Tobacco Manufacturers Settlement Money In Hands of Investors Not States
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Every year, tobacco manufacturers pay state governments to cover health-care costs due to smoking; about $100 billion have been paid thus far since the 1998 settlement with Big Tobacco. However, a lot of this money ends up in the hands of investors and not the state. This year, investors were pledged $2.6 billion of the $6 billion that tobacco companies were paying states. The settlement did not specify what the money given to the state governments should be spent on, but the article highlights that New Jersey uses the money from tobacco bonds to plug budget holes.
Read the article from ProPublica here.