Tobacco Farmers Bushwhacked

Source from:  Wilmington (NC) Star-News 05/17/2004

President Bush believes he can win North Carolina in November without the votes of tobacco farmers. Last week Mr. Bush said he's against giving farmers and others the financial help they need to get out of a withering business. John Kerry supports that help, and has since 1998. So do most tobacco-state congressmen, including Rep. Mike McIntyre. So do both our U.S. senators. When she got to Washington, Elizabeth Dole joined John Edwards in pushing a bill to pay tobacco farmers to leave the Depression-era program that no longer provides the income protection it once did. The bill also would authorize the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco as the drug it is – but not outlaw it. That provision wins support from tobacco's critics, but generates vehement opposition from most tobacco manufacturers and conservative Republican politicians – the folks who get the biggest campaign contributions from cigarette companies. The result is that the compromise buyout that's desperately needed by our farmers and tobacco-dependent towns is stuck in Congress, apparently going nowhere. President Bush might be able to get it moving. Unfortunately for North Carolina and its economically blasted coastal plain, he doesn't intend to. Enditem