Gingrich says smokers should pay for tobacco pact

By Joan Gralla

NEW YORK (Reuter) House Speaker Newt Gingrich Wednesday laid out his
criteria for a tobacco settlement, raising the prospect of further changes
to the proposed plan and dealing a blow to tobacco firms that wanted it to
go ahead.

Gingrich, who spoke to reporters after touring the New York Public Library
in midtown Manhattan, said he would push to ensure that smokers bore the
cost of a tobacco settlement in the form of higher cigarette prices, though
he offered no details. He added that the original pact should be expanded
to curb young people from using drugs and alcohol as well as cigarettes.

The speaker also said President Clinton was right not to rush into such a
complex issue.

Clinton, who since June has been reviewing the original plan, earlier
called for sweeping changes, including industry penalties of up to $1.50
per pack if teenage smoking did not fall sharply over 10 years. Price
hikes might make cigarettes too costly for teenagers.

Gingrich warned that realistic projections would have to be used to avoid
the risk that income taxes which also are paid by nonsmokers might
have to be raised to make up any shortfall.

Under the original plan, tobacco companies agreed to pay $368.5 billion to
settle smokingrelated lawsuits brought by individuals and states, who want
to recover the health care costs of treating smokers. The firms agreed to
curb their advertising and marketing drastically and pay cash penalities if
they failed to meet goals for reducing youth smoking.

``That is not a tax increase, that is money that is paid by the cigarette
companies based on the price of cigarettes, and what I don't want to have
happen is to set up a structure, have them come in way under their
expectation, and then turn around and say, well, let's raise your income
tax to bail out a program we designed wrong,'' Gingrich said.

While he did not offer any specifics, he said a settlement also should try
to slash drinking and drug use by children.

``We have to have a comprehensive indicator of health that looks also at
alcohol use and hard drugs. We want to make sure that we're not setting up
a narrowly focused approach where they don't smoke but, by the way, they do
cocaine.''

Gingrich also said he wanted to keep lawyers who represented the states
that sued tobacco companies from getting billions of dollars as their share
of a national settlement.

``It seems to me that's the children's money and ought to be used for
children's health,'' he said, recommending that Congress review the
lawyers' contracts, billable hours and expenses.

Separately, Vice President Al Gore said Wednesday night that Clinton's
sweeping proposals on tobacco showed he will ``draw the line'' in order to
protect children's health.

Addressing a $10,000percouple fundraising dinner in New York, Gore said
the president's proposal to raise cigarette prices by $1.50 a pack over 10
years would help keep teenagers from smoking.

``Where do you draw the line? With the children,'' Gore told about 25
couples at the dinner. ``Add $1.50 to the price of each pack of cigarettes
and make them so expensive they can't buy them.''