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Anyone who's ever read Down with Big Business, the famous Robert Bartley editorial, should also read Tim Carney's piece today on the tobacco legislation that President Obama just signed, and the misleading rhetoric surrounding it:
Tim's whole article is worth a read as an excellent example of how government and big business collude to hurt small business.President Barack Obama signed a bill Monday that the largest tobacco company in America had championed for years. Obama nevertheless claimed he had taken on Big Tobacco and won.
As Obama signed the "Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act," giving the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco, he proclaimed in the Rose Garden: "Today, despite decades of lobbying and advertising by the tobacco industry, we've passed a law to help protect the next generation of Americans from growing up with a deadly habit. ..."
But on Tuesday morning, the home page of Philip Morris, which controls a majority of the U.S. cigarette market, blared "Philip Morris Supports Federal Regulation of Tobacco."
Was Obama ignorant of the $40,000-a-day pro-regulation lobbying effort by the country's biggest cigarette maker?
Was Obama surprised by the applause Monday from Philip Morris' parent company Altria, calling the bill "an important and historic achievement"?
Altria's support Monday didn't reflect some conversion on the road to the Rose Garden. Altria stated it "has supported tough but reasonable federal regulation of tobacco products for more than eight years."Indeed, an aide to a Republican congressman told this columnist in 2004 that an Altria lobbyist, behind closed doors, asked his boss to back this bill. After it died in the House that year, an Altria spokesman told the Richmond Times-Dispatch, "We spent a lot of time and effort on it. We think it's very important to the industry as a whole. We don't have any regrets about pursuing it."
The company's third-quarter 2005 report to shareholders explained that Philip Morris "endorsed federal legislation introduced in May 2004 in the Senate and the House of Representatives known as the Family Smokwing Prevention and Tobacco Control Act" -- the very bill Obama signed Monday.
Obama's rhetoric painted the opposite picture. Obama said in signing the bill, "despite the best efforts and good progress made by so many leaders and advocates with us today, the tobacco industry and its special interest lobbying have generally won the day up on the Hill. ... Fifteen years later, their campaign has finally failed. ... Today, change has come to Washington."The kernel of truth in Obama's claims is that the smaller cigarette makers -- perceiving that this bill will protect and enhance Philip Morris' dominance of the industry -- have mostly opposed the legislation. But it's misleading to claim you're battling the "tobacco industry" when you're siding with the industry's 900-pound gorilla.
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