from TPDL 1999-Feb-3, from the New York Post, by Deborah Orin:
GOP - AND PAT: CLINTON PLAN JUST DOESN'T ADD UP
WASHINGTON - Top Republicans blasted President Clinton's Social Security plan yesterday as phony because it uses "double-
counting" - and Democratic Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan said they're right. "The Social Security proposal seems to really be smoke and mirrors ... I think you've done some double-counting," Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) fumed to Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin at a Senate Finance Committee hearing.
Quipped Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas): "If my dear friend Secretary Rubin used accounting practices like this when he was in private practice [on Wall Street], he would be in prison today,"
Asked afterward if the Republicans are right about the double-
counting, Moynihan - one of Social Security's chief advocates - nodded yes and said, "Wise and experienced persons say so." At issue is Clinton's claim that he can use most of the government surplus to shore up the Social Security retirement system without any need now for painful choices on benefits.
In 2001, for example, Uncle Sam will have a $134 billion surplus - but every dollar will come from a surplus in Social Security, which now takes in more in payroll taxes than it needs to pay current benefits.
Under Clinton's plan, Social Security gets credited with an IOU for that $134 billion, then $64 billion of that same surplus gets spent on other programs and Social Security gets a second IOU for the remaining $70 billion.
Which means that the $134 billion surplus generates $204 billion in credits to Social Security, plus $64 billion in spending.
from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1999-Jan-21, Vin Suprynowicz:
Something for everyone
Bill Clinton would bribe Americans with their own money.
To fully appreciate Bill Clinton's State of the Union address, it is important to separate performance from content.To leave aside the president's winning manner and merely read the list of new programs and promises he managed to cram into his speech -- almost every one injecting the federal government more massively into some aspect of our lives -- is to wonder whether we have here a straightforward parody of the notion that government can somehow spin straw into gold (giving us back many times more than it seizes in taxes) or whether the man who once promised us "the era of big government is over" is ... well, a liar. Mind you, not every proposal on the president's list is necessarily bad. Some involve tax relief, which is good -- though across-the-board cuts are always better than the targeted kind. Some -- like attempts to guarantee a higher level of teacher competence -- would almost certainly be good ideas if enacted on the local level, and only become onerous when they are imposed by the high-handed federal government ... without constitutional authorization, if anyone still cares. Rather, it is the sheer breadth of this attempt to bribe every imaginable squealing constituency in this country -- to promise not merely a chicken in every pot, but a new billion-dollar "initiative" for every problem known to man and several still merely imagined -- which is so stunning in its ambition. Of his plans to inject the federal government into Wall Street by using Social Security moneys to buy private stocks -- to literally make Uncle Sam a major owner of U.S. corporations -- Rep. Chris Cox, R-Calif., said Tuesday: "Not to use fascism as a pejorative but merely as an apt historical description, the Clinton proposal is fascism. The Mussolini economic policy consisted in publicly directed investment in the private sector. ... The amount of money in the beginning is not the issue. Like all government programs, it will expand." David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, commented Tuesday night: "Somewhere near the middle of his 80-minute speech, the president told China that stability 'can no longer be bought at the expense of liberty' -- even as he spent the rest of his speech promising to get us all further hooked on government money and government programs, at only the cost of our freedom." Joked Cato's Roger Pilon: "I'm distressed by the absence in the president's message last night of any concern about the pressing need for help from our government with pet care." The president threw out 56 new programs in 77 minutes. In fine print (necessitated by their very number), here they are:The Clinton Gravy Train
from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1999-Jan-21, by Vin Suprynowicz:
The Clinton Gravy Train
1. A government board to direct investment of some Social Security funds.
2. A new pension plan subsidized by Washington to supplement Social Security.
3. A $1,000 tax credit for long-term care.
4. A tripling of funding for federal summer school and after-school programs
5. $200 million to "turn around" failing schools.
6. New federal resources to help teachers "reach higher standards."
7. A six-fold increase in college scholarships for students who commit to teach in impoverished areas.
8. Federal funding to increase the number of charter schools.
9. Federal funding to help communities "build or modernize" 5,000 schools.
10. A $1 minimum wage increase.
11. More money for bureaucracies that enforce equal pay laws.
12. Tax credits and subsidies for child care.
13. Tax credits for stay-at-home parents.
14. Expansion of the family leave laws to cover small companies.
15. Federal regulations prohibiting the refusal to promote workers with children.
16. More regulations governing medical care.
17. Make it "easier" for small businesses to offer health care.
18. A reduction of the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55.
19. Regulations to allow people with disabilities to keep their government health insurance if they go to work.
20. A "down payment" to federally subsidize additional medical care for the poor.
21. More federal money for mental illness causes.
22. Federal lawsuits against tobacco companies, the take going to Medicare.
23. More money to "enable workers to get a skills grant to choose the training they need."
24. A "dramatic increase in federal support for adult literacy."
25. Money to move more people off welfare.
26. More federal support for "community development banks."
27. More federal support for "empowerment zones."
28. 100,000 more federal housing vouchers.
29. A federal program to "help businesses raise up to $15 billion to bring jobs to the inner city."
30. More federal "crop insurance" for farmers.
31. More federal "farm income assistance."
32. A 28 percent increase in "long-term computing research."
33. More U.S. taxpayer support for "economic growth abroad."
34. Loan guarantees to "American manufacturers hit hard" by the Asian economic crisis.
35. Money to beef up security at American embassies.
36. More money to "prepare local communities for biological and chemical emergencies."
37. More money to "support research into vaccines and treatments" stemming from biological or chemical terrorism.
38. More money to help restrain the spread of nuclear missiles.
39. More money for military readiness and modernization.
40. More money for military pay.
41. More money for the United Nations.
42. The creation of "Radio Democracy for Africa."
43. Taxpayer support for the "African Trade and Development Act."
44. Money for 50,000 more police officers.
45. Money to equip the police with "new tools, from crime-mapping computers to digital mug shots."
46. More money for drug testing and treatment.
47. Additional regulations on gun ownership.
48. More regulations on gun manufacturers.
49. More money for the "Safe and Drug-Free School Act."
50. New federal "clean air fund."
51. Tax incentives and federal investment "to spur clean energy technologies."
52. A $1 billion "Livability Agenda" to combat urban sprawl.
53. A $1 billion "Lands Legacy Initiative" to preserve places of natural beauty.
54. More federal funding for AmeriCorps.
55. Money to fund a "Employment Nondiscrimination Act and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act."
56. More money to "significantly expand" efforts to help immigrants learn English and American history.
from TPDL 1999-Jan-22, from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation:
Did You Like The Speech?
Well Here's Your BillNational Taxpayers Union Foundation's Cost Analysis of the President's State of the Union Address Speech
Annual Cost
Item Issue (quoted from text) (Amount) 1."Commit 60% of the budget surplus . . .to Social Security." $180,000,000,000. 2.Medicare - "one out of every six dollars" of surplus $47,000,000,000. 3."Use 11% of the surplus to establish Universal Savings Accounts $33,000,000,000. 4."Affordable prescription drugs" $39,000,000. 5.Long-Term Care - "$1,000 tax credit" $6,200,000,000. 6."A six-fold increase in scholarships for college students who commit to teach" $558,000,000. 7."(Congress) passed our proposal to start hiring 100,000 new teachers . . . finish the job", "Build modern schools" $1,048,000,000. 8."Working parents also need quality child care . . ." $6,330,000,000. 9."Enact the Patient's Bill of Rights". $81,000,000. 10."Give people (between 55 & 65) . . . the chance to buy into Medicare" $1,560,000,000. 11."Provide basic, affordable care for working families without insurance" $2,000,000,000. 12."Reaffirm the F.D.A.'s authority (over tobacco), hold the tobacco companies accountable, and protect tobacco farmers" $13,000,000,000. 13."Training for all Americans who lose their jobs" $1,191,000,000. 14."Dramatic increase . . . for adult literacy" $394,000,000. 15."Pass the African Growth & Opportunity Act" $23,000,000. 16."Ban abusive child labor around the world" $18,000,000. 17."We must also meet dangers to our nation's security . . ." $18,333,000,000. 18."We must expand our work with Russia" (70% increase) $840,000,000. 19."We will work to keep terrorists . . ." (120 new offices, biotechnology, etc.). $2,800,000,000. 20."Work with Congress to pay our dues and debts (to the UN)" $7,838,000,000. 21."50,000 more police on the beat", better equipment $120,000,000. 22."My budget expands support for drug testing and treatment" $335,000,000. 23."Strengthen the Safe and Drug-Free School Act" $620,000,000. 24."Require child trigger locks. Let's keep our children safe." $41,000,000. 25."Propose a new clean air fund" $1,000,000,000. 26."Tax incentives and investments to spur clean energy technologies" $63,000,000. 27."Livability Agenda" $1,000,000,000. 28."Lands Legacy Initiative" $1,000,000,000. 29."I ask Congress to give more young Americans the chance . . ." (AmeriCorps) $133,000,000. 31."We have more to do . . ." (Civil Rights) $84,000,000. 32."My budget expands significantly our efforts to help them (immigrants) meet their responsibility . . ." (by learning English) $360,000,000. Total (spending proposals + special tax breaks) $327,586,000,000. Total (spending proposals minus tax relief) $288,386,000,000. Sources: National Taxpayers Union Foundation's BillTally, the White House.
from TPDL 1999-Jan-22, from the Washington Times, by Bill Sammon:
Clinton's numbers don't crunch without creating a new deficit
President Clinton's State of the Union address contained initiatives that, if enacted, would increase federal spending by 20 percent, or $288 billion a year, according to an analysis by a taxpayer watchdog group.
That would wipe out the entire budget surplus and create a $100 billion deficit in the plan's first year alone, said Tom McClusky of the nonpartisan National Taxpayers Union Foundation, which performed the analysis.
"He's trying to please everybody, but he'll only make people happy until they realize they're going to pay for all of these proposals," Mr. McClusky said. "An across-the-board tax cut would let people decide how to spend the money."
