Tobacco Debt
A landmark 1998 settlement with Big Tobacco awarded states billions of dollars a year to offset the health-care costs of smoking. What seemed like a boon become a debt trap for many state and local governments when they used it to promise investors billions in the future in exchange for cash advances.
A landmark 1998 settlement with Big Tobacco awarded states billions of dollars a year to offset health-care costs of smoking. In many cases, the income became a debt trap when state and local governments traded it years in advance for upfront cash.
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14 stories published since 2014
