Political Quotes

“I rise to congratulate Philip Morris and the big tobacco lobby because this bill represents a victory of massive proportion for the addictive industry as well as its beneficiaries and supporters here in the Congress. Indeed, big tobacco is three for three with this Congress. First, this particular bill grants it a new type of trademark protection that our Federal law does not provide to any other industry in the entire world. This special protection will cost Federal taxpayers millions of dollars to provide this special cuddly treatment to the tobacco industry. Second, the House has already approved from the Committee on Ways and Means a very nice gift of about $100 million a year in Federal tax subsidies to the tobacco industry to promote sales of tobacco abroad. Third, the same friends of tobacco over in the Senate who tucked this provision in are restricting through the appropriations process our ability to maintain a lawsuit in Federal court to allow Federal taxpayers to recoup all the losses we have had as a result of the tobacco industry and its misdeeds. Americans can look at what has happened, indeed not only with this bill, but over the last 6 years in this House, and rightly say that the tobacco industry has a stranglehold on the United States House of Representatives.”