Mr. Clinton, who has steadfastly resisted Republican calls for broad tax cuts, instead pledged to spend virtually the entire budget surplus for the next 15 years, estimated at $4 trillion, on initiatives laid out in Tuesday's address.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Barry Toiv said the analysts who performed the study "clearly don't understand the president's proposal. If they did, they'd realize that his plan for the surplus is the most fiscally responsible policy that we've seen in this town for years because it would result in an extraordinary reduction in the amount of borrowing by the federal government."
But other taxpayer watchdog groups agreed that Mr. Clinton proposed a spending spree of monumental proportions.
"The mask of the New Democrat fell off as he spoke and he stood before the American people as a tax-and-spend, big-government politician," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. "He lashed himself to the mast of the big-government liberals, saying: 'If I sink, you sink. We're all in this together. Let's=
get past the shoals of the next two years.'"
Mr. Norquist said Mr. Clinton's magnanimity was a thinly veiled attempt to buy Senate votes in his impeachment trial.
"It was Al Capone standing up there and bribing the jury: 'All right, everybody in the audience, I'll give you a billion each if I get out of here alive. Now you go vote on whether or not you're going to trip me up.'"
Chris Varvares, president of Macroeconomic Advisers, a St. Louis consulting firm, cautioned that some of Mr. Clinton's initiatives with the biggest price tags, including a $2.7 trillion bailout of Social Security, can be considered debt reduction, not expenditures. He also pointed out that few presidents expect the bulk of their proposals to actually come to fruition.
"The chances that a large part of that gets implemented are virtually nil," Mr. Varvares said. "The chance that Congress can swallow them all and process them all and develop detailed legislation that passes in any reasonable amount of time is quite small.
"This really was a wish list or menu of proposals, rather than a list of things that they expect could be actually implemented -- even if Congress wanted to go along with it."
Still, the sheer dollar value of proposals staggered many observers. It was the most expensive package since Mr. Clinton's 1994 State of the Union address, when he proposed nationalized health care. This time around, Mr. Clinton promised money for everything from Medicare and government-controlled savings accounts to adult literacy and anti-terrorism programs.
"It was scary," said one Washington economist who asked not to be named. "It was a scary performance. One of his campaign themes has been personal responsibility. Now he's saying that while personal responsibility is good, the federal government will take over if you can't handle it.
"I mean, I consider myself a liberal and I thought it was scary," the economist said.
"The president declared the federal candy store open," said Pete Sepp, vice president of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. "Instead of returning to taxpayers their overpayments with an across-the-board tax cut, he has proposed pie-in-the-sky legislation. Unfortunately, even if only a slice of that pie gets enacted, it represents a major increase in federal spending."
The foundation based its study on White House press briefings, data from a White House World Wide Web site and by matching Mr. Clinton's proposals with legislative equivalents drafted in the previous Congress.
from TPDL 1999-Feb-7, from the Associated Press via Nando Media, by Alan Fram:
Surplus or no, national debt rising
WASHINGTON (February 7, 1999 7:47 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - It's right there in President Clinton's budget, at the bottom of page 389. Despite expectations of huge annual surpluses, the $5.6 trillion national debt is projected to go up and up.
Here are questions and answers about the government's mountain of debt:
Q: What is the national debt? A: It's the government's IOU accumulated through two centuries of borrowing, nearly $5 trillion of it built up during the past 20 years alone as annual deficits soared. The money is borrowed from individuals, corporations, pension funds - anyone who's bought Treasury bonds, notes and bills.
Q: If the debt is so huge, how can the government now report surpluses? A: The national debt is a cumulative sum that has grown for years. Surpluses - or until last year, deficits - are an annual measure of whether the government takes in more revenue than it spends in a particular year.
The record annual deficit was $290 billion in 1992. Thanks largely to the sterling economy, the situation reversed and last year ended with a $69 billion surplus, the biggest ever. White House, congressional and private analysts believe the black ink probably will increase for years.
Q: Now that we're running annual surpluses, the national debt must be coming down, right? A: With the federal budget, it's never that easy.
The $5.6 trillion federal debt is growing because one portion of it - about $1.9 trillion - is rapidly expanding. This part of the debt is money the government owes itself. Billions flow into trust funds for Social Security, federal employees' pensions and other purposes that the government by law invests in Treasury bills. The cash is used for missiles, food stamps, park rangers' salaries, and the government's overall stack of IOUs - its debt - grows.
Q: Aren't the surpluses having some benefit? A: Emphatically yes. Most economists and lawmakers say the remaining $3.7 trillion portion of the debt is far more significant. This is the part of debt the government owes public borrowers, and this is where the good news is.
The government uses its annual surpluses to buy back some of this publicly held debt. As it does, this part of the debt shrinks. This is important because money once tied up in Treasury bills is available for business investment, strengthening the economy.
Q: Does this mean the overall debt figure - $5.6 trillion and growing - is unimportant? A: Not at all. Even though more and more of it is money the government owes itself for future use, it still represents a real liability that someday will have to be paid off, mostly to Social Security recipients. In fact, the future cash crunch the government faces is even worse than the soaring national debt figures show. Paying Social Security benefits to the 76 million baby boomers is expected to cost more money than the trust funds will accumulate. That is why President Clinton and congressional Republicans are considering the delicate political question of whether - and how - to revamp the program.
Q: Is the $5.6 trillion overall debt expected just to keep growing? A: It depends what the politicians do with the money. Clinton wants to use future surpluses for Social Security, Medicare, new retirement investment accounts and defense and domestic programs. Many Republicans want to use it for Social Security and tax cuts. If the surpluses were used solely to reduce the national debt, many analysts think the overall $5.6 trillion figure would begin falling by around 2006.
Q: What's happening with the government's interest payments on the debt? A: Thanks to the annual surpluses, they're dropping, and this is more good news. They peaked at $244 billion in 1997, which was 15 percent of that year's $1.6 trillion budget. The White House expects them to drop to $227 billion in 1999, or 13 percent of the $1.7 trillion budget, and to keep falling.
from TPDL 1999-Feb-3, from Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial page:
Demand a refund
In the Federalist Papers, James Madison asserted that congressional appropriations were constitutionally restricted to the items enumerated in Article I, Section 8. As father of the Constitution, Madison wrote with authority.
Today, our elected officeholders habitually disregard it.
The president Tuesday said his $1.77 trillion budget for fiscal year 2000 ``charts a progressive, but prudent, path to our future.'' Fine, but does it conform to the supreme law of the land?
We invite readers to measure his prudence against the binding text of Section 8 - reprinted here in a slightly abridged format:
``The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; ...
``To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
``To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;
``To establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
``To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
``To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current Coin of the United States;
``To establish post-offices and post-roads;
``To ... (secure) for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
``To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
``To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
``To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
``To raise and support armies ... ; (t)o provide and maintain a navy;
``To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
``To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions; ...
``To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over (Washington, D.C.) ... and
``To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.''
You now have a yardstick by which to judge the lawfulness of spending proposals from Congress or the president. Any outlays not meeting the preceding criteria are illegal; both executive and legislative federal budget blueprints traditionally are leavened with hundreds of billions of dollars of such violations.
So far, the public hasn't demanded punishment for those whose crimes would be answered with incarceration outside Washington, D.C. However, taxpayers - at a minimum - should require a refund of wealth illegally diverted beyond the boundaries of Section 8.
from TPDL 1999-Jan-21, from The Washington Times, from "Inside the Beltway: Political tidbits and other shenanigans from around the nation's capital" by John McCaslin:
One not polled
"What a transparent, pathetic, syrupy wallowfest in political pabulum we have just witnessed," writes Allen Kelly, an electronics engineer from Troy, Ohio, referring to President Clinton's State of the Union Address.
"I can never recall, in my entire 41 years, any person, child, teacher, employer, subordinate, boss, salesman, huckster, fortune teller, parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, thief, sociopath, psychopath, infomercial or sweepstakes entry with so little integrity that has ever promised and at the same time decreed so much to so many ...
"God help us all for having to be a national 'halfway-house' for a president who is delusional, dishonest, arrogant and thinks us all his fools and for the number of people in it who likely are."
from TPDL 1999-Feb-2, from the Washington Times, by Sean Scully:
Republicans attack Clinton's 'phony' budget
President Clinton's $1.766 trillion budget is already in serious trouble on Capitol Hill, where Republicans branded it "honestly phony" and even some liberal Democrats threatened a revolt over the increase in defense spending.
"The president's budget is not realistic," said House Budget Committee Chairman John R. Kasich, Ohio Republican. "It raises taxes, raises fees ... and he does it all to have more government."
Just hours after the president delivered the budget, Republicans issued a detailed critique calling the president's Social Security plan "pure fiction at best, fraud at worst."
The president promised to put $2.8 trillion into Social Security over the next 15 years, the Senate Republican Policy Committee wrote, but apparently plans to divert that money for other spending. That simply perpetuates the historic pattern of spending the Social Security Trust Fund, leaving it with a series of IOUs.
This budget is not unlike last year's, in which the president proposed a variety of new programs funded in part by money from tobacco taxes and settlements with cigarette companies. Last year, Republicans killed the new tobacco taxes and blocked some of the president's programs, including a tax credit for child care.
In the last minute rush to finish the budget, however, Republicans gave in on presidential plans to hire new teachers for local school systems and to increase student loan funding. Many Democrats were quick to defend the budget, calling it "bold, innovative and fiscally responsible."
"I think this will be a popular budget among Democrats, and once people know more about it, it will be a popular budget in America," said Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee.
While both sides agree on a framework for the budget -- bolstering Social Security -- they disagree on almost all other details. Republican leaders made clear yesterday that almost all the president's initiatives are dead.
Mr. Kasich, for example, said the notion of government- administered retirement savings accounts "is dead. Forget about it."
