Helms’ Appeal Led to Reagan’s Shift on Cigarette Tax Extension

President Reagan changed his mind and decided to sign legislation temporarily extending the cigarette tax at 16 cents a pack late Monday night after Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N. C.) made a personal appeal to Reagan not to veto the bill, White House and congressional officials said Tuesday.

Senior presidential aides who thought at 6 p.m. Monday that Reagan would veto the cigarette tax bill--based on the President’s statements earlier in the day--were told in telephone calls from the White House at 11 p.m. that the President was about to sign it in his personal study, several of them said.

The White House announced that Reagan signed the bill shortly before midnight.

Reagan Challenges Aides

“Helms clearly made a strong pitch directly to Reagan,” said one White House official who thought a veto was imminent. A second official said that the President “didn’t like the idea of the tax” early in the day. Reagan challenged aides at a weekly issues lunch: “Tell me it’s impossible to veto.”

In a later telephone call, Helms told Reagan that he was calling, in part, because he wanted to keep “good faith” with other lawmakers on an arrangement made last month involving tobacco price-support legislation, officials said.

Helms, speaking for tobacco-state senators, had agreed to support the higher cigarette tax in exchange for attaching the tobacco bill to a deficit-reduction measure, where it would have a far better chance of approval on the Senate floor than if it stood alone.

Bill Called a ‘Bail-Out’

Opponents have criticized the tobacco bill as a “bail-out” to rid the tobacco growers and industry of the costs of a huge surplus piling up from past support programs.

Helms reportedly wanted to let Reagan know on Monday night that, although he had originally proposed the 16-cent cigarette tax fall-back to 8 cents at this point, he was now supporting the temporary extension.

Helms also said that a veto would be “disruptive” to the industry because of uncertainty over the future of the tax.