Posted on 08/24/2003 7:34:47 PM PDT by billbears
A buyout of federal tobacco quotas would infuse at least $4 billion into North Carolina's rural economy, sending money to rural landowners. But that money has to come from somewhere.
Officials at North Carolina's largest tobacco company say that by backing legislation to charge cigarette-makers an 'assessment' to pay for the quota buyout, Republican U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is breaking with the spirit, if not the letter, of her campaign pledge not to support tax increases.
'This appears to be a classic bait and switch,' said Tommy Payne, the senior vice president for external relations at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
'Campaign on a promise of no new taxes, yet when elected, aggressively endorse a $13 billion tax increase, which is the largest tax increase put before Congress since 1993,' Payne said.
'The comments through the campaign were reduce - not raise - taxes, save - not eliminate - manufacturing jobs in our state, and smaller - not larger - government regulation and bureaucracy,' he said. Despite savings on leaf costs and payments that tobacco companies already make to farmers, Payne said, the quota-buyout bill would cost Reynolds more than $2 billion over six years - $413 million in its first year.
'That's 83 to 89 percent of our projected earnings this year,' he said. 'There was no campaign pledge to take all the earnings of publicly traded companies which employ thousands and give it to folks, the vast majority of whom aren't farmers.
(Excerpt) Read more at journalnow.com ...
'It's called an assessment, but it is a tax. The only legitimate debate is what kind of tax it is. It can be considered a tax on RJR ... or it can be considered a tax on consumers,' Hood said.
'This is a corporate-income tax,' he said. 'If you treat this tax as a tax on corporate income, then it would appear to be a violation of the no-tax pledge.'
Bump with no comment. I shouldn't have to. Although I wonder how this is going to 'help' those in the tobacco industry
As for the extra costs that Reynolds and other tobacco companies would face, Easley said that he suspects that the companies would treat them as they did the cost of a $206 billion settlement between the industry and 46 states in 1998.
'I think the additional cost would be passed on to the consumer, just like the tobacco settlement was,' Easley told reporters.
And tax and spend Easley agrees with her!!! Yep, that does it for me. She's 'conservative'
There's her response. Does it make me feel any better? No. I truly wasn't sure if this paper was owned by one of the ones we weren't supposed to post full articles.
Doesn't change the fact she says nothing that refutes the corporate representative or the gentleman from the Locke Foundation now does it? Her own actions will ban tobacco from the 'face of the earth' by putting the tobacco industry out of business with this 'assessment'
LOL!! Do you think I would ever have voted for Bowles or Clinton? You've lost it. And perhaps you missed this
Payne disputes such contentions. Even if the price of domestic tobacco falls by 50 cents a pound, he said, Reynolds would save just $25 million a year. 'They could give us almost 30years of free tobacco and it wouldn't offset the cost of this tax,' he said. Democratic politicians from the state, meanwhile, continue to push for a quota buyout.
Democrats in this state, lately at least (past 20 years) only know how to do one thing, and that's take money. If a Democrat that has a tendency to spend agrees this is a good idea, you can bet your rear end they're going to get something out of it.
But you keep voting for the RINOs okay? Somebody sure as h#ll has to...
At the possibility of causing even higher prices on tobacco, more taxes on RJR, and a loss of jobs for the 'assessment' that can't be passed off to the unsuspecting public? I'm not
If it were to truly do away with subsidies and artificial quotas I wouldn't have a problem with it. But with the tobacco industry being attacked by the federal government (breaking yet another of the great W's campaign promises) they need to get help from somewhere
It does seem to me that there should be a solution that would avoid those consequences.
BTW, has anyone noticed an increase in grapevine production in the northern Piedmont? Seems like I'm seeing more and more small vineyards sprouting up. Funded by Tobacco buyout money?
RB, it was interesting that you mentioned, that because I read this article at lunchtime:
The article doesn't really mention any funding, but I thought I'd post the link as an FYI.
CD
He has some vines already and has been making homemade wine from Scuppernong & James grapes for years, but only to give away of course.
However, he says he's too old [at 58] to get involved in that as a business. I am trying to talk him into it. ;)
Well, well, well. Let's see, RJR's net, fluid worth is something over $500 million. Their share of the first installment of Liddy and John's big adventure comes to something just under $700 million. Gee, RJR can make their first payment and file the chapter thirteen paperwork on the same day!
Why do people seem to think just because some goober crawled out of the woodwork and joined the CSE, that they necessarily have a clue?
This quota buyout is nothing more than a vote-buying expedition down east. Why do you think Sleasly and the Breck Girl jumped on the bandwagon so fast? Sure didn't take Liddy long to figure that one out, did it?
The only groups that will survive this buyout are corporate farmers and the wildcat tobacco companies. And just like the hurricane Floyd handout, no one but a bunch of down-east hard-core Democrats will see a dime's worth of benefit from it. Oh yeah, and Liddy will reap bigtime benefit with her true constituency
Let's see now. Liddy's already proven she's a statist. Now she's adding unapologetic redistributionism to her bag of tricks. Statism? Redistributionism? Why, I do declare, I believe Mrs. Dole just might be a Marxist!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.