Volume 113 >> Issue 39 : Friday, September 3, 1993

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Clinton Appears to Back Away from High Cigarette-Tax

WASHINGTON

After months of considering a new per-pack cigarette tax ranging from 50 cents to $2, President Clinton told his staff Tuesday night he was leaning toward the low-end of the scale, and wanted to consider taxing liquor so tobacco would not have to shoulder the entire burden of paying for Clinton's health care plan.

The development, said some administration officials and members of Congress from tobacco-producing states, is easy to explain: Clinton has needed those congressional votes before and he is going to need them again.

The White House publicly dismissed talk of deal-making. But some members of Congress have unabashedly claimed a quid pro quo. Others said the development shows an understanding on the part of Clinton that a hefty tobacco tax would make it impossible for them to support health reform.

Among the unabashed, is Rep. H. Martin Lancaster, D-N.C., who wrote to Hillary Rodham Clinton to complain about statements by White House adviser Ira Magaziner that a cigarette tax might be the only tax needed to fund the new plan.

"The North Carolina Democratic delegation voted unanimously for the president's budget and for reconciliation on the promise of the White House that tobacco would not be unfairly singled out to pay the cost of health care reform," Lancaster wrote. "If Dr. Magaziner continues to insist on tobacco as the only source of revenue, the White House should not expect to ever again get that kind of support from our delegation."

Rep. David E. Price, D-N.C., was among the more circumspect. "I never heard any specific pledge," he said Thursday. ". . . It was more in the realm of an assurance we were being heard and taken seriously."

White House officials would say, only if not named, that the president did not want to face a repeat of the budget battle. "Contemplated sin taxes in no way bear the entire burden of financing health care reform," said White House health care spokesman Kevin Anderson.

Hillary Clinton and others in the administration have for months touted a substantial hike in the cigarette tax as a way to raise money and stop some people from smoking, which they argue would decrease the nation's health bill.

"This is the politics, what we're seeing now," an administration official said. "The internal political arena at the White House is a microcosm of the politics we're going to witness when this plan is born. The plan is going to have to be politically viable."

Most tobacco state lawmakers are resigned to the idea that a tax increase on cigarettes will help pay for the president's health care plan. Their goal, beginning in the budget debate, has been to soften the blow.