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico Republican, said he does not favor any increase on the tobacco tax, which Mr. Clinton plans to use to fund his new initiatives -- at least $200 billion over five years for new spending by Republican counts.
Republicans say they want to fund a general tax cut with any money left over after shoring up Social Security. The proposals range from 5 percent to 15 percent, with the working compromise being 10 percent.
Republicans tried unsuccessfully to draft a tax cut plan last year, but it fell apart when GOP factions in the Senate and House could not agree on details.
Because of the huge sums in the projected surplus this year, he said, "Republicans will unite behind it --because if we don't give it back to the public, it will be spent."
Democrats, however, said an across-the-board tax cut gives a disproportionate break to the wealthy.
Republicans "want to give people like me -- people who have means -- big tax cuts," said Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee. "We don't need them. People in that group don't need them -- they may want them, but they don't need them."
Not all Democrats applaud Mr. Clinton's budget. A group of seven Democrats, joined by the sole independent in the House, plan a press event tomorrow to condemn Mr. Clinton's increased spending on defense, from $276.2 billion to $280.8 billion.
Democrats taking part will be Reps. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Cynthia A. McKinney of Georgia, Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon, John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Jerrold Nadler and Major R. Owens of New York, and newly elected Janice Schakowsky of Illinois. Independent Rep. Bernard Sanders of Vermont is also a sponsor.
It is unlikely the dissent within his own party will hurt the president's defense budget, however. Republicans have warmly embraced the increase even as they use the opportunity to attack Mr. Clinton for not being more attentive to defense issues.
from TPDL 1999-Jan-19, from The Oklahoman, by Dale McFeatters:
Clinton's Costly Scattershot Compassion
MAYBE it's to demonstrate that President Clinton is undistracted, fully engaged and doing business as usual. Maybe it's to pre-position Vice President Gore for the 2000 presidential race by pre-empting all the feel-good issues. And maybe it's the nature of Bill Clinton -- scattershot compassion.
For whatever reason, President Clinton's daily announcements of new programs in advance of the fiscal 2000 budget are adding up to big money and bad policy. He has promised $35 billion to $40 billion in new spending initiatives and tax incentives, and the meter is still running. His budget doesn't go to Congress until February.
The programs range from $110 billion over the next six years in new defense spending to $10 million to prevent child abuse. Everyone from environmentalists to exporters gets a little or not-
so- little something. Eight tax breaks unveiled so far range from a $1,000 credit for families saddled with long-term care costs, at a cost to the government of about $6.2 billion over five years, to a $44 million break on health insurance for small businesses.
The tax code is an inefficient way to deliver government services; because one-third of American families don't pay taxes, it excludes the poor, and because of phase-outs, it excludes the well-off. As for the middle-income families who do stand to benefit, the government is telling them: "You can have your own money back, but only if you spend the way Uncle Sam tells you."
While both parties have pledged a tax code that is fairer, flatter and simpler, this hodgepodge would only make it more inscrutable.
The one-shot nature of the announcements, with their appeal to defined constituencies, suggests that that they are not coherent policies aimed at well-defined goals.
Nor has the White House said, outside of a problematic $8 billion tax on tobacco, how it will pay for the spending programs and tax credits. The budget act says they must be offset by higher revenues, usually tax increases, or spending cuts or both, but the impending budget suggests the White House will resort to time-
honored ruses to evade restrictions. One is to propose cuts in programs the Congress holds dear. (President Reagan used to do the same with the Democrats.) Another is the so-called "Rosy Scenario," giddily optimistic estimates of revenues and savings that make offsets unnecessary, and that may tempt the Republicans, weary of Clinton shellacking them in the polls, to go along.
If so, it would be business as usual, and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 would be less a new direction in government than a one-
time fluke.
from TPDL 1999-Jan-5, from The Oklahoman, by Mark Green:
Is America to Blame When Up Is Down?
FOR today, one thought at a time:
When's Bill Clinton's Senate trial scheduled to begin? Jan. 11? If I were Saddam Hussein, I'd be in my deepest, strongest bunker no later than the 10th.
In the midst of the House of Representatives' impeachment debate, moderate Republican Mike Castle of Delaware floated a censure idea that would've had Clinton admit he broke laws and fork over a $2 million fine. Now all talk of a fine is dead, and some senators don't seem to be too keen on the admitting thing, either.
Does anyone else think that Cable News Network (CNN) becomes a propagandist for Iraq's Saddam Hussein when they give live coverage to the "press conferences" of his fatigue-clad minions?
Twenty-seven Democratic senators voted for the impeachment of federal Judge Walter Nixon in 1989, mainly for -- you guessed it - - lying to a grand jury.
Clinton's job performance numbers zoomed past the 70 percent mark the weekend he was impeached by the House. There also was a war going on. Woof!
Clinton probably would just as soon be fined by Congress. Collecting cash from Alec Baldwin, Barbra Streisand and their friends would be child's play for the fundraiser from Hope.
Those live Iraqi press conferences follow a similar pattern: A guy in olive fatigues and a beret tells the world that up is down, black is white and America is to blame for it all.
Since he was impeached by the House, Clinton has been hard at work repairing his image with carefully planned photo-ops. He and first lady Hillary Rodham helped prepare pasta for a charity Christmas meal, and he read "The Night Before Christmas" to a bunch of little kids. He also let himself be seen, looking on knowingly, while cops talked about a proposed child-abuse initiative. What a guy!
If I were Saddam Hussein, I'd be worried about what Clinton might do to launch his job approval rating into the '80s.
Federal judges who lie to grand juries can't keep their jobs, but the guy who's sworn to uphold the nation's laws can, at least according to some Democrats. And no, moral consistency isn't among the job qualifications for members of Congress.
Clinton long has been a master of the rehab photo-op. After being voted out as governor of Arkansas in 1980, he joined the Immanuel Baptist Church choir and landed a spot on the risers just beyond the pulpit -- in full view of the TV cameras that carried the Little Rock congregation's Sunday services. It didn't hurt; he won back the governorship in 1982.
Usually the live televised press conference of the guy in the olive fatigues and the beret is followed by an official U.S. response, as though there were equivalence between the two.
I'm sorry, but the first thing I thought when I saw clips of Clinton handling the pasta for the charity dinner was: Where have his hands been?
Hustler publisher Larry Flynt doesn't like Republicans, and Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart says the White House is powerless to tell a "newsmagazine" what it can and can't print. I wonder what other "newsmagazines" are on the president's reading list. Penthouse? Gallery?
Would CNN have covered Adolf Hitler's daily press briefings? Just asking.
from TPDL 1999-Feb-1, from Reuters via Nando.Net:
Clinton displays 'absence of character,' Senator Moynihan says
NEW YORK (January 31, 1999 4:33 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - President Clinton's policies - in addition to his personal behavior - display an "absence of character," Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said in an interview with The New Yorker magazine released Sunday.
"There is a sort of absence of character that has been the quality of this administration," said the 71-year-old Moynihan, who plans to retire in 2000.
The senior senator from New York, who has played key roles in drafting social and economic legislation since his election to the Senate in 1977, said that Clinton had done "little things" to win re- election and was unrealistic about larger problems facing the nation.
"We've had this miniaturization of the presidency -- doing this little thing and that little thing," said Moynihan, whose relationship with Clinton has never been warm, particularly since they disagreed over Clinton's approach to health-care reform in 1993.
In the interview appearing in the Feb. 8 issue of The New Yorker that goes on sale Monday, Moynihan cited Clinton's education initiatives as an example.
"He continues to suggest that in a few short years we can be first in the world in science and math," Moynihan said, referring to Clinton's education proposals in his Jan. 19 State of the Union address.
"Something like that would take about three generations," Moynihan said. "The idea that he could say that with a straight face is extraordinary. We are in a disastrous state with regard to this most important part of American life, and what we get is this attitude of 'wishing will make it so."'
Moynihan has declined to say how he would vote at the end of the Clinton's impeachment trial on charges stemming from his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
But Moynihan described "a budding triumphalism" among Democrats over the outcome. Senate votes last week made clear that there was not the two-thirds majority required to convict Clinton and remove him from office.
"And it's true that we thwarted a coup, and that's a good thing. But you have to say they (the Republicans) didn't start this. The president did," Moynihan said.
But he said that removing Clinton from office would destabilize the presidency. "There are problems with the personal behavior. We had the right to expect that he could have held off until ... 2002."
The senator offered a terse "welcome" to the possibility that Hillary Rodham Clinton might succeed him when he leaves office in 2000, The New Yorker said.
Public opinion polls have shown that if she ran, Hillary Clinton would win the Democratic nomination for Moynihan's Senate seat and defeat potential Republican rivals such as New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
As for Giuliani, the senator was more pointed in discussing his potential Senate career. He said of Giuliani, who has a reputation for being strong-willed but sensitive to criticism: "You can't come to the Senate for group therapy. You need to learn how to work in groups before you arrive."
from TPDL 1999-Jan-15, from CNS Information Services 1999-Jan-14, by Americans for Tax Reform:
Tax and Spend Week at the White House
WASHINGTON - "Every day this week, Bill Clinton has announced a new big spending initiative or a new tax increase proposal. The tax increase of the day at the White House is a 55 cent per pack tax on cigarettes," noted Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.
"Every time Clinton gets into hot water, he returns to his liberal roots. It is more than a coincidence. Clinton's big-spending allies in Congress have been the biggest defenders of his perjury and obstruction of justice.
"The new tax-and-spend proposals each and every day leading up to the Senate Impeachment Trial is a direct pay-off to his spending interest allies so that they won't be tempted to vote to remove him from office. If Al Capone did this it would be considered bribing the jury.
"If adding to the bloated federal bureaucracy and raising our taxes is what Clinton means by 'doing the work of the American people,' taxpayers would prefer that he stop working.
"Congress should announce that Clinton's pandering tax-and-spend proposals are dead on arrival. Congress should then move forward on the true work of the American people which is cutting taxes and reforming Social Security," concluded Norquist.
