Word: tobacco
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...most significant impetus for the lawyer tax has been the billion-dollar fees paid as a result of the nationwide tobacco settlement between a number of states and the tobacco industry. The settlement compensates the states for the damage caused by cigarettes to their citizens' health to the tune of $200 billion over 25 years. As a result of the huge payout, the lawyers who represented the states in these cases and who negotiated the settlement stand to collect fees of more than $10 billion over the next 20 years. Bush's proposal, which has not yet been introduced...
...cash-strapped state and local governments, then the government already has the remedy: a progressive income tax. No clear social goal is advanced by a lawyer tax: Why would the government wish to discourage states and municipalities from hiring lawyers? Other specific taxes, such as on alcohol or tobacco, at least intend some social benefit beyond just adding revenue to the treasury. Absent an overriding social goal, to single out one group for confiscatory taxation would be a simple abuse of government power...
...would also fly in the face of every Republican pronouncement of faith in the free market. The lawyers negotiated their contracts with the states, and those contracts should be respected. Those who took on the tobacco litigation, a novel and risky enterprise, did so without any promise from the states that they would be compensated. Furthermore, the lawyers involved were always clear about the percentage of the settlement they would receive if they won the case. No one has alleged that the lawyers defrauded the states, only that the compensation agreed to in advance by both the lawyers...
...Hugh decides to take on the tobacco lobby, along with several other well-connected plaintiff attorneys. He has never tried a major case before, but manages to stick with the lucrative suit until a settlement is reached in 1997. However, the $365 billion deal failed to get the required congressional approval...
...Earnhardt was the grandstands, the blue-collar throngs that fill them week in and week out, leaving rivers of spilt beer and spit tobacco in their wake. He was one of them. But NASCAR is now after the rest, all the people in America that Dale Earnhardt was not, and the circuit should count itself lucky that mainstream America is getting at least one good long look at him while they...