill to
know that, from my point of view, this battle is far from over." "If
more members of the Senate would vote like parents rather than
politicians, we could solve this problem and go onto other business of
the country." Yes, Mr. Clinton, if more members of the Senate
would vote like parents, you would be sitting in a jail cell or at
least unemployed!
It's a victory for the
American taxpayer. This bill was an attempt to impose the largest tax
increase in American history on American citizens, and for the time
being, those taxes will not be imposed. Senate Majority Leader Trent
Lott correctly pointed out the problem, "We've lost sight of the
original noble cause of just dealing with teenage smoking and drug
abuse." Is that any surprise?
Beware... Democrats have
promised to not let this thing die. They will be back attaching
amendments to every piece of major legislation they consider in the
hopes of pushing their agenda through piece by piece.
Maybe
now, lawmakers can get back to the real issue of reducing teen
smoking. But, like I've said over and over again in these pages,
"it's not about teen smoking,"
it's about your money and their control over you. Don't hold your
breath for any good legislation dealing with teen smoking, but watch
for the hands of government reaching into your wallet.
Bill
Clinton is right in one thing: "... this battle is far from over."
With this bills defeat, the issue will become an explosive political
issue for the fall campaign.
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