[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18608-18609]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                     WHY THIS LARGE CIGARETTE TAX?

  (Mr. BALLENGER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, let me pose a mathematical problem. When 
the President finally finishes his budget negotiations with the 
Congress, he will have spent the projected budget surplus and more.
  Where will he go to find the money to finance his liberal spending 
programs? How about a big cigarette tax? That ought to make everyone 
happy.
  In the North Carolina Senate, when we raised the tax, guess what 
happened. Tax incomes shrank, as it did in

[[Page 18609]]

other States that raised the cigarette tax.
  So I ask the President, why this large cigarette tax. It will not 
produce more income for anybody except the Feds because it will be a 
new item to them. The States will lose income; and the President's 
friends, the trial lawyers, probably could not collect their billion-
dollar settlements.
  So what is up, Mr. President? Mr. President, either you find extra 
money elsewhere or you really risk losing your best friends, the trial 
lawyers.

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