Bishop Campaign to Cox - Are You Too lazy Or Just Lying?

Farmingville, NY -- Full-time Congressional candidate Chris Cox ignored several published news reports and election filings when he falsely accused Congressman Tim Bishop of pocketing campaign contributions from Congressman Charles Rangel.

Yesterday, Chris Cox put out a press release "calling" on Congressman Bishop to return campaign contributions made by Congressman Rangel between 2002 and 2004.  There's just one problem with this request: Congressman Bishop has already returned the money.

"Either Chris Cox was too lazy to fact check the accusation he made against Congressman Bishop, or he simply doesn't care about lying to the voters he wants to represent," said Audrey Kubetin, spokeswoman for Congressman Bishop.  "Suffolk County deserves better than this type of sloppy behavior from a wannabe politician who only moved here in January.  If Mr. Cox can free himself from playing croquet at his family's Hamptons estate, he should do the honorable thing and apologize to Congressman Bishop."

In March, Congressman Bishop announced to several news outlets, including Newsday and the New York Post, that he would return contributions from Congressman Rangel, despite the fact that he hasn't received any since 2004, when there were no ethical questions surrounding Congressman Rangel.  Congressman Bishop has donated the funds to help honor Suffolk County's veterans.  A glance at the Congressman's FEC report, which is available to everyone online, will reveal that he made $10,000 in contributions to local veterans groups last quarter to help build memorials.  He is in talks with other veterans organizations to disburse any remaining funds.

Expenditures on Congressman Tim Bishop's FEC report, publicly available as of July 15:

Combined Veterans of Riverhead
89 Hubbard Avenue
Riverhead, New York 11901
5/28/2010
Donation: 5000.00

Fairfield at St. James Veterans Assn.
1 Fairfield Drive
St. James, New York 11780
05/28/2010
Donation: 5000.00

To download a PDF of Congressman Bishop's most recent quarterly FEC filing, click here.  No viruses, I promise.

Cox Calls on Tim Bishop To Return Charlie Rangel's Contributions

SMITHTOWN, NY — Chris Cox (R), candidate for Congress in New York's First Congressional District, issued the following statement:

“Four months ago, long before the House Ethics Committee cited Congressman Charles Rangel with ethics violations, I called on Rep. Timothy Bishop to return the contributions he had received from Rep. Rangel, as many of his other Democratic colleagues have already done.  In fact, some $574,000 in tainted campaign contributions has been sent back to Mr. Rangel.  Mr. Bishop has ignored me, just as he has ignored the concerns of the hard-working taxpayers of Suffolk County on numerous issues,” declared Cox.

“It was Bishop’s partner in poor policymaking, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who bragged in 2006 that she was going to ‘drain the swamp’ and make this ‘the most honest and open Congress in history.’  Here we are four years later, with example after example of abuse of the public trust and disregard for the public pocketbook.  It’s time for Pelosi and Rangel and Bishop to go.  The residents of the First Congressional District deserve no less.”

Decline in smoking means decline in state revenue

By Ali Eaves,

Special to Stateline [Tuesday, July 20, 2010]

Americans are smoking less and less. That’s good news for public health, but it creates an ironically nasty side effect for many state budgets. They have grown dependent on an annual stream of money from tobacco companies, and that money is itself dependent on the number of people who consume cigarettes.

The payments to states come each year as dictated by the Master Settlement Agreement, a 1998 settlement between 46 states and most of the big tobacco companies, in exchange for states’ promises not to sue the cigarette manufacturers over health claims. States have received $73 billion to date from participating tobacco companies. The payments are calculated each year by a formula that partly relies on the smoking rates in each state. Predicting the payments is never an exact science, but this year’s unwelcome 16 percent drop in funds is thought by many experts as the beginning of a long-term downward trend. 

Smoking rates have been steadily declining since the 1980s, to the point where only 20.6 percent of adult Americans indulge, according to the most recent data. The average decline in federally-taxed sales during the past decade is around 3 percent per year, according to numbers from the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau — but a string of tax increases in 2009 was enough of a disincentive to move that number to more than 8 percent.

Raising taxes on tobacco products has long been a favorite revenue strategy for cash-strapped states, and last year nine states increased their cigarette taxes. The federal tax increase of 62 cents, however, probably had the most to do with the big drop in nationwide smoking rates. Standard & Poor’s predicts that the decline in consumption over the next few years will be around 4 or 5 percent per year, and if that’s correct, the settlement payments will continue to fall.

