States Spending Tobacco Cash On Other Stuff

Well, hubba hubba, despite all my warnings, the American Lung Association is acting all shocked and surprised that this is indeed happening.
The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that, ?The American Lung Association is criticizing states for using tobacco settlement money to cover budget deficits instead of anti-smoking programs. A report released Tuesday found that most states spend only a fraction of what federal health officials have recommended on measures like anti-tobacco programs at schools and counseling to help people quit smoking. In many cases, the association found, states have used money from the tobacco settlement to plug budget gaps. The sluggish economy and new anti-terrorism spending have opened huge deficits for many states.?
This has to count as one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on people. The state attorney general and all these other public officials involved are going to go unpunished. In fact, most of them are going to be lauded as crusaders for people and they’ll seek election to higher office.
All these frauds were doing was generating the equivalent of tax money. They couldn’t do it by raising taxes because people aren’t going to put up with tax increases. They’re overtaxed as it is, so they target big tobacco. They come up with massive awards for failures to warn people about the dangers of their product and then nab them with $256 billion. And the reason you climbed on to support this is because you thought that the money would go to healthcare reimbursements and anti-smoking programs, when in actuality it’s going to cover profligate spending at the state level!
You?ve been had folks, and I saw this coming a mile away.

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