1) Is the Pope Catholic?
2) Does a bear dump in the woods?
3) Is water wet?
4) Do politicians lie?
Apparently, Ohio's deal with the tobacco companies to use their tobacco settlement on an anti smoking campaign is not happening as originally intended.
Ten years ago, Ohio won the tobacco lottery.It was among 46 states to join a lawsuit accusing tobacco producers of using unfair advertising to get smokers addicted to nicotine. Smelling bankruptcy, 11 tobacco companies and industry trade groups agreed to a settlement, promising the states $260 billion in payments spread out over 25 years.
Bob Taft, as the newly elected governor, convinced the state legislature to budget nearly half of Ohio's $10 billion share of the settlement for school construction projects - the state was entangled in a major lawsuit over school funding at the time - and the other half for anti-smoking programs sponsored by the new Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation.
But years of successive raids on the tobacco foundation - mostly to balance the state budget - have depleted its original $330 million endowment.Now the fund - meant to last a lifetime and with a record of slashing smoking rates - will be snuffed out within two years, its caretakers say.
Brought to you by the same liars that brought you, "the lottery will fix our public school funding" and "this tax increase will only be temporary".
OOP's...... What's that sound? That's the sound of another resident crossing the Brent Spence bridge for a red state. Before the toll of course.
1 comment:
Let's say a private company convinces an investment bank to fork over $330 million in capital to fund a new factory expansion. 10 years after the loan is commissioned, there is an empty plot of land but no factory. The private company tells the bank that they have burned through the $330 million and they will be unable to pay it back. When the bank asks what the money was used for, they say that it was funneled into the revenue line to make it appear that management was competent.
This is exactly what happed here with the tobacco fund! The only difference is that it was public money.
Now in the private company situation, the investors would cut off the cash, jobs would be lost and, in cases like Enron, people would go to jail for decades on fraud convictions.
But we *are* talking about government here, where quite the opposite has occurred. The tobacco endowment was supposed to be a self sustaining capital fund for a specific public service. But our governors treated it like petty cash. All it has done is allow state expeditures to grow even faster than they would have, increasing the velocity of government power. And when the endowment is depleted, it will be that much more pressure to draw more funds from the private sector "for the sake of the children".
I'm convinced this is not an accident. This is very much done by design. The press should be all over this. The means exist in the private sector to stop this: companies fold under such incompetance. But the press is the only check and balance against such government fraud. I'm surprised the Enquirer printed this much. But I think that the press is just fine with more and more concentration of power in government, no matter what the means to that end.
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