Where's money from lottery, tobacco?

In November 1998 the cigarette manufacturers entered into an agreement with the states called the Multistate Settlement Agreement. The MSA was meant to curtail any further smoking lawsuits initiated by the states' attorneys general and to provide the individual states with a set amount of money, devised under several different formulas, to help fund health care in the respective states. As part of the settlement $10 billion was paid upfront to the states. On a straight per state basis that amounted to $200 million. The agreement further stipulated payments over the next 25 years estimated to be worth $200 billion.

Where did that money go? Why are excise taxes being raised on tobacco products to pay for health care for uninsured and underinsured children? Did the tobacco settlement monies provide incremental health benefits to the citizens of the states or saved for future health benefits? I think the answer is similar to what was promised when the lottery was instituted. Lottery dollars were to go to education, where they did go but funding that was already in place was simply allocated out of education and put into the general fund. So tobacco settlement dollars, like the lottery dollars weren't incremental to their intended causes but merely allowed our politicians to cook the books and spend the money beyond their original intent.

The same politicians are now asking for an income tax increase under the proviso of increased educational and health-care funding. How about asking them for an accounting of the multimillions they've already squandered on programs that the lottery and tobacco settlement were never intended to fund.

Steve Sarich

Grayslake