Americans for Tax Reform is a non-partisan coalition of over 80,000 taxpayers and taxpayer advocacy groups who are opposed to all tax increases at the state and federal levels.
from TPDL 1999-Jan-2, from the Associated Press:
Clinton Turns Back to Business
WASHINGTON (AP) -- After a 48-hour respite from unpleasant questions about his future, President Clinton is back at work, making the case for his new budget and deciding how to tackle a Social Security rescue plan.
As senators float trial balloons on whether to take his impeachment by the House to a full trial, Clinton also is putting a cutting edge on a political weapon that has served him well in the past: the annual State of the Union address to Congress and the American people.
Turning first to the budget for the 2000 fiscal year beginning next Oct. 1, Clinton planned to use his weekly radio address today to draw a broad dollars-and-policy outline of his plans for the next year.
The president was expected to announced in the speech that he will seek a $100 billion increase in defense spending over the next six years, The New York Times reported today.
It would be the first increase in Pentagon spending above inflation since 1991, the year of the Persian Gulf War, and would respond to calls by military leaders for more resources to cope with increased commitments aboard and aging weaponry.
Separately, The Washington Post reported today that Clinton's 2000 budget will seek a 12 percent, $105 million increase in food safety programs, most of it to upgrade Agriculture Department inspections at smaller meat and poultry processinhg plants.
The strategy to immerse the president in issues is intended to show him doing his job and standing above congressional squabbling over whether he should remain in office.
During the week, Clinton will preside at White House events aimed at showcasing progress on his initiatives on health care and crime. On Thursday, he speaks at the Detroit Economic Club on challenges to the booming domestic economy.
The State of the Union address on Jan. 19 will spotlight the president's ideas for the two years remaining in his term.
Clinton's rousing performance before Congress a year ago is credited by many analysts for boosting his popularity in opinion polls, enabling him to ride above the revelations of the Monica Lewinsky affair, accusations of perjury and even the House vote to impeach him.
Although the accusations and impeachment may mark the president indelibly in the history books, they were ignored by the dozens of questioners who had the chance to question the president during New Year's Eve celebrations on Hilton Head Island, S.C.
The two-day forum, Renaissance Weekend, was familiar ground for the president and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. They have sampled the event's comraderie and entertaining seminars every year since the mid-1980s.
Taking written questions as midnight approached, Clinton said the Republicans' aggressive "Contract With America" legislative agenda may have won the GOP control of the House in 1994, but a backlash by the public helped assure his re-election two years later.
After a year under investigation and attack, Clinton said his view of partisanship is to "move away from the politics of personal destruction" and engage in a vigorous debate between the political parties on how to secure the lasting future of the Social Security system.
TPDL 1998-Dec-29
USA TODAY
Clinton proposes child violence reforms
WASHINGTON - President Clinton announced Tuesday new steps to combat violence against children, including proposing to make it a felony to endanger a child's life through abuse or neglect. Other proposals include legislation to make it easier for federal prosecutors to prove a felony murder charge involving the death of a child; providing additional training to police, prosecutors, investigators and court personnel in ways to lessen trauma and emotional stress on child victims and witnesses in abuse cases; and $10 million in "Safe Start" grants from the Justice Department to cities.
USA TODAY
Social Security declared Y2K-bug free
WASHINGTON - Social Security benefit checks will be delivered to millions of Americans into the new millennium without interruption from the so-called Year 2000 problem, officials announced Monday. Some 2,800 workers, including 700 programmers, worked to ensure the agency's computers are ready for the year 2000. "The millennium bug will not delay the payment of Social Security checks by a single day," Clinton said in a White House ceremony.
USA TODAY
Clinton tackles drunken driving laws
WASHINGTON - President Clinton Saturday urged Congress to lower the blood-alcohol level for drunken driving, noting research that shows millions of Americans take a drink or a drug just before taking the steering wheel. Clinton is asking Congress to pass a law next year to make a blood-alcohol content of .08% the national legal limit for driving while intoxicated. That level currently is used by 16 states and the District of Columbia. Inspired by the increased consumption of alcohol throughout the holidays, Clinton decided to tackle the issue of drunken driving before the new year. ''Think before getting behind the wheel,'' Clinton said. ''If you've had too much to drink, hand your keys to a designated driver. Together, we can make sure the new year is, indeed, a safe and happy one for all Americans.''
TPDL 1998-Dec-31
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Clinton Seeks Tax Credit for Care
A tax credit for long-term care is expected to anchor a Clinton initiative to help families defray costs of caring for elderly and disabled relatives. The proposed credit of as much as $750 is to be announced soon.
TPDL 1998-Jan-1
NANDO
Clinton calls octuplet parents
HILTON HEAD, S.C. (December 31, 1998 6:51 p.m. EST) - President Clinton called the parents of seven surviving Texas octuplets on Thursday with New Year's greetings and to convey the prayers of the American public.
TPDL 1999-Jan-3
USA TODAY
Clinton pledges $100B more for military
WASHINGTON - President Clinton has proposed spending $100 billion over six years to shore up military readiness, recruitment and modernization programs, setting up what would be the largest increase in defense spending since the Cold War buildup of the mid-1980s. For Clinton, the proposal represented a big political shift from his presidency's nearly exclusive focus on domestic spending. The budget request, which also includes the largest military pay raise since 1982, "will help us to do right by our troops by upgrading and replacing aging equipment, barracks and family housing," Clinton said in his weekly Saturday radio address.
retort, from Reuters, 1999-Jan-20:
Clinton's Extra Funds For Military "Not Enough''
WASHINGTON - Members of Congress attacked President Clinton's proposed budget boost for the U.S. military on Wednesday, saying it was too little to redress years of reduced spending.
Republican and Democratic Representatives decried Clinton's proposal of a $110 billion rise over the next six years, with $12 for the fiscal year starting next October, saying more was needed to improve living conditions and military "readiness''.
The extra funds, the first major increase in the decade since the end of the Cold War, followed years of declining budgets under Clinton, who did not serve in the military and has been criticized for lack of commitment to defense.
Rep. Floyd Spence, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the long-term figure fell $40 billion short of that requested by armed forces chiefs, who were witnesses at his committee's hearing.
Spence, a Republican from South Carolina, noted that only $4 billion dollars of next year's proposal was new money while the rest was projected savings within the budget and reapplied for other uses.
If Clinton's budget increases depended largely on assumed savings, Spence said, "he is taking a high risk gamble with our military's future.''
He spoke of an "exasperating and frustrating'' debate with the administration to try to prevent the run-down of the U.S. armed forces, which led to statements by the top generals last year that the military was showing signs of "serious wear''.
Representatives agreed with Army Gen. Henry Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other service chiefs that the top priority was to improve living conditions, pay and pensions, help encourage more recruits and stop specialists, like pilots, from leaving.
Ike Skelton, a Democrat from Montana, said: "We need to take care of the troops, we need to take care of their families,'' and suggested the motto for this year should be: ''The year of the families.''
Clinton's request for extra funds will be sent to the Republican-controlled Congress on Feb. 1 as part of the overall budget.
Defense Secretary William Cohen told a news conference last month the president would propose a $30 billion package including across-the-board military pay increase of 4.4 percent from this summer, followed by annual 3.9 percent increases for five years after that.
The defense budget for this year is $250 billion dollars, but U.S. military chiefs argue that a proliferation of post-Cold War operations, from Bosnia to the Gulf, is squeezing a delicate balance between current needs and future planning.
Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines chiefs all told the committee the extra funds proposed by Clinton fell well short of their stated needs for this year, although they welcomed the increase and said it would help redress some shortfalls.
"Although the president's proposed budget will not satisfy all the requirements the Chiefs identified to Congress last fall, it will meet our most critical readiness needs and it will represent a major turnaround following years of decreasing spending on defense,'' Shelton said.
TPDL 1999-Jan-4
USA TODAY
Clinton unveils medical tax-break plan
WASHINGTON - President Clinton will unveil Monday a five-year, $6.2 billion proposal to provide $1,000 annual tax credits for people who need long-term medical care or the family members who provide it. White House officials say the initiative, which requires congressional approval, will be the biggest tax break and most significant health care proposal in Clinton's fiscal 2000 budget. More than 5 million Americans, two-thirds of them elderly, require long-term care. The aging of the baby boom generation is expected to increase those numbers.
TPDL 1999-Jan-5
USA TODAY
Clinton seeks to loosen Cuba restrictions
WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration plans to allow more contact between Americans and Cubans and to substantially increase the number of Americans eligible to send money to needy Cubans, an administration official disclosed Monday. The official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said the measures are not intended to improve relations with the Cuban government, but to show support for the Cuban people. The 37- year-old U.S. embargo would remain in effect, but food sales would be allowed to some organizations as long as the recipient is independent of the government, such as the Catholic Church.
TPDL 1999-Jan-6
USA TODAY
Clinton backs more prison drug testing
WASHINGTON - President Clinton announced Tuesday that his fiscal 2000 budget will include $215 million to test and treat prisoners for drug use. The announcement followed the release of Justice Department statistics that showed 70% of federal prisoners had used drugs prior to their arrests, and 22% were on drugs at the time they committed the crime that sent them to prison. If approved by Congress, the money would represent an increase of about $100 million over funds currently available to enforce "zero tolerance" for drug use by prisoners, parolees and probationers.
USA TODAY
White House predicts $76 billion surplus
WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration has projected a budget surplus of more than $76 billion for this year, calling it the "biggest dollar surplus in history." The administration's Office of Management and Budget released its latest forecast for fiscal 1999 on Wednesday, bringing the projected surplus for the budget year ending Sept. 30 closer to congressional estimates of about $80 billion. The administration's newest estimate is significantly higher than its analysis last year, which estimated a fiscal 1999 surplus of $54.2 billion. At the White House, press secretary Joe Lockhart pointed out that when President Clinton took office in 1993, the fiscal 1999 projections were for a $404 billion deficit.
retort from TPDL 1999-Jan-7, from the Los Angeles Times:
Smoke, Mirrors and Red Ink
President Clinton is quick to take credit for the fiscal discipline that Washington has exercised in wiping out deficit spending for the second year in a row. "We can say the era of big deficits is over," he declared Wednesday in announcing a revised estimate of the budget surplus for fiscal 1999.
