City Council President Peter Vallone has proposed the entire city's portion of the tobacco money go for repair and construction of schools. At first, Governor Pataki said he wanted to use the money to provide health coverage for the uninsured. Now, however, he is urging that most of the money be used to pay down the state's huge debt and to provide property tax breaks for upstate counties. Mayor Giuliani agrees with Vallone that the windfall should benefit the city's schools. It's understandable that public officials are under pressure of competing needs for limited resources.
Education is an especially worthy place to spend public funds.
The infrastructure of our public schools has been ignored for far too long. Nevertheless, the original idea behind the lawsuit against the tobacco companies was to defray the costs of smoking-induced illness. That's the reason New York is receiving the money. So it makes sense to use all or most of the money for health care. Health Care Crisis New York City is in the midst of a health care crisis.