Tax Facts - Where Does The Money Go?

Cigarette taxes and settlement agreement funds are supposed to fund youth smoking prevention programs and other tobacco-related public health programs, but that's not always where the money really goes. Instead, more and more of your taxes are used to fund causes and projects unrelated to tobacco control. Here are just a few of the projects funded by your MSA dollars:

• Dump trucks, golf carts and a course irrigation system, and a new county jail in New York
• Broadband-cable networks in Virginia
• Psychiatric care for prisoners in New Jersey
• Boot camps for juvenile delinquents, alternative schools, and metal detectors and surveillance cameras for schools in Alabama
• Upgrading public television stations with DVD technology in Nevada
• Harbor renovation and museum expansion in Alaska
• Water and sewer improvements in South Carolina
• Pasture and weather monitoring for a thoroughbred association in Kentucky College scholarships in Michigan
• New schools in Alaska and Ohio
• City parks and the purchase of undeveloped land in California
• A senior citizen prescription-drug program and property-tax rebates in Illinois
• Medicaid dental services in Maine
• Water Resources Trust Fund and flood-control projects in North Dakota
• Operating expenses for the Carolina Horse Park, truck-driver training, pine-straw farming research and equipment upgrades at a knitting plant in North Carolina
• A People's Trust Fund, which will generate interest income that can be spent at the legislature's discretion, in South Dakota
• Help in balancing the budget, which used four years of MSA money, in Tennessee
• Rural economic development in Georgia
• Tax rebates in several states
• Offsetting a revenue shortfall in Wisconsin by selling municipal bonds backed by future MSA payments

How will increased tax revenue be spent? Can you afford another tax increase?
Tell your member of Congress to oppose increased cigarette taxes.

• Call 1.877.857.8074 (toll-free) or email your member of Congress