Not quite, Mr. President. This much heralded budget "surplus," now put at $76 billion, is a bookkeeping myth. As we have previously noted, 1998's $70-billion surplus was calculated using $99 billion from excess payroll taxes in the Social Security trust fund. Exclude those Social Security funds and the federal budget would have been $29 billion in the red.
Since nothing has changed that would require eliminating the Social Security trust fund's surpluses from budget calculations, the projected surplus for fiscal 1999, which ends Sept. 30, still includes them and the resulting fiscal illusion continues to obscure problems.
The surplus, phantom though it is, has renewed calls for tax cuts by Republican leaders including Senate Finance Committee Chairman William V. Roth Jr. and House Majority Leader Dick Armey. These are false hopes and political chicanery.
It's far too soon to consider tax relief. Deficits will continue to loom unless Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are reformed to accommodate the coming retirements of baby boomers and their drain on the Social Security trust fund.
So far there's little but talk on meeting the problem. This is the year for action on Social Security financing. Without reform, we'll be seeing red again in Washington, big time.
TPDL 1999-Jan-7
USA TODAY
After-school programs get a boost
WASHINGTON - President Clinton will announce his plan Thursday to triple to $600 million the budget for after-school programs, seizing on an initiative popular both with working parents and with Republicans who hold the government's purse strings. Clinton will also try to tie the funds to his campaign against "social promotion" in schools, or the promotion of children to the next grade with their age group without regard to whether they've mastered the material. The president would pay for the increase through spending cuts in other areas, which will not be delineated until next month, one administration official said.
TPDL 1999-Jan-8
USA TODAY
Pentagon: Clinton weighs missile defense
WASHINGTON - The nation may soon begin building a $7 billion system for national missile defense. Pentagon officials say President Clinton wants to launch the program over a six-year period to guard against a ''limited'' missile attack. The president has not made any final decisions and will wait for results from critical tests to determine whether such a plan is viable. Such a system is supposed to protect the nation against ballistic missile attack, but the technology for building it has not yet been proved. Proponents say a limited missile shield is needed to protect against an accidental launch of a nuclear missile or an attack by a rogue nation. If Clinton decides to move forward with the program, it will become part of his new budget for the year 2000, which will be sent to Congress next month.
USA TODAY
Record! Economy expands for 93 months
WASHINGTON - President Clinton today will unveil a report by his Council of Economic Advisors that confirms the U.S. economy has grown 93 months in a row, the longest peacetime expansion in its history. In a speech at the Detroit Economic Club, Clinton is expected to call the expansion an American renaissance that is symbolized by Detroit's comeback from economic devastation. In his speech, Clinton will credit the ingenuity of American industry - and his own policies. Economists say he deserves some of the credit, especially for tackling the budget deficit, but they also credit stewardship of the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Alan Greenspan. To set an all-time record for economic growth in war or peacetime, the current expansion must beat the 106-month record set in 1961-69.
[Even if his economic magic began the very first day he became President, then he could only claim credit for Jan. 1993 to Jan. 1999. That is only 6 years at 12 months per year, or 72 months. He just gave Bush credit for 21months of economic growth that during the campaign in 1992 he claimed was not occurring (stagnant was the word he used, if I remember). -anonymous TPDL subscriber]
USA TODAY
President plans tax breaks for steel firms
WASHINGTON - President Clinton's plan to help the U.S. steel industry will include $300 million in tax breaks for firms struggling against imports, administration officials said. However, the report, described as in its final stages of preparation Thursday, apparently will not grant the types of sweeping trade protections sought by the industry and its unions. Steel companies and the unions accuse Japan, Russia and Brazil of ''dumping'' steel in this country at unfairly low prices and want the government to impose penalty tariffs of up to 200% on some steel.
1999-Jan-9
USA TODAY
Pentagon doubles Iraqi damage estimate
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has doubled its damage estimate from the airstrikes on Iraq, saying the attack set back Saddam Hussein's weapons program two years and killed 600 to 2,000 Republican Guard members, including key leaders. Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday that "several key individuals" from Saddam Hussein's military leadership were killed in the Dec. 16-19 attacks. They're "no longer available to him to advise or to lead," Shelton said. "He lost a lot." A new Pentagon assessment estimates it would take Iraq two years to repair the damage because about half the buildings bombed were filled with hard-to-replace equipment and materials for making chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and missiles.
REUTERS
U.S. Offers $130 Million to Struggling Hog Farmers
The Clinton administration said yesterday it will provide hog farmers with $130 million to compensate for World War II-era pork prices that are driving some producers out of business.
Vice President Gore announced the assistance during a trip to Iowa, the biggest producer of hogs in the United States. Iowa also holds one of the first important political contests for presidential candidates.
"I want to reassure pork producers and their families that President Clinton and I are doing everything we can to help soften the blows and get producers back on their feet, not just so they can survive, but so they can share in the nation's continuing prosperity," Gore said in a statement.
In addition to $50 million in direct cash payments, the government will transfer $80 million to the Agriculture Department's voluntary hog pseudorabies eradication program to help reduce the oversupply of hogs. That money will be used to compensate farmers for the slaughter of many of the 1.7 million U.S. hogs infected with the virus.
[...]
TPDL 1999-Jan-10
USA TODAY
Clinton seeks to boost U.S. exports
WASHINGTON - In his weekly radio address Saturday, President Clinton proposed a $108 million plan to boost American exports. The plan, Clinton hopes, will lessen the damaging effects of Asia's economic crisis on U.S. manufacturers. ''With millions of American jobs depending on foreign exports, we must help manufacturers find new markets and attract new customers for our goods overseas,'' Clinton said. The plan will result in nearly $2 billion of additional U.S. exports and create 16,000 high-wage manufacturing jobs, according to the president.
TPDL 1999-Jan-11
SCRIPPS HOWARD / JAMES BROSNAN
Gore to unveil $1 billion 'livability agenda'
WASHINGTON (January 11, 1999 1:00 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - Vice President Al Gore will announce Monday the Clinton administration is proposing $1 billion in new spending next year to make communities more "livable" through regional planning, more mass transit, preserving "green spaces" and schools that are community centers.
The "livability agenda" also includes new aid to speed background checks on handgun buyers and child care workers and register sex offenders. help states and cities share information faster.
Gore, who will make "smart growth" a theme in his 2000 presidential campaign, is expected to stress that the new initiatives not only will improve the environment in local communities but will help them attract jobs.
Gore also is expected to stress the proposal is not to impose new federal controls on land-use, but to encourage more regional cooperation among local officials.
The budget proposal includes:
- $700 million over five years for "Better America Bonds," a 15- year, zero-interest bond that communities could issue to protect open spaces, wetlands and farmland from development, clean-up abandoned industrial sites, and reduce pollution run-off. Bond buyers would receive a tax credit instead of interest payments.
- $341 million in new money to reduce congestion and pollution through high-occupancy vehicle lanes, ride-sharing programs, traffic monitoring systems, bicycle and pedestrian paths and conversion of private and local vehicle fleets to alternative fuels. The administration also is proposing $6.1 billion for public transit, a $724 million increase over the current budget.
- $50 million for the Department of Housing and Urban Development to make grants to states or groups of local cities and counties that want to plan ways to counter urban sprawl or develop their work-force.
- $10 million for the Department of Education to make about 150 to 200 grants, ranging from $40,000 to $100,000, to support the creation of community partnerships to work with local schools to locate and design schools to become community centers.
-$50 million to help states and cities automate their criminal history records and fund fingerprint identification systems, sex offender registries and communications networks.
TPDL 1999-Jan-12
USA TODAY
Gore proposes tax cuts to preserve land
WASHINGTON - Vice President Al Gore proposed tax credits Monday to finance nearly $10 billion in special ''green bonds'' that would be used to preserve open space, create community parks and preserve farmland. The proposal, which entails $700 million in tax credits over five years, is part of a $1 billion-a-year program to promote ''smart growth'' strategies to stem suburban sprawl. The initiative will be part of the fiscal 2000 budget President Clinton will send to Congress next month. The plan is one of several proposals Gore is announcing this week as he moves closer to running for president in 2000.
WASHINGTON POST / JOBY WARRICK
President to Propose Record Parks Outlay
President Clinton today will propose $1 billion in new spending to expand federal wildernesses and urban parks in what would be the largest one-year investment in preserving the nation's green spaces.
TPDL 1999-Jan-13
USA TODAY
Clinton launches 'land-legacy initiative'
WASHINGTON - President Clinton unveiled the "land-legacy initiative" Tuesday that will triple spending for land preservation efforts from the California desert to the Florida Everglades. ''Our population is growing, our cities are growing, our commitment to conservation must grow as well,'' Clinton said. The $1 billion spending proposal will be included in the fiscal 2000 budget Clinton plans to send Congress next week and constitutes the second major environmental initiative by the administration this week. Among the protected areas that would be expanded under the plan are the Joshua Tree National Park in California and the Florida Everglades.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Clinton To Push Plan for Disabled
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Clinton is proposing a new $2 billion, five-year budget package meant to help tens of thousands of disabled Americans return to work through a combination of health coverage, tax credits and better rehabilitation services.
Advocates say that health coverage -- the largest piece of the package -- is the No. 1 barrier that prevents people with disabilities from returning to the workplace. Often they find jobs that do not offer health insurance coverage, and often their disabilities make it extraordinarily expensive to buy coverage on their own.
Clinton plans a White House ceremony today to endorse legislation on health benefits being introduced next week by Sens. James Jeffords, R-Vt., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., administration and congressional officials said.
