Tribune staff editorial

Proposals to use the state’s tobacco settlement money have become fashionable at the Capitol this year as a way to do everything from fixing roads to paying for homeland security measures to balanacing the state’s budget.

Tuesday, March 19, 2002

Proposals to use the state’s tobacco settlement money have become fashionable at the Capitol this year as a way to do everything from fixing roads to paying for homeland security measures to balanacing the state’s budget. The fund has gone from being dedicated to anti-smoking programs to being an election-year source of easy money, which lawmakers can propose using to solve problems without having to raise taxes or cut spending.

Getting things done painlessly has its merits, of course, but the problem is that the premise on which the state was awarded this bonanza was that it was owed money for the health-care costs caused by use of tobacco products. That’s why using it for any project – even important ones like roads, security and the budget – presents problems.

The state’s tobacco settlement money was intended to mitigate the effects of smoking and to attempt to curb it in the future. There can be many arguments about the best way to do that, but those are the arguments we should be having – not ones about how to divvy up the tobacco funds among all the state’s other needs.