Pete Domenici: “Mr. President, the point is that nobody can stand up on this floor and say we knew when we started talking about…”

“Mr. President, the point is that nobody can stand up on this floor and say we knew when we started talking about cigarette taxes and how much it would yield precisely how much ought to be spent for some American programs that would help alleviate the smoking problem, or even research more into the cause of cancer and try to cure it. Nobody knows what is the right number, but everybody knows that as much money as this bill will raise is not needed for that. Anybody in their right mind would look at how much is coming in and how much you need to do precisely the kind of things that people say this bill ought to do, and it is not close to the amount of money that is coming in. So that leads you to a conclusion, in my humble opinion, that you ought to give some of this money back to the taxpayers of the country. I cannot believe we are so unconcerned about the taxpayers of this country that we would sort of block off this $700 billion in new revenues--if that is what it is over 25 years--and say, look, the American people and their tax-paying requirements have nothing to do with this new tax imposed on them.”