Article in today’s Seattle P-I, headlined: A plan to use tobacco funds for budget gap
I remember the “good ol’ days.” You remember them, don’t you? The first year of the tobacco settlement… the budget looked a little tepid and Republicans were in control of both Houses. One of the ideas about making up some of the shortfall was to use some of the tobacco settlement to help fill the gap… and democrats had a cow. Oh, the wailing! The gnashing of teeth! How dare REPUBLICANS tap that money for ANYTHING but smoker education and health care!
Fast forward a few years… and what do we have?
They were hypocrites then…. They are hypocrites now.
Thursday, March 3, 2005
OLYMPIA -- The House's top budget writer says Gov. Christine Gregoire should use money from the landmark tobacco settlement she orchestrated as state attorney general to help fill part of the $2.2 billion budget shortfall.
Appropriations Chairwoman Helen Sommers, D-Seattle, said the controversial option would be difficult to pass but is one of the few remaining to deal with the budget crisis.
"I wake up and I think, 'How in the hell are we going to get out of here?' Sometimes I don't see any way out," Sommers told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "Look how much further in the hole we are."
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