Why Republicans Are Such Ripe Targets

For the past decade, congressional tobacco initiatives have been almost exclusively spearheaded by Democrats, often led by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles). Republicans, generally speaking, either stand on the sidelines or oppose efforts ostensibly designed to reduce the toll of cigarette-related disease and hold the industry responsible for the consequences of its products. The partisan split on tobacco issues is so stark that one journalist has referred to the Republican Party as a “wholly owned subsidiary of the tobacco cartel.”

Yet no one seems to consider the possibility that Republicans who vote against tobacco legislation may have legitimate legal, ethical or just plain common sense reasons for doing so--reasons that having nothing to do with contributions from Big Tobacco.

Consider the votes last month in the House of Representatives about whether to allow funding for the Justice Department’s lawsuit against tobacco companies to recover billions of federal health program dollars spent on tobacco-caused diseases. While the House allowed the suit to go forward, 30 members of the Appropriations Committee, 26 of them Republican, voted to cut off the funding. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids tells us that the “no” votes were because these members of Congress “had received $245,000 in campaign contributions from the tobacco industry since 1997.” Never mind the fact that $245,000 divided among 30 politicians over three years amounts to a paltry sum, a bit over $2,700 each per year.

Such red-herring accusations distract from the valid underlying protests made by the Republicans. Could it not be possible that the Republicans voted against the lawsuit because such litigation made no sense?

In fact, the argument that the federal government deserves reimbursement from the tobacco industry is fatally flawed, as was the similar argument when made by the states seeking reimbursement. Certainly, through Medicare, taxpayers pick up the costs of caring for lung cancer patients and other victims of smoking. But it is difficult to argue that a patient with cigarette-related disease who dies, say, at age 54 from lung cancer, costs the government more than caring for a nonsmoker who lives to age 95, spending the last 15 years of life in a nursing home.

There are other sound policy rationales behind Republicans’ rejection of funding to underwrite such a federal lawsuit. If what happened with the “loot” from the states’ settlement--squabbling about spending on new highways, schools and other special-interest wish lists--is any indication, any federal tobacco money would be used for everything except efforts to reduce tobacco use.

Further, there is something crass and inhumane about the underlying premise of these government suits against the cigarette companies. The message seems to be, “OK, pay up for the health damage you caused, and you can then return to business as usual, selling a deadly product without full and specific disclosure of the risks.”

Yet despite having a legitimate argument to reject liberal attempts to use the tobacco cash cow as an ongoing revenue source, Republicans are characterized by Democrats and their allies in the media as uncaring and manipulative. The Republicans actually deserve to be skewered on tobacco issues, but not because they are doing the bidding of the industry or because their rejection of funding for the government lawsuit was ill-advised.

Republicans deserve the criticism they get as we enter a presidential election year because they have no program of their own to deal with the health devastation of tobacco use in the United States. Until Republicans decide to tackle this critical issue with strategies compatible with their political ideology, they will continue to be viewed as lap dogs for an industry that causes the premature death of nearly a half a million Americans a year.