
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 30, 1994                   TAG: 9406300140
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Short

TOBACCO EXECUTIVES CONDEMNED

Tobacco executives were branded as ``worse than murderers'' in an angry debate Wednesday in the House Ways and Means Committee over how high to raise cigarette taxes to pay for health reform.

Lawmakers from tobacco states cried foul and suggested Congress go after potato chips, red meat and pollution-belching cars if they really want to improve Americans' health.

The debate was a spillover from the ongoing federal and congressional probe of whether tobacco executives increased nicotine levels to addict more people to their products.

All of the health reform bills before Congress would boost the 24-cent federal tax on a pack of cigarettes.

President Clinton asked for a 75-cent increase to 99 cents. The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has just proposed a $1.76 increase to a flat $2 per pack.

But no committee has suggested a smaller increase than the 45 cents in the Ways and Means bill. It was whittled down from $1.25 to help win the crucial vote of Rep. L.F. Payne, D-Nelson County.

By a vote of 31-7, the committee rejected the $1.25 tobacco tax increase.

by CNB