"A major obstacle will be removed from the fulfillment of every disabled person's dream to work, live independently and be a contributing member of society," Kennedy said in a statement.
The president will also offer tax credits to help disabled workers pay for transportation, equipment and other expenses and more money to develop new information and communications technologies to help people with disabilities function in the workplace.
And he will back a plan that would let people with disabilities choose their rehabilitation centers, creating competition for the first time for the organizations that train people to take jobs. Centers that successfully place people in jobs would get bonus payments, thus reaping some of the savings the government will realize from reduced disability payments.
Under the current system, less than one-half of 1 percent of the 10 million Americans receiving disability benefits ever return to work, including people in the Social Security system for workers and the Supplemental Security Income program for the poor.
Their advocates argue that's because the system punishes them when they go to work -- forcing them to choose between health benefits and a job.
The health insurance plan would cost $1.2 billion over five years, and is expected to be considered by the Senate Finance Committee, where it has two powerful advocates: Chairman William Roth, R-Del., and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, the panel's top Democrat.
The measure would encourage states to offer Medicaid to people who return to work, allowing them to buy into the program even if their incomes are too high under current limits. States could also let people buy into Medicaid even if their conditions have improved but they remain impaired and need health coverage.
The plan would also allow people with disabilities to continue receiving Medicare benefits, which are not as generous as state benefits but would be available to people across the nation, regardless of a state's policy.
Clinton will also endorse two other initiatives:
-A $750 million, five-year plan to give $1,000 tax credits to people with disabilities who go back to work. This would help defray the cost of transportation, technology and other expenses necessary to take a job.
-Doubling money spent on developing assisted technology to help people with disabilities function.
The legislation being offered by Jeffords, chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, and Kennedy, the panel's top Democrat, would also create a demonstration project to test the effect of phasing out benefits as people earn more.
Under current law, disability beneficiaries lose their entire grants if they earn more than $500 a month, prompting some to turn down raises or limit their hours.
TPDL 1999-Jan-14
USA TODAY
Clinton aims to get disabled back to work
WASHINGTON - President Clinton on Wednesday proposed a new $2 billion, five-year package of health coverage, tax credits and rehabilitation services to help tens of thousands of disabled Americans return to work. Advocates believe health coverage is the No. 1 barrier preventing people with disabilities from returning to the workplace. Often they find jobs that do not offer health insurance coverage, and their disabilities often make it too expensive to buy coverage on their own. Currently, less than one- half of 1% of the 10 million Americans receiving disability benefits ever return to work. Clinton will also offer tax credits to help disabled workers pay for transportation, equipment and other expenses and more money to develop new information and communications technologies to help them function in the workplace.
USA TODAY
Program targets uninsured children
WASHINGTON - A new grant program is taking another crack at enrolling uninsured children into state health care programs, hoping to avoid problems that states have seen with Medicaid. The grants being announced Thursday total $17.5 million for 20 states. The money is to be used both to help enroll eligible children into the new children's health insurance program aimed at the working poor and to get other children into the Medicaid program. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which is financing the program, plans to spend $47 million - enough to pay for programs in every state and the District of Columbia - but only 20 states have met the foundation's requirements to receive aid.
NEW YORK TIMES
Gore announces 'empowerment zones' to aid economic development
WASHINGTON (January 13, 1999 9:11 p.m. EST) - Vice President Al Gore announced Wednesday that the Clinton administration was creating new empowerment zones to pump economic development into 20 distressed urban and rural areas. Urban areas selected included Boston, Miami, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, El Paso and Knoxville.
NEW YORK TIMES
Clinton wants to extend police subsidies
WASHINGTON (January 13, 1999 10:26 p.m. EST) - President Clinton is expected to propose a five-year, $6 billion anti-crime package Thursday that would up the ante on his nearly fulfilled pledge to put 100,000 new cops on the beat nationwide.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Clinton Seeks Funds for Programs
President Clinton is expected to propose increasing the federal tax on cigarettes by about 55 cents a pack to raise about $8 billion for new spending on defense and social programs.
TPDL 1999-Jan-15
USA TODAY
Clinton raises price on police plan
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - President Clinton proposed a five-year, $6 billion package Thursday that raises the ante on his pledge to put 100,000 new police officers on the beat across the USA. Citing Justice Department figures - out Thursday - showing a record low in serious violent crimes, Clinton said the funds would be "the best investment we can make in a safe future for our children." Clinton's package would earmark $600 million for fiscal 2000, which starts Oct. 1, for the hiring of 30,000 to 50,000 additional officers "with an effort to target new police officers to crime hot spots." Justice crime statistics show the total number of violent crimes for 1998 is expected to fall below 3 million, the first time since 1973.
TPDL 1999-Jan-18
USA TODAY
Clinton: Honor MLK by volunteering
WASHINGTON - President Clinton exhorted Americans Saturday to join a nationwide volunteer campaign and make Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. holiday ''a day on, not a day off.'' ''To honor what would have been Dr. King's 70th birthday, I urge all Americans to rise to the highest calling in our land - the calling of active citizenship,'' the president said in his weekly radio broadcast. The administration's Americorps national service program is organizing projects nationwide - such as painting schools, reading to children and cleaning up parks - to mark the King holiday, a day off for federal workers and many in the private sector.
ASSOCIATED PRESS / SONYA ROSS
Clinton planning to adopt GOP child care tax credit plan
WASHINGTON (January 17, 1999 8:31 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - President Clinton's fiscal 2000 budget will include a $500 child care tax credit for stay-at-home parents, an idea proposed last year by congressional Republicans, administration sources said Sunday.
Clinton's proposal would allow a tax credit of up to $500 for families with a child aged 1 or younger, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The sliding-scale credit, pegged to family income, is expected to cost $1.3 billion over five years, allowing for an average tax credit of $178, the official said.
The tax credit is expected to benefit 1.7 million families. A family earning $30,000 per year with one working parent would be able to claim the full $500 in child care expenses, rather than the $250 they are allowed under current law.
The proposal is part of a larger child care package that seeks a total of $18 billion over five years to aid working poor and middle class families.
That broader package - absent the stay-at-home-mom credit - is similar to what Clinton sought last year: $7.5 billion for expanding child care subsidies to serve an extra 1.15 million children; $5 billion in tax credits for non-parental care of a child younger than 13, or a disabled dependent or spouse; $3 billion for grants for preschool programs; a $500 million tax credit for businesses that provide child care services for their employees; $600 million for after-school programs and $173 million for inspections, training and other efforts to improve child care.
Last year, Clinton put forth a $22 billion proposal, tied to revenue from the proposed tobacco settlement, but it went nowhere on Capitol Hill, in part because Republicans said it failed to address parents who do not work outside the home.
With the revamped plan, the White House was hoping to take some steam out of that argument, giving GOP leaders what amounts to a political dare. "There's no excuse for Congress not acting on child care now," the official said.
However, the official declined to reveal how the tax credit would be financed, other than to say it would be through "a host of options" being exercised in Clinton's budget and would not be tied to a tobacco tax increase.
White House officials said Clinton's specific tax credit for stay-
at- home parents is patterned after one offered last year by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. The rest of Clinton's package incorporates elements of a Senate proposal offered by Sens. Orrin Hatch and John Chafee, they said. The Chafee-Hatch bill called for $15 billion to $16 billion over five years, including a dependent-care tax credit for stay-at-home parents of up to $900 per year per family.
CNN 1999-Jan-18
Clinton announces record discrimination settlement on King Day
January 18, 1999
Web posted at: 7:03 p.m. EST (0003 GMT)WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., President Clinton Monday announced the government had reached a $6.5 billion discrimination settlement with a mortgage company.
Clinton said the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Columbia National Mortgage Co., had settled the multi-billion dollar housing case involving lending to minority and low-income families.
"This settlement was made under the Fair Housing Act which Congress passed just six days, just six days after Dr. King was killed," the president pointed out.
"Many who voted for the measure said they did it in tribute to him," Clinton said. "Here, all these years later ... we are proud this happened on Dr. King's national holiday."
Clinton announced the settlement after he and Vice President Al Gore joined Americorps volunteers in tearing down a wall in a room being renovated at the Regency House, a senior citizen's apartment complex in Washington.
The settlement was negotiated by HUD after an investigation launched by its Fort Worth, Texas, office found evidence of racial bias in Columbia National's lending practices.
HUD: too few loans to minorities
Columbia National was accused of making too few loans to minority or low-to-moderate income families. In 1997, its loans to such borrowers totaled only $51.6 million, less than 5 percent of its volume.
Under the settlement, the Columbia, Maryland-based lender will make $6 billion in home mortgage loans available over five years to minority and low-to-moderate income families in 28 states.
The company also will spend $529 million on programs designed to increase homeownership among minority and poor families.
Clinton said the settlement announced Monday is the largest of its kind. HUD negotiated the second-largest lending discrimination settlement, $2.1 billion, with AccuBanc Mortgage last year.
'Discrimination with a smile'
"If companies know we're going to enforce the law, you'll see more compliance. And $6.5 billion says we're going to enforce the law," said Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo, who attended King Day services in Atlanta.
"He would be proud with the progress, because we have come far," Cuomo said. "But he would point to how far we still have left to go. Discrimination is still alive and well in America. It is hard to admit, but we will never solve a problem that we will not admit."
Cuomo said discrimination today is not the same as in the 1960s.
"It's the '90s style of discrimination," he said. "It's discrimination with a smile. It's the banker who says, `Sorry, you don't qualify for the loan.' But the banker never looked at the number box, he only looked at the color box."
Correspondent John King, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
retort to above, from TPDL 1999-Jan-19, from the Washington Post:
Md. Mortgage Co. Disputes Clinton
COLUMBIA, Md. (AP) -- A mortgage company is disputing an announcement by the Clinton administration that it has agreed to a $6.5 billion settlement of discrimination accusations.
The head of Columbia National Inc. denied that the company, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Fort Worth Human Relations Commission reached a settlement.
