The latest Beacon Hill feeding frenzy has commenced and the special interests all
have their hands out or in our pockets. Yesterday the Legislature's Health Care Committee
began hearings on how to spend the $7.6 billion "tobacco settlement"
reimbursement.
So that there is no question about where CLT stands, we sent the
memo, below.
Let the debate begin over the $7.6 billion windfall, but let it
begin, as we said in our memo, not with how to best spend the money -- as the
"Coalition of Coalitions" wants it done -- but how best to return this
reimbursement to its rightful owners, the taxpayers.
Chip Ford --
State House News Service
March 19, 1999
www.statehousenews.com
ADVANCES (WEEK OF MARCH 22, 1999)
The activity on Beacon Hill this week is the surest sign of spring.
Action is scheduled on a slew of major bills - truly launching the 1999/2000 session.
[ ... ]
TOBACCO SETTLEMENT ... One of the state's most pleasant dilemmas -
deciding how to spend the state's share of the national tobacco settlement - is indicative
of a new phenomenon on Beacon Hill. In recent years, with the state's coffers overflowing
with surpluses, officials have found it challenging to agree on how to spend the
taxpayers' money. Cellucci has argued for tax cuts. The House and Senate have consented
somewhat, but have their own differences of opinion on spending priorities. The state's
$7.6 billion settlement share - to be delivered over 25 years - adds even more cash to
their consternation. Cellucci has called for spending the settlement - compensation to
states for the Medicaid-related costs of treating smokers - to expand health care programs
for children, the elderly and the poor. His lack of support for expanded anti-tobacco
programs has been criticized. Four bills concerning the settlement money are before the
Health Care Committee at noon Tuesday in Room A-1. One (H 1945) filed by Rep. John
Stefanini (D-Framingham) dedicates 20 percent of the monies to tobacco control programs
and the rest to health care for children and senior citizens. H 3648, filed by committee
chair Rep. Harriette Chandler (D-Worcester), sets up a 15-member commission to decide the
best way to spend the money. Rep. Mary Jeanette Murray (R-Cohasset) has filed a bill (H
38550) requiring some of the money to be spent by non-profits on "programs of
abstinence from harmful substances and behaviors." Murray's list of supportable
programs includes those that endorse sexual abstinence and call for making faithful
monogamous marriages "the expected standard of human sexual activity." And Sen.
Mark Montigny has also filed a bill to set up a commission.
State House News Service
March 23, 1999
www.statehousenews.com
[ ... ]
The Cancer Society is one of about 100 organizations that have joined
to form the "Coalition of Coalitions," a group that wants to use the settlement
to expand public health programs and hike spending on tobacco control. Coalition members
are recruiting legislators to sign their "statement of principle" to that
effect. The group was formed in December 1998 by Fresina, Health Care for All director
Robert Restuccia and Jim Hyde of the Massachusetts Public Health Association. ...
CITIZENS
for
Limited Taxation
Post Office Box 408
Peabody, Massachusetts 01960 (508) 384-0100
To: Massachusetts Legislators
Date: March 23, 1999
Subject: The Tobacco Settlement - Give it Back!
July 13, 1989 -- The Boston Herald: "The spending cuts come as
nervous House Democratic leaders try to hold a thin margin of support for a controversial
temporary income tax hike they say is needed to pay off last year's deficit and old
Medicaid bills." The next day it added: "The tax package will pay off borrowing
to close out the 1989 deficit and pay back $488 million in old Medicaid bills. The tax
rate on all earned income will revert to 5 percent after 1990 under the plan."
December 19, 1995 -- Opening complaint in
Commonwealth v. Phillip Morris, Inc., et. al: "The Attorney General, Scott
Harshbarger, brings this action on behalf of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ... to
recover the smoking-related costs to the Commonwealth, including, but not limited to,
increased expenditures for ... Medical assistance provided under Massachusetts' Medicaid
program [and] the Common Health Program.... In fulfilling its statutory duties, the
Commonwealth has expended and will expend substantial sums of money due to the increased
costs of providing health care services for smoking-related diseases."
He later argued in Middlesex Superior Court: "As the Supreme
Judicial Court has held, reimbursement is simply 'repaying or making good the amount paid
out.'"
Discussion of the Commonwealth's $7.6 billion share of the
"tobacco settlement" should be not about how to best spend the windfall
but how best to return this reimbursement to its rightful owners, the long-suffering
taxpayers.
Historical facts are clear that the 1989 "temporary" income
tax rate hike was essential to bail out years of state Medicaid debt. Though that debt has
been retired, a decade later the "temporary" tax remains at 5.95 percent.
Taxpayer-funded litigation against the tobacco industry allegedly was
to "recover the smoking-related costs" borne by taxpayers of the Commonwealth
for state Medicaid and Common Health programs; "reimbursement" the attorney
general insisted.
It is now time for "repaying or making good the amount paid
out" by the taxpayers over the decades by returning to them the tobacco settlement
reimbursement.
To that end, CLT has filed S-1635,
sending the reimbursement to the Tax Reduction Fund. One way or another, the money should
be returned to the taxpayers who compassionately provided it in good faith.