Tobacco Documents Online

Statement of Congressman Steve Neal Before the Committee on Ways and Means On Health Care Feform Financing November 18, 1993 Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I commend you for holding these important hearings, and I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you this morning. - Throughout your tenure as Chairman of this committee, you have taken difficult issues, applied common sense, honesty, and most important, fairness, to produce historic legislation. I know you will continue-to apply those standards as you deal with the health care legislation. Mr. Chairman, I represent thousands of small farmers who grow tobacco. I also have two tobacco manufacturing plants that employ approximately 12,000 people. The families of these people have been growing tobacco and making tobacco products for literally hundreds of years. The money from tobacco supports the schools, churches, parks, roads and everything else that happens in these communities. It is simply unfair to single out one product and one part of __ the country to pay the health care tab for all the uninsured and underinsured people of this country. The significant tax increases on tobacco products proposed by the President have caused me and many of my colleagues to ask a very fundamental question: Is this tax fair? Can we go home and tell our constituents that the standard applied to them is the same standard that is being applied to everyone else. Mr. Chairman, I appeal to you and the distinguished members of your committee. - As you listen to all the testimony concerning the devastating impact that a 300 percent increase in the tax on tobacco will have on the people of North Carolina and the Southeast, I ask that you and the committee consider what I believe to be fundamental, but extremely important questions. Is this tax fair? Is it fair to apply this tax only to tobacco products? Is it fair to make the economically poorest region of the country -- the Southeast -- foot the bill for health care improvements for the entire country. Does this tax, as proposed by the President, meet the standards which have become the trademark of this committee -- common sense, honesty and fairness? I don't believe that it does. This tax is punitive and unfair. The people who grow and sell tobacco are hard-working and productive. It is wrong to single them out to carry the brunt of this nation's health care reform costs.

. Again, I appreciate this opportunity to speak on behalf of the people of North Carolina, and I will answer any questions you or the other members of the committee might have.