Just tuning in...

I just tuned in on WisEye to see where the JFC is at with their deliberations. I checked the WisPolitics Budget Blog to get brought up to speed.

The latest news: Rep. Rhoades made a motion to delete all three tobacco prevention and control provisions from the budget. That's right, no $1.25 increase in the cigarette tax and no funding or endowment for the state's tobacco control program.

Here's what I don't get - why, if the committee members are looking for ways to reduce healthcare costs, are they debating deleting provisions from the proposed budget that would:

• decrease the number of current WI smokers by at least 42,500
• prevent 84,000 WI kids alive today from becoming daily smokers (who otherwise would have)
• save Wisconsin $40 million in the next 5 years from fewer smoking-affected pregnancies and births and heart attacks and strokes
• save Wisconsin over $1.8 billion in longterm savings from youth and adult smoking declines
  
  http://www.smokefreewi.org/pdf/WI_tax_benefits.pdf
  

It just doesn't make sense.