Tobacco War News - April 22
A few news worthy events took place this past week in the tobacco wars.
First the sky did not fall on the Attorney General’s head as he feared it would while doing his ‘Chicken Little number’.
The State of Oklahoma received a new extortion payment from the tobacco industry, this one in the amount of $3,547,932.89. Attorney General Edmondson’s PR staff got the news on-line quickly. Here’s the Press Release.
It points out that seventy percent of the extortion money received or $2.48 million was deposited in Oklahoma’s Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust Fund, which now has a balance of more than $302 million. Does anyone remember where the rest of it is supposed to go? Yep, right into the pork barrell kitty for Oklahoma’s Legislators to spend as they see fit. Also notice that the Attorney General’s press release proudly points out that this latest payment brings to more than $494 million the extortion money that our very own Attorney General has sucked out of the tobacco companies, or more accurately the wallets and purses of tobacco users. Don’t it make you feel proud?
On the same day that Attorney General Drew Edmondson was patting himself on the back for raking in the money, Paul Sund, Governor Brad Henry’s ’spin man’ was revealing that out of the kindness of its heart that the State of Oklahoma was delaying until May 1st enforcement of the lastest Tax Commission rule regarding smokes shops. This latest rule is yet another attempt to violate the compacts between the Indian Nations and the state.
The announced purpose of this delay was supposedly to give negotiations the chance to head off yet another federal lawsuit. Evidently governor Henry is not aware of the fact that he is cornered by the very compacts his point man in the war on smoke shops already negotiated. The Osage Nation was having none of this idiocy and sued the state again and the result will likely be identical to the last such lawsuit with a federal judge ruling that the state must negotiate with the tribe under the terms of their compact.
Governor Henry you need to wake up and smell the coffee. Just because your negotiator, Scott Meacham, ‘gave away the store’ does not mean you or the Tax Commission can violate the compacts Meacham negotiated and you signed. This is the case no matter how much Tulsa based Quick Trip Corporation whines. If you really want to help Quick Trip you might ask that the First Lady do all her shopping there and have her pick up a couple cartons of cigarettes while she is a it, as the chain is taking a beating on tobacco sales owing to YOUR compacts with the tribes. Compacts which in retrospect make Meacham and you look like a couple of county bumpkins taken for a ride by a used car salesman. A deal is a deal, you bought into it, you signed for it. Now you have to live with it until the compact expires.
Meanwhile, the Oklahoma House was racing to see if it could beat the Governor in violating these same compacts when it passed Senate Bill 1717, by Republican Rep. Ron Peterson, R-Broken Arrow. This bill would permit non-tribal retailers (read that Quick Trip) to sell cigarettes at a price 10 cents more than tribally owned stores if those tribally owned stores are are within a 25-mile radius.
Currently non-tribal stores are forced by Oklahoma’s outlandish $1.03 per pack cigarette tax to sell the same products at a much higher price, typically 87 cents per-pack and sometimes even more than the tribal outlets. The only way the state can reduce the price of cigarettes in non-tribal stores is to waive a major portion of the state tax of $1.03 per-pack on cigarettes. Since some tribes are selling cigarettes with 6 cents tax stamps, adding 10 cents to that makes for a total of 16 cents tax per-pack. Prior to Governor Henry and Scott Meachem’s renegotiating compacts with the various tribes the old cigarette tax was 23 cents per pack PLUS sales tax.
What’s so funny is that if the Legislature manages to pull this off and the tribes do not sue once again, Oklahoma’s tobacco tax increase passed by voters in November, 2004 will actually turn into a tax REDUCTION, something most Oklahoma smokers would greatly appreciate. All I can say is, it’s about time!!!