Chief Executive Officer Dave Gallitano said the only agreement with HUD is to continue the company's mission to bring home mortgage loans to low-to-moderate income families.
``The statements released by the White House and HUD are inaccurate and very misleading,'' Gallitano said in a statement.
Columbia National was accused of violating the Fair Housing Act by making too few loans to minority or low-to-moderate income families.
President Clinton announced the settlement Monday in a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., saying the Columbia, Md.-based lender agreed to make $6 billion in home mortgage loans available over five years to minorities and low- to moderate- income families in 28 states.
The company also will spend $529 million on programs designed to increase home ownership among minority and poor families, the president said.
TPDL 1999-Jan-19
USA TODAY
Clinton to announce new tax credit
WASHINGTON - President Clinton is set to offer a new tax credit that will offset costs borne by parents who choose to stay home and care for their children. The proposal for fiscal year 2000 will include a credit of up to $500 per child age 1 or younger. The president plans to outline the proposal, which is part of a child care package that seeks a total of $18 billion over five years, during his State of the Union address Tuesday night before a joint session of Congress. Last year a $22 billion child care package was rejected by Republicans because it failed to address parents who do not work outside the home. The White House hopes to bypass such arguments with this plan. Clinton spent much of Sunday preparing for Tuesday's speech and testing themes on about 20 aides who tried to serve as the eyes and ears of the American public.
TPDL 1999-Jan-21
USA TODAY
Missile defense to be ready in 2005
WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration said Wednesday it probably will take two years longer than previously believed to build a defense against a long-range missile attack on the United States. The administration moved its target date for deploying a national missile defense from 2003 to 2005, Defense Secretary William Cohen told a Pentagon news conference. The cost of building the system is estimated to reach $10.5 billion, he said. A decision on whether to actually deploy a national missile defense will be made in June 2000, Cohen said. The decisions will depend on two things: the level of threat of a missile attack and the Defense Department's technical readiness to build suck a defense.
TPDL 1999-Jan-22
USA TODAY
Clinton seeks $1.5B to fight terrorists
WASHINGTON - President Clinton wants to spend nearly $1.5 billion to help guard the nation against attacks by terrorists who would carry out their violence with computers, viruses or chemicals. In a speech Friday at the National Academy of Sciences, Clinton planned to outline a 10-point plan to counter emerging threats from cyberterrorism, biological and chemical weapons. ''A chemical attack would be horrible, but it would be finite,'' he told The New York Times. But a biological attack could spread, he added, ''kind of like the gift that keeps on giving.'' Clinton said in the interview that it is ''highly likely'' that a terrorist group will launch or threaten a germ or chemical attack on American soil within the next few years.
Clinton offers details on education plan
WASHINGTON - President Clinton urged more spending in education, including a plan to encourage retiring military personnel to become teachers. The president highlighted his proposals during a ceremony with Hillary Rodham Clinton and Education Secretary Richard Riley. The plan proposes a $200 million increase to hire 100,000 new teachers in grades one to three, $35 million for scholarships for outstanding students who pledge to become teachers in poor school districts and $10 million to recruit 1,000 American Indian teachers who commit to teach in areas heavily populated by Indians.
TPDL 1999-Jan-24
WASHINGTON POST
White House to propose additional $366 million for high-tech
WASHINGTON (January 23, 1999 11:07 p.m. EST) - Vice President Al Gore will propose on Sunday spending $366 million more on high-tech projects next year and extending a $2.4 billion research tax credit aimed at helping scientists.
TPDL 1999-Jan-25
USA TODAY
Clinton seeks to keep welfare rolls down
WASHINGTON - With welfare rolls at a 30-year low, President Clinton on Monday is offering welfare-to-work proposals meant to continue that decline. But new numbers being released Monday show the job may be getting tougher, at least in some states where dramatic declines of recent years have begun to slow. In his upcoming budget, the president will ask Congress for initiatives including $1 billion to continue a program aimed at long-term welfare recipients and low-income fathers. It is an increasingly important group of people. Nationally, just under 8 million remained on welfare at the end of September, down 44% from 14.3 million in 1994.
Gore to announce $305M for victim aid
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department will distribute more than $305 million to state programs that help crime victims, Vice President Al Gore announced Monday. The money will cover such expenses as medical treatment, counseling, funeral costs and lost wages. In addition, funds will go to nearly 3,000 agencies that help crime victims through crises intervention, criminal justice advocacy, counseling and providing emergency shelter. ''We're taking the money out of the hands of criminals and giving it to the victims and those who help victims,'' Gore said. Operated by the Justice Department, the Crime Victims Fund collects fines gathered by U.S. Attorneys office, federal courts and prisons paid by federal criminals.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gore Unveils $128M Reading Program
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Vice President Al Gore stressed the importance of reading skills and called for continued federal participation in scientific research and development during his visit to Southern California.
"Reading is more than a source of pleasure and pride. It is a vital tool for success," Gore said Sunday as he announced a $128 million program to help youngsters learn to read.
"All of the excitement about the information superhighway comes to naught if someone is unable to read," he said. "A child can turn on the computer and point and click and connect to the Internet, but the screen might as well be dark if that child is not able to read."
The child literacy proposal includes $26 million for the Reading Excellence Act, which will make local grants available for reading improvement, and $50 million for a program that targets reading problems in the youngest children, Gore said.
The announcement came during Gore's two-day tour through California. The pledge also comes as the state's new Democratic Gov. Gray Davis pushes a new slate of similar education reforms.
Gore was scheduled to appear today in Sacramento and San Francisco.
The announcement was part of a push to put volunteers from the national service program AmeriCorps in three San Diego schools that have between 64 percent and 94 percent Spanish-speaking students.
Beginning today, corps members will start a new literacy program that provides tutoring, home visits and classrooms for children who need help with their reading.
Gore said schools nationwide need attention, from more teachers and smaller class sizes to upgraded buildings and equipment. But the most important skill for any child is learning to read well by the end of the third grade, he said.
Gore spoke Sunday to a crowd of educators, parents and AmeriCorps volunteers after reading to children who earned the privilege to visit him by having perfect attendance. He made no reference to President Clinton's ongoing impeachment trial.
Later, while attending the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Anaheim, Gore said the federal government must support research not only for specific applied needs, but "the government should also support rigorous research even when we don't know where it will go."
He announced a $366 million high-tech appropriation and a proposed $2.4 billion research tax credit.
Technological advances must not come at the expense of "the most cherished values of our nation," he said. "As genetic science maps the blueprint of lives, it may open a Pandora's box of ethical concerns. Some of these concerns are absurd, but some are not receiving the attention they deserve."
Research and development should be used "to end suffering, to eradicate diseases and promote the freedom to educate our children and lives for our families and our nation," the vice president said. "We haven't a moment to waste."
TPDL 1999-Jan-26
USA TODAY
Clinton seeks corporate help on welfare
WASHINGTON - Acknowledging it is getting tougher to clear public assistance rolls, President Clinton appealed Monday for corporations to help ''deal with the remaining people on welfare'' by hiring and training with their needs in mind. Clinton spoke at a welfare-to-work ceremony as his administration released new figures that reflect both a 30-year low in welfare caseloads and some slowing of welfare declines in a few states. Among his proposals were spending $150 million in fiscal 2000 to provide job training and other support for fathers, $430 million for housing vouchers and another $150 million for transporting potential workers from inner cities to suburbs, where jobs tend to be more abundant.
TPDL 1999-Jan-27
USA TODAY
Clinton seeks $607M more for Head Start
WASHINGTON - President Clinton will seek a $607 million increase in Head Start spending to include another 42,000 children in the pre-school development program for low-income youngsters. The proposal, announced Tuesday by Vice President Al Gore, will be part of the fiscal 2000 budget Clinton will unveil on Feb. 1. If enacted, it would increase Head Start spending to $5.3 billion and bring the program's national enrollment to 877,000 children. Under the Clinton administration, Head Start spending has increased by 68 percent. Enrollment has increased by more than 200,000 children, reaching 835,000 kids in fiscal 1999.
Gore proposals target California
SAN FRANCISCO - Vice President Al Gore has proposed spending millions on programs with plenty of California appeal - education, immigration, technology and crime. The White House plans to seek $1.3 billion over five years to restore health benefits and food stamps for legal immigrants who lost coverage under the 1996 welfare overhaul, Gore announced Monday. The proposal is expected to be part of the budget Clinton sends to Congress on Feb. 1. The vice president, who has announced he will seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2000, came to California in hopes of scoring points with Hispanics, who were upset at the 1996 cuts and have since emerged as a crucial voting bloc.
TPDL 1999-Jan-28
USA TODAY
Clinton promotes Social Security plan
WASHINGTON - Earmarking more than 60% of the projected federal budget surplus for Social Security would ``actually grow the American economy while preparing for the future,'' President Clinton said Wednesday as he pushed his plan to save the national retirement program. Clinton and Vice President Al Gore met with a panel of economists to discuss ways to ensure that both Social Security and Medicare remain solvent well into the next century. The president explained his plan to transfer 62% of projected budget surpluses over the next 15 years, more than $2.7 trillion, to Social Security. Once Social Security is secure, he said, he wants 15% of surpluses to go to Medicare.
TPDL 1999-Jan-29
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Clinton Proposes HUD Spending Hike
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Clinton said today that America's booming economy presents a unique opportunity to address the nation's problems, and he proposed a $2.5 billion spending increase for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The president announced his proposal in an East Room speech to the nation's mayors, who heartily applauded the initiative. If approved by Congress, it would raise HUD's budget to $28 billion for housing programs for the needy.
"The present prosperity is an opportunity and a responsibility to make sure that opportunity and prosperity reaches every person into every corner of this country, into every neighborhood in every city of this country," the president said.
"If we cannot do this now with what some people believe is the strongest overall economy in our history, believe me, we will never get around to doing the job," he said.
He unveiled his proposal as the government announced that the U.S. economy grew at an enviable 5.6 percent annual rate during the final three months of 1998. "Our economy is doing very well," the president said.
