The cigarette money
Stephens Media reports that tobacco settlement money is declining (fewer people are smoking) and this could endanger programs supported by the money. It's a good time to mention how the legislsature imprudently signed off recently on a ridiculously expensive bond issue backed for decades by this very declining money source, rather than using surplus money to pay the cost of a new UAMS cancer center interest-free and thus for tens of millions less.
Comments
Declining is it? No surprise there. I remember when Pryor was attorney general and Huckabee was after the tobacco settlement money back then.
Tax payer dollars have always had a way of disappearing under Huckabee. e.g. $1 million from employment security trust fund, $357,000 gop victory campaign 2000 money - $'s gone somewhere with Huckabee longtime aide Jason Brady.
Surely one can't be surprised by a decline in the "tobacco" money.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 1, 2006 08:42 AM
First place I'd look for missing money is in one of the many political pacts his highness has set up around the country. Second place I'd look is some little banana republic he's stopped in on trips back and forth from Gitmo.
I think he was giving us a Freudian clue when he accidentally mentioned the term banana republic on Imus. Every Easter I watch for him to pull a sackcloth and ashes routine....but he never does.....curious.
Posted by: Deathbyinches | May 1, 2006 09:14 AM
I hate to be a told you so but NOBODY was listening when they had that special session on the tobacco money. Gov/UAF/UAMS/ASU (through Beebe) insisted on doing it there way. Jim Hendren suggested putting all the money received into a trust fund and just spend the interest on whatever (ads, education, etc.). Gov. wouldn't hear it since it wasn't his idea. Hendren showed that in 12 years, interest from the payments would equal what the orginial payment per year would be. That was 7 years ago. We would only be 5 years away from the origninal 60 mill. per year and it was only going to go up. Now, watch them come to the legislature next spring asking for taxpayers to suppliment where the tobacco money shortfall is, in order to continue the fight against smoking. I knew I was going to have to pay for that, even though I don't use tobacco....
Posted by: Inside | May 1, 2006 09:18 AM
I was there in '01 too and I agree with INSIDE. You tax more tobacco, people smoke less, eventually. So, you have a tax that will inheritly produce less. The same applies to the settlement funds: less folks smoke, less money in to pay out to states. Problem now is we have staff and buildings to pay for. Can anyone say General Revenue please?
Posted by: Agreein' | May 1, 2006 01:16 PM
People bitch about us smoking, then they bitch about sales and tax revenue going down ...
Posted by: Smoker | May 1, 2006 04:54 PM
No, what we are moaning about is that our taxpayer dollars are now going to have to pay for those buildings, programs, and schools of health that were to be funded with tobacco dollars that were never promised to be steady. If no one smoked, great. But when you tie state programs to money dissapearing, they sure ain't going to get rid of the programs. They'll be asking for general revenue money. And that stinks.
Posted by: INSIDE | May 2, 2006 08:50 AM
hmmm
Posted by: Anonymous | May 18, 2006 04:51 PM
Have you seen this before? It's a number guessing game: http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/guessthenumber.html. I guessed 23063, and it got it right! Pretty neat.
Posted by: Merideth Carleton | May 23, 2006 03:48 AM