Money withheld

A second factor that has been driving payments downward is the claim of the major tobacco companies that they have unfairly lost business to other companies — smaller tobacco producers that did not take part in the settlement — as a result of the deal. If this is the case, under the settlement, participating tobacco companies are allowed to scale back their payments. But states can still claim full payments if they can prove that they have enforced laws to make non-participating companies pay their share to the states, too.

According to Eric Lindblom of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, each state has gone beyond what is required by the settlement to enforce and strengthen those laws. Regardless, most of the participating companies have been withholding a portion of their payments — as much as 18 percent — since 2006, banking on a ruling that at least some states haven’t properly enforced these laws dealing with non-participants in the deal.

Since 2006, this disagreement has put payments worth a total of $6.3 billion into question. Binding arbitration has begun just this month among 45 states and two dozen participating cigarette companies to determine whether the 2006 payment should be subject to the $1.1 billion reduction that tobacco companies say they have a right to. The following years' payments will be settled separately, but the decision in the current case will set an important precedent for those adjustments because it will finally define adequate enforcement. The timeline is uncertain, but the dispute is not expected to be resolved before next year’s payment on April 15, 2011.

If the states win, the tobacco companies will have to pay back the withheld amount with interest. The flip side is quite severe. Any states that lose will have to reimburse the tobacco companies for the entire national adjustment for that year. According to the National Association of Attorneys General, in the worst-case scenario, a losing state could end up paying back its entire settlement payment for one year — in many cases, that means hundreds of millions of dollars. Instead of paying the tobacco companies directly, the payback would most likely come in the form of deductions from future settlement payments.

Potential impact on programs

States can use their settlement payments for a variety of purposes, but many earmark it for special programs that depend entirely on the tobacco payments for funding. This is the case for the Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund, which provides grants for farm diversification and helps shift the state’s economy away from a dependence on tobacco. Recently, Governor Steve Beshear promised that the fund would be protected if the tobacco payments fell below the state’s projections, but that may not help much. This year, the state forecasted a reduction in tobacco payments of 11 percent. The actual payment was down 17 percent, so Beshear’s promise helped save some of the funding, but the program still had to suffer the 11 percent cut. The numbers are even grimmer in the future: If predictions are correct, between now and 2012, the fund’s budget will go from $6 million to $1.5 million. 

“Moving forward is the question,” says Joel Neaville, of the Kentucky Agriculture Development Board. “Are we going to be able to do what the program is supposed to do with reduced revenue and uncertainty in the future?” 

North Carolina’s Health and Wellness Trust Fund, which funds smoking cessation, obesity prevention and other health programs, also receives all its funding from the tobacco settlement payments. It’s supposed to receive one quarter of the payment each year, but the General Assembly often diverts money for other projects and to close budget gaps. On top of that, after a 16.5 percent reduction in the tobacco payment this year, the fund is expecting some cuts and will probably scale back on some benefits and freeze new programs in the works. 

—Contact Ali Eaves at aeaves-temp@pewtrusts.org

The above article written by Ali Eaves is a reprint of Tuesday, July 20, 2010 Stateline.org

Chase bank in West Babylon Robbed by Man With Simulated Bomb

Just days after a Chase bank in Setauket was robbed by someone wearing a Darth Vader costume Suffolk County Police are investigating a robbery that took place today at a Chase bank in West Babylon. This time the bank robber had a simulated bomb strapped to his back.  The Police are asking the public to contact Crime Stoppers with any information regarding these robberies.   

Suffolk County Police Major Case detectives are investigating the robbery of a Chase bank branch in West Babylon by a man who had a simulated bomb strapped to his body.

A man entered the bank, located at 733 Sunrise Highway, at 9:40 a.m. today and showed the branch manager what appeared to be an explosive device strapped to his body and demanded cash. The man was given cash and he fled through the back door of the bank and was last seen on foot headed east toward Hubbards Path.

The man discarded the device behind the shopping center where the bank is located and it was discovered by a Suffolk County police officer. Officers from the Emergency Service Section responded and determined the device was a simulated bomb.

 The man was described as white, between 50 and 60 years old, 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall with a thin to medium build. He was clean-shaven with short, graying hair. He was wearing a pinstriped suit jacket, which was recovered at the scene.

 Detectives are asking anyone with information on this incident to call anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.