[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 78 (Tuesday, June 16, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S6363]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE TOBACCO BILL

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I certainly want to echo the statements of 
my colleagues from Kansas and Nebraska about the importance of dealing 
with our agricultural situation in this country. Last week, in my State 
of Idaho, wheat hit $1.90 as a result of the impact of the sanctions 
that are being imposed by this administration in reaction to laws that 
were passed by Congress a good number of years ago.
  I say this this morning to refocus us to understand that much of what 
we need to do is not getting done. Now, my colleagues on the other 
side, I have a feeling, would like to spend a lot more time on the 
tobacco issue. Somehow they think they are gaining points in the 
political arena that is warming up out there for many of our colleagues 
in the coming days through to November. I would like to suggest they 
look at the polling data of recent, that they talk with the American 
people just a little bit, that they ask teenagers in this country where 
the real problems are, and maybe they would agree with us that it is 
time we deal in some degree of finality with S. 1415, the tobacco bill.
  I know it is great politics, or at least many thought it was great 
politics, to be antitobacco, anti-teen smoking, and to raise a heck of 
a lot of money to do a lot of different things from the government 
level. It is important that this Congress be anti-teen smoking. It is 
important that we express our frustration and, if necessary, our anger 
with the tobacco companies on what they have done, and I think we can 
do that and should do that. But you do not do it by sucking the life 
out of lower-income Americans, raising taxes, shoving this commodity 
that we dislike into the black market and saying you have solved the 
problem by creating great new bureaucracies that we know will spend the 
money and get very little done.
  For the moment, let's do a reality check. We have been debating this 
bill now for upwards of 3 weeks. We have been adding a lot of 
amendments. Everybody has been pounding their chest on all of the good 
things we are going to do if we pass the bill. Here are the good things 
we have not done. Let me analyze for you the revenue flow over this 
multibillion-dollar bill.
  S. 1415, major revenues: 5 years, $55-plus billion; floor amendments 
costing $35 billion; original 1415 spending, $65 billion; total 
spending commitments, $100 billion.
  Whoops, Mr. President, whoops. We have already overspent $35 billion 
in the first 5 years. What does that tell you about a Congress that is 
trying to be fiscally responsible and balance its budget? When it comes 
to feeding at the trough of American politics, we do not care, do we? 
Or at least somebody does not care, because S. 1415 is now badly out of 
line with the revenues it proposes and the moneys it plans to spend.
  By this action, is this Senate proposing that we raise another $35 
billion or $40 billion over the next 5 years in revenues to fund all of 
these great new government programs that are going to take all of our 
kids off smoking, or at least 35 or 45 or 55 or 60 percent over the 
next decade? Have we talked to our kids recently about that? Have we 
asked teenage America that if we raise the price of a pack of 
cigarettes another $2 a pack or $3, are they going to quit smoking?
  Well, I will tell you they don't think so. Neither do their parents. 
Last week, I was in the Chamber with a poll by the American Viewpoint 
polling group, a reputable group. You have read the poll. It has been 
talked about in the national press. Fifty-nine percent of the parents 
recognize that peer pressure and friends of their teenage sons and 
daughters are those who are the greatest influence on them when it 
comes to smoking.
  Guess what the biggest problem is out there. It is not smoking. It is 
drugs. It is the concern by our parents, the parents of America that 
their kids might somehow get associated with drugs. Why? Because drugs 
kill immediately. That is why. And that is the greatest concern. And 
yet we have stumbled down the road for 3 weeks and done one good thing: 
convinced the American people that we are slipping back into our old, 
bad habits of big government and great programs and lots of new money 
to spend. And in the meantime, they have become convinced that the bill 
before us ought to be defeated by a great number. That is the reality 
of what we are doing.
  Let me close by saying one more time, S. 1415 over the 5-year period 
has a deficit in money now of $35 billion. Is the other side proposing 
to raise that in new taxes in some form from the working men and women 
of this country to fund the panacea of big, new government? I hope they 
do not. I will not vote for that.
  I yield the floor.

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