In regard to this, he urged Governor Tom Corbett and other state lawmakers to stop prowling the state's Tobacco Settlement Fund for balancing the else budget areas.
In a special report, the Democrat exhaustively mentioned how the $300 million-plus payments have been abstracted. According to him, since last 5-6 years, more than $1.3 billion has been taken from this fund.
Therefore while urging legislators to change the trend; he questioned "Are we going to squander it? Are we going to just let it be used for a wide variety of purposes? Is it going to patch potholes? Is it going to fill budgets for various departments, including the Department of Auditor General and others? What is our priority”?
His reports also revealed the fact that this money was collected to support various fund programs like anti-smoking campaigns, adult Basic insurance and medical research.
However, recently this money was reallocated by the legislators during the budget process. As an example, $250 million from this fund was sent to the general fund. Due to this, the anti-tobacco campaign to be held in the state suffered. It was provided with only $15 million last year, whereas in 2002, the same program was funded with $51 million.
source: www.frenchtribune.com
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