To attract Democrats in tobacco-producing states, Republican leaders also included a hotly disputed provision that would pay tobacco farmers $9.6 billion in exchange for giving up price supports and quotas.

Opponents have denounced it as an expensive giveaway, but the deal may have persuaded as many as 10 House Democrats from tobacco-producing states to vote for the overall tax bill.

Lawmakers from tobacco-producing states have been pushing for a buyout for more than two years.

Mr. Helms, the second-ranking Republican on the Agriculture Committee, represents North Carolina, a large tobacco-producing state.

It is paradoxical that South Carolina, a major tobacco-producing state, has chosen to prosecute women for child abuse in these situations.

Mr. Richardson said the notion of striking a deal on the two Administration programs originated with lawmakers from tobacco-producing states, but he refused to identify them.

Both Kentucky and North Carolina are large tobacco-producing states.

With all due respect to my colleagues from tobacco-producing states, I just see no useful or legitimate purpose for the Government supporting tobacco subsidies.

Even the legislature of the tobacco-producing state of North Carolina considered cigarette prohibition laws in 1897, 1901, 1903, 1905, 1911, 1913, and again in 1917.

As a senator from the tobacco-producing state of Tennessee, Al Gore supported requiring warning labels on cigarette packs even though the industry fiercely opposed the idea.