Crist's $2.4-billion change of heart

Gov. Charlie Crist said "God bless Gov. Chiles" as the 2008 Legislature drew to a close last week, thankful for $2.4-billion in reserves made possible by the late Lawton Chiles.

Lawmakers used $300-million of the money to avoid painful cuts for the state's sickest and poorest this year.

But the money, the settlement from Florida's lawsuit against Big Tobacco, would never have been there if Crist had gotten his way in the mid 1990s.

Crist, then a Republican state senator from St. Petersburg, was also among the most prominent in opposing the Democratic governor's assault on tobacco companies. (story here)

Comments

"I care... I don't smoke."

That's the kind of moronic horse sh!t that the tobacco money has gone to fund. Our great DOH (and the Zimmerman Agency) are responsible for that embarrassingly stupid , preachy and cliche campaign.

I want to cram a ball-point pen into my ear every time I hear that garbage.

even from THE GRAVE, "walkin' lawton" prevails over the standard-issue selfishdecietfullyingcorrupt REPUBLISKUM.

HAD ENOUGH, YET??!!??

10.12, what exactly is so "moronic" about not smoking?

considering the toll tobacco takes not only on peoples' health but on our health-care costs?

personally, i have lost more that a few friends from tobacco use, even years afte they have stopped smoking.

is saving lives and money "moronic"?

[Ancient One]

Charlie wasn't alone in advocating the repeal of the so-called "Stealth Amendment." Every major newspaper in the State editorialized strongly and repeatedly for its repeal and for the subsequent override of the Chiles veto. The repeal/override effort was actually led by major Democrats who were outraged at the abuse of the legislative process by Chiles and his henchmen-- a notorious lot that included Jailbirds Childers, Johnson, and Jenne as well as other "upstanding citizens" like Pat Thomas and Fred Levin.

Bousquet's employers then (the Herald) and now (SPT) were among the most vociferous in advocating repeal/override so I guess Crist was in pretty good company back then....

Typical Chuckism…. “I voted against it, before the polls told me to vote for it”.

SOMEONE PLEASE FIND US A GOVERNOR!

Love,

“The (Forgotten) People of Florida”

Can the engines on the plane stall next time?

Smoke meat, not tobacco

I used to like Charlie. Now he's a spineless panderer.