Tobacco Koop-Kessler

Tobnecoop/Kessler dit: Deal could raise tobacco revenues By Lauran Neergaard sales volume will likely al, needs congressional increase pressure on Clinton to in- The Associated Press suffer as about 7% of U.S. and presidential approv- crease the companies' payments. smokers quit rather than al. "When you look hard at the pro- WASHINGTON - As the tug of pay more per pack. The Meanwhile, The Wash- posed settlement, all indications are war over a tentative settlement of 40 annual increase in reve- ington Post reported Sun- that the industry will remain very states' lawsuits against tobacco com- nues easily could top the day that House Speaker profitable for the long term," says panies intensifies, an internal Trea- $15 billion or so a year Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., David Kessler, the former Food and sury Department audit says cigarette the companies will be and Senate Majority Drug Administration chief who is ad- makers could profit handsomely paying as part of the set- Leader Trent Lott, R- vising Clinton and Congress on the from the deal. tlement, the report con- Miss., insisted on a provi- deal. If the companies end up more The Treasury audit concludes that cludes. AP sion in the tax cut bill, profitable, Kessler asks, "where tobacco companies will raise ciga- The Associated Press Kessler: 'Where which Clinton went along have we gotten with the settlement?" rette prices just enough - an esti- has learned details of the have we gotten?' with, that would give ciga- To settle 40 state lawsuits, tobacco mated 62 cents a pack - to boost audit, which is among the rette makers a $50 billion companies agreed in June to pay the their revenues and more than offset information President Clinton will be credit against the sum they had $368 billion over 25 years and curb the $368 million they've agreed to weighing as he decides whether to pledged to settle the suits. advertising. In return, they would pay over 25 years. push for a tougher deal. The settle-: The talk of how much money the win protection from smokers' law- And revenues will go up, the audit ment, negotiated by the companies tobacco industry could actually suits and restrictions on how heavily predicts, even though the companies' and a group of state attorneys gener- make from the settlement is likely to the FDA can regulate nicotine. A man's suffering, and a nation's As director John Frankenheimer's wronged. The lines accurately quote May 15, 1972: new film George Wallace plays it, the what Wallace said. George Wallace fiery segregationist Alabama gover- "I have learned what suffering lies wounded after nor wasn't a racist, just an ambitious means," he told a hushed congrega- he was shot in politician who made a pact with the tion in an unannounced 1979 visit to Laurel, Md., while devil and paid a terrible price. Montgomery's Dexter Avenue Bap- campaigning for Whether you accept that view or tist Church. "I think I can understand the Democratic not, the film, premiering next Sun- something of the pain that black peo- presidential nomi- ple have come to endure. nation. A movie day on TNT, outlines in stark detail a dark chap- I know I contributed to premiering next ter of our recent history, that pain and I can only Sunday tells the a chapter that the nation ask your forgiveness." story of the segre- has yet to fully under- Many blacks did for- gationist Alabama stand, let alone learn to give him. He won a fourth governor and the live with. term as Alabama gover- nation's struggles nor in 1982 with most of with racism. Twenty-five years have passed since Wallace, the black vote. campaigning in Maryland Wallace began his polit- CBS via for the 1972 Democratic ical career in the late presidential nomination, 1940s as a champion of der did Wallace step aside. for president in 1976 and ended his was shot and crippled for Politics "the common folks" and a Sensing that he touched a chord fourth term as governor in 1987. life, effectively ending his By Richard moderate on race. But af- with working-class whites around the For the past 10 years, Wallace has national political career. Benedetto ter losing the 1958 Demo- country, Wallace ran for president in lived mostly forgotten in retirement, Since then, a whole cratic gubernatorial pri- 1968. His third-party "Stand Up for nearly deaf, confined to bed, his generation of Americans, white and mary to a segregationist who accept- America" campaign won nearly 10 body withered and weak. black, has grown up hardly knowing ed the endorsement of the Ku Klux million votes and carried five South- As he grimly told this reporter in who he is. Yet his belligerent brand Klan, Wallace bitterly pledged, "I'm ern states, five more than Ross Perot 1986, in a rare interview shortly be- of populist politics is still practiced, not going to be out-niggered again." carried in 1992 or 1996. fore he left office, "Every day the albeit more subtly, across the nation. His winning 1962 campaign for In 1972, Wallace won broad sup- gunshot wounds take their toll. I The movie was shown to an invit- governor drew lusty cheers when he port in the North, where he appealed have pain all the time." ed audience recently at the Kennedy vowed to place his body in the door to blue-collar whites alienated by Center in Washington, D.C. It por- of any Alabama schoolhouse or- mounting crime and social unrest Richard Benedetto's column trays Wallace, now 77, as a political dered to integrate. And in his infa- and a federal government they felt appears Mondays. Past columns on opportunist who learned the hard mous inaugural speech in January was too big and too intrusive. USA TODAY Online at way that the key to winning the gov- 1963, Wallace defiantly declared, His support for middle-class tax http://www.usatoday.com ernorship was to appeal to the racial "Segregation now! Segregation to- cuts, a constitutional amendment to fears and hatreds of a Southern morrow! Segregation forever!" allow school prayer and the prohibi- white constituency feeling threat- Five months later, he stood in a tion of busing for school integration ened by the civil rights movement. campus doorway to prevent two helped him win primaries in Michi- But the film's most memorable black students from enrolling at the gan and Maryland, finish second in scene shows a contrite, wheelchair- all-white University of Alabama. Pennsylvania and third in California. bound Wallace (played by Gary Sin- Only when President Kennedy fed- But he was shot in Maryland, the ise) humbly begging forgiveness eralized the Alabama National day of primaries in that state and in from blacks he so grievously Guard to enforce the integration or- Michigan. He made one more run USA TODAY MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 1997