A daily dose of online news from beyond the Beltway.

By Ryan Thornburg
Washingtonpost.com Staff
Monday, March 23, 1999

With at least 19 state legislative sessions coming to a close in March and April, the frenzy to cut an anticipated $7 billion in state taxes across the country is producing some common themes. If there were ever a cartoon character of a 1999 state lawmaker, he (only about 22 percent are women) would be busy cutting car and grocery taxes while increasing funding for education and healthcare programs with revenue from the states' tobacco settlement and a proposed gambling program.

"We may not be unanimous on the justness or unjustness of recent events, but we can all agree that a distressing number of Americans have come rightly or wrongly to distrust the president as an individual." – Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley, during a forum at Emory University" (Foster's Daily Democrat, Dover, N.H., March 23)

And he would most likely be doing all of that in South Carolina, a state whose budget debate, as they say, "looks like America."
• S.C. House Pounds Out Budget (The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C., March 20)
• House Votes to Cut Food, Vehicle Taxes (The State, Columbia, S.C., March 19)
• 1999-2000 Appropriations-Bill 3696 (South Carolina General Assembly)
• State Fiscal Outlook for 1999 (National Council of State Legislatures)

Tax Cuts
• Legislators Uneasy With Governor's Tax Cut Proposal (The Tennessean, Nashville, March 17)
• Session of Tax Cuts and Surplus End (The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va., Feb. 28)
• Is Now the Time to Phase Out Food Tax? (The Desert News, Salt Lake City, Feb. 17)
• Senate Spurns Food-Tax Cut (The Wichita Eagle, Feb. 5)
• Lawmaker Wants to Ax Food Tax (The Charlotte Observer, Feb. 4)
• Lawmakers Weigh Tax-Cut Plans (The Wichita Eagle, Jan. 29)

Healthcare
• Lawmakers Tackle Health-Care Reforms (The Beacon Journal, Akron, March 22)
• Lawmakers OK Budget, Still Working (The Charleston Gazette, March 22)

Education
• House Committee Approves $6.5 Million School Aid Amendment (The Bismark Tribune, March 23)
• Education Tops Engler Budget (The Detroit News, Feb. 12)

Gambling
• Lawmakers OK Budget, Still Working (Charleston Gazette, March 22)
• Lottery Could Pass House Today (The Birmingham News, March 9)
• Poll Gauges Support for Legalized Gambling (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 8)
• Cellucci Won't Propose Expanded Gambling (Concord Monitor, N.H., Feb. 5)
• Carolinas Lottery Votes Move Onto the Front Burner (The Charlotte Observer, Feb. 3)

Tobacco Settlement
• Democratic Plan for Tobacco Money Introduced in Assembly (Nevada Appeal, Tahoe, March 23)
• Farmers, Smokers Vie for State's Share $5B Deal (The Tennessean, Nashville, March 22)
• Rowe Offers Plan for Tobacco Money (Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine, March 12)
• Thompson's Plan for Tobacco Funds Outlined (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 9)
• Governors Circle Wagons Around Tobacco Billions (Stateline.org, Feb. 24)
• Tobacco Settlement Information (National Conference of State Legislatures)

Ryan Thornburg can be reached at ryan.thornburg@washingtonpost.com