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Non-Tech : Philip Morris - A Stock For Wealth Or Poverty (MO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stoctrash who wrote (1803)	6/15/1998 10:57:00 AM
From: Xpiderman	Respond to of 6439

Tobacco Bill Lacks Votes Needed for Any Senate Action, Lott Says By Saundra Torry Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, June 15, 1998; washingtonpost.com Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) warned yesterday that the national tobacco bill now on the Senate floor "is so bad" that it should not be passed in its current form and would have to be scaled back substantially. Lott, on ABC's "This Week," said there were not enough votes to pass the measure or to end debate on it. "If . . . we can't get it to conclusion [this week], we've got to move on" to other Senate business, he said. The Senate is to begin today its fourth week of debate on the bill, which would raise the price of cigarettes by at least $1.10 per pack over five years and give the federal government broad regulatory powers over tobacco. Lott, who has said repeatedly that the bill taxes and spends too much, added that an amendment passed Thursday, directing states to use a quarter of their tobacco proceeds for child care, made the bill worse. He predicted that two remaining issues -- compensation of tobacco farmers and "masses of attorneys fees" for those who have sued the industry -- could "blow the whole thing up further." While the bill gained some momentum last week with the addition of a huge cut in the so-called marriage penalty tax, conservative Senate Republicans remain determined to derail it. Supporters need 60 votes to force cloture and get a final vote on the bill, and opponents may need the same number to remove it from the floor. On Friday, the bill's sponsor, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said that while he would be willing to debate it all summer, "I don't think we can afford to do that" because of other compelling legislation. The White House, however, remains optimistic and has written off a TV ad campaign by the tobacco industry that criticizes the bill as simply a big-government, big-tax measure. At a fund-raiser in Beverly Hills Saturday, President Clinton said critics contend that there is "this dark scheme in Washington to build some new federal bureaucracy, and it's the biggest load of hooey I ever heard in my life," Associated Press reported. White House senior adviser Rahm Emanuel predicted on NBC's "Meet the Press" that "members of Congress . . . will vote like parents and not like politicians and will, in fact, pass legislation" to cut teenage smoking.