This Break Won't Stay Broken

By Rick Horowitz

WASHINGTON, JUST THE OTHER DAY -- By an overwhelming margin, the Senate today voted to repeal a special $50 billion tax break for the tobacco industry that was slipped into the new tax-cut law just before its passage in July.

The 95-3 vote removed a 46-word "mystery provision" that would have allowed tobacco companies to deduct money raised by a new cigarette tax from the $368.5 billion they had agreed to pay under the proposed national tobacco settlement.

No senator has admitted inserting the provision, which some reports say was written by tobacco-industry lobbyists, into the bill. Its sudden appearance in the legislation had been seen as a sign of the industry's continued clout on Capitol Hill, despite recent setbacks. Today's vote, likewise, was hailed by tobacco foes as marking an end to back-room deal-making on Big Tobacco's behalf.

"The tobacco industry will have to negotiate in the daylight at all levels," announced a jubilant Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), co-sponsor of the repeal effort.

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WASHINGTON, ANY DAY NOW -- The Senate voted today to remove another newly discovered provision benefiting the tobacco industry from the tax-cut legislation passed earlier this summer. The $50 billion clause, buried deep in the massive tax bill and only noticed last weekend by Senate staffers, was identical to one already removed by the Senate.

Senators from tobacco-producing states denied any role in the covert effort to assist the beleaguered industry. "That's not the way I operate," said Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina. Tobacco opponents remained skeptical, but confident.

"This just shows we're on to their tricks," claimed Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin. "They won't try anything like that again."

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WASHINGTON -- Congressional leaders were reported dismayed today upon learning that a multi-billion-dollar tax break for the tobacco industry had been secretly inserted into the Defense Department appropriation bill. According to senators who personally examined the document, both the location and the appearance of the controversial provision had been designed to evade detection.

"We had to hold the thing up to the mirror to read it," said a senior Senate source, "but there it was, plain as day: 75 billion bucks."

The reappearance of a "mystery provision" comes only days after House staffers stumbled across a clause in the Justice Department appropriation bill requiring the nation's school systems to place cigarette-vending machines in all grade-school cafeterias.

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WASHINGTON -- The Senate went into an unusual closed session tonight to consider the sudden discovery of a pro-tobacco provision in a joint resolution declaring October to be National Goose Appreciation Month. The provision, according to Senate sources, gives tobacco companies the right to print money.

Pro-tobacco senators said they had no idea how the provision got there. Tobacco opponents announced they would henceforth give "top-to-bottom scrutiny" to any legislation, however minor.

"These people will stop at nothing," said Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin. "But we've got them on the run."

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WASHINGTON -- Senators of both parties were at a loss today to explain how a $100-billion tax break for the tobacco industry made its way into the Senate chaplain's opening prayer. The unexpected provision was approved without debate; opponents have vowed to remove it, while conceding that they let their guard down.

"The Pig Latin should have made us suspicious," admitted one Senate veteran. "We don't get a lot of stuff around here in Pig Latin."

In a related development...

9/12/97