His measure would include money to increase affordable housing, housing vouchers for needy residents in distressed areas and $150 million for newly designated economic empowerment zones. A highlight of his strategy was the initiative he announced earlier this month to encourage Wall Street to invest in underserved inner-city and rural communities.
That plan includes a $1 billion tax credit designed to spur $6 billion in new equity capital for investment in the targeted markets and the creation of private investment partnerships, patterned after the Overseas Private Investment Corp.
The president also planned to ask for support for continued money for community policing, a "zero tolerance" program to keep criminals from falling back on drugs and to reduce recidivism, and for requiring gun manufacturers to install child safety locks on handguns.
Surveying the health of America's cities, Clinton said the mayors should be proud of their accomplishments.
"Unemployment in our central cities has fallen by 40 percent since 1992. Four of our largest 10 cities have cut their unemployment rates in half," he said. "We have the highest real wage growth in two decades, the lowest African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates since such things were first measured in 1972, average family income up by $3500, the lowest crime rate in now about 26 years and a (crime) drop in our cities that averages 27 percent."
USA TODAY
Gore: U.S. to push reduced foreign tariffs
DAVOS, Switzerland - Vice President Gore will tell international business and government leaders Friday that the United States will push in a new round of trade talks for European and other nations to sharply reduce tariffs on agricultural products. At the World Economic Forum - an annual conclave of CEOs, central bankers, finance ministers and academics - Gore will deliver a keynote address meant to showcase his approach to trade and other economic issues as he prepares to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000. He will announce U.S. goals for the World Trade Organization talks set to open Nov. 30 in Seattle. His focus will be on on agricultural products - a contentious area that largely defied efforts at liberalization in the previous talks, which ended in 1993.
Clinton proposes $965M for job programs
WASHINGTON - Aiming to boost the skills of American workers, President Clinton is proposing $965 million in new and increased spending to retrain dislocated workers, teach illiterate adults to read and increase job opportunities for at-risk youth. The latest details from the budget Clinton outlined in his State of the Union address include increased grants for adult literacy programs, a toll-free number that connects displaced workers to unemployment and retraining resources, and $50 million to create jobs for disadvantaged kids. Behind the initiatives is Clinton's conviction that the income gap in America reflects a skills gap.
NEW YORK TIMES / BARBARA VOBEJDA
Clinton Proposes $280 Million In Aid for Former Foster Children
[TPDL Editors Note: Another photo-op of the day: This is the story of Clinton since first elected. Hold photo-op everyday, tell everyone he is giving something to another segment of the public, whether it will ever pass Congress or not. So far six years of brainwashing which the media had participated in.]
President Clinton has included $280 million in his next federal budget to help teenagers who are pushed out of the nation's foster care system simply because they hit their 18th birthday.
TPDL 1999-Jan-31
USA TODAY
Clinton pushes for equal pay for women
WASHINGTON - Women, on average, earn about 75 cents for every dollar a man earns, according to the president's Council of Economic Advisers. President Clinton addressed this disparity Saturday and said he wants to spend $14 million to help close the pay gap and push Congress to toughen enforcement of equal pay laws. Clinton's plan would bolster the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's enforcement staff, provide assistance to employers trying to comply with the equal pay laws and create public service announcements alerting women to their rights.
TPDL 1999-Feb-1
THE WASHINGTON TIMES / ANDREW CAIN
Gore delivers goodies to key political states
Vice President Al Gore is boosting his presidential prospects by acting as cheerleader in chief for President Clinton in such key states as New York, Pennsylvania and California.
California, with 54 electoral votes, is the promised land for presidential candidates. This week Mr. Gore made it the promise land.
Lugging gold to the Golden State, Mr. Gore announced that the Clinton administration wants to spend $1.3 billion to restore welfare benefits for legal immigrants, $400 million to reposition satellites, $366 million for research on information technology and $43 million to help crime victims pay medical bills.
"I doubt I've ever seen the resources of an administration put at the disposal of a vice president for elective purposes," said Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution.
The downside is that the president and his chosen successor "are twinned," which means that if Mr. Clinton's popularity drops, Mr. Gore may also suffer, said Mr. Hess, a former aide to presidents Carter, Ford, Nixon and Eisenhower.
GOP presidential candidates such as former Vice President Dan Quayle and former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander are trying to make Mr. Gore's loyalty an issue, calling him an apologist for an impeached, scandal-ridden president. "It is hard for Vice President Gore to take credit for everything going well and take none of the blame for the national embarrassment that Bill Clinton has caused," said Mr. Alexander, a former education secretary, on CNBC's "Hardball" Jan. 7.
"There is a line between loyalty and being an apologist for unacceptable conduct."
But Mr. Gore's loyalty and big-government proposals may be paying off. Democratic strategists say Mr. Gore has all but locked up the California primary 14 months before Super Tuesday.
"I think it would be a mistake if he distanced himself" from Mr. Clinton, said Art Torres, chairman of the California Democratic Party.
As former Sen. Bill Bradley begins his campaign for the Democratic nomination, Mr. Torres said Mr. Gore is such a fixture in California that "I don't see how anybody [else] can come into the state and connect with voters."
Mr. Gore left no doubt about his loyalties last week as he warmed up audiences for Mr. Clinton in Buffalo, N.Y., and in a Philadelphia suburb.
"Did you see the president's State of the Union address last night?" Mr. Gore shouted Jan. 20 at Buffalo's Marine Midland Arena on the sixth anniversary of the Clinton-Gore administration.
"Did you agree with his agenda? Are you willing to fight for his agenda?"
Mr. Gore drew a sheepish laugh from Mr. Clinton as he shouted: "When anybody brings about as much positive change in such a short period of time as President Bill Clinton has brought, it's bound to discombobulate some people. It's bound to shake them up."
Mr. Clinton warmly praised Mr. Gore and said the Clintons and Gores are "like family."
Republicans castigate Mr. Gore for what they see as his blind support for the president.
Mr. Quayle said in a recent interview with The Washington Times that Mr. Gore is "part and parcel" of the Monica Lewinsky scandal because "he has not condemned it" and "he has basically given Clinton a total pass" on the scandal.
On Aug. 18, the day after Mr. Clinton admitted his "improper" relationship with Miss Lewinsky, Mr. Gore issued a statement saying he is "proud of" Mr. Clinton "because he is a great president, and I am honored to have him as my friend."
Hours after Mr. Clinton was impeached Dec. 19, Mr. Gore stood at the president's side outside the White House and said the impeachment "does a great disservice to a man I believe will be regarded as one of our greatest presidents."
Even if the vice president is not tarred by Mr. Clinton's personal travails, Republicans are sure to dust off charges of Mr. Gore's phone solicitations for the Clinton-Gore re-election effort.
Last year, Attorney General Janet Reno chose not to name an independent counsel to probe Mr. Gore's fund-raising calls from the White House in 1995 and 1996.
USA TODAY
Clinton sends $1.77T budget to Congress
WASHINGTON - President Clinton sent Congress a $1.77 trillion spending plan Monday with hopes his record budget surpluses as a new century unfolds will be used to bolster Social Security and shower billions on such initiatives as education, child care and the military. In doing so, Clinton proclaimed his budget marks a "new era of opportunity." A new era indeed. Clinton's spending plan forecasts $2.41 trillion in surpluses over the next decade, providing resources that Clinton says will "prepare us to meet the challenges of the next century." A showdown over spending is expected on Capitol Hill, where Republicans want to use some of the surplus for tax cuts.
TPDL 1999-Feb-3
USA TODAY
Clinton proposes $200M for poor schools
BOSTON - President Clinton Tuesday backed his call to fix or close failing schools with a $200 million proposal to intervene in troubled classrooms. He challenged skeptical Republicans to a debate over increasing accountability in the education system. ''From now on, we must say to states and school districts: Identify your worst-performing, least-improving schools, and turn them around or shut them down,'' Clinton said. The $200 million proposal is part of the education package included in the president's fiscal 2000 budget designed to boost education standards, hire more teachers and improve their skills and increase schools' accountability.
TPDL 1999-Feb-4
USA TODAY
Clinton argues for saving Medicare
WASHINGTON - With a consensus emerging in Congress to use much of the projected federal budget surplus for Social Security, President Clinton sharpened the debate Wednesday over how to use the rest. He said a significant share should go into Medicare, not the across-the-board tax cuts Republicans propose. Clinton also argued the proposed tax cut ''would benefit clearly the wealthiest Americans - who have, I might add, done quite well as the stock market has virtually tripled in the last six years.'' Clinton assailed the Republicans during his speech to the American Associations of Retired Persons, a lobby for the elderly. ''This is the latest in a rather long series of large and risky tax proposals that we have heard over the years. If we had adopted even one of the large ones, we wouldn't have the surplus we enjoy today.''
TPDL 1999-Feb-5
USA TODAY
Clinton's focus on race may be blurred
WASHINGTON - President Clinton will announce Friday the creation of a White House office on race. The four-person Office on the President's Initiative for One America will work with federal agencies on policies to help minorities. The move comes as critics on the left and right are complaining that his program on race relations is, at best, stalled and, at worst, a failure. They cite the fact that Clinton's report on race, promised 19 months ago when he set up a panel to advise him, has been delayed until spring, roughly four months later than planned. It almost seems to be an afterthought now, some say.
TPDL 1999-Feb-17
USA TODAY
Clinton taking agenda to town meetings
WASHINGTON - With impeachment behind him and the Republican-controlled Congress in recess, President Clinton is hoping this week to gain the upper hand in the debate over how to divide the federal budget surplus while saving Social Security. The campaign gears up Wednesday with satellite-linked town hall meetings aimed at selling young people on the president's plan to shore up the retirement system and Medicare. Administration officials say they want to sharpen the distinctions between the president's insistence on dealing with Social Security before trimming taxes and the Republicans' emphasis on across-the-board tax cuts.