10A
Thursday, December 8, 1994
NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Perry rejects 'Star Wars' use in new budget
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary William Perry rejected Republican calls for the revival of a "Star Wars" missile defense system yesterday, saying he prefers to put money into local anti-missile defenses.
Perry said his budget, to be made public early next year, wouldinclude bothsea-based and ground-based anti-missile defense systems.
Perry said there was no current threat to the United States that would justify building such a huge missile defense system. The Pentagon is doing enough research to build such a system in time to meet the any threat that materializes, he said.
The defense secretary, in an interview with news service reporters, also turned aside top GOP lawmakers' calls for a pull-out from Hali as soon as possible and criticism that the effort was costing U.S. tax payers too much.
Perry said that the U.S. involvement in Haiti was a good investment because it had ended the flow of refugees to the United States' southern shores and would pave the way to shutting down the refugee center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
But training a new Haitian police force will take several months, Perry said, and pulling out U.S. troops to replace them with United Nations peacekeepers will not be possible in January or February.
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan, has called for a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces, and Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., the incoming chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has made similar statements.
Clinton stands up to Republicans
Rv John King
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — After virtually ceding the post-election stage for three weeks, President Clinton appears ready to engage the Republicans. But first, he's trying to make a point — and perhaps peace — with fellow Democrats.
"Join me in the arena, not in the petal gallery," Clinton told an audience of moderate Democrats Tuesday night, calling for an end to carpeting about his performance and the beginning of a united Democratic front against the new GOP majority in Congress.
A combative Clinton also had harsh words for Republicans, serving notice that he would contest their ideas for budget, government and other reforms and fight to protect what he sees as the accomplishments of his first two years, from gun control to new college loan and national service programs.
of the midterm elections since a solemn morning-after news conference.
ANALYSIS
"The answer is not to reverse what we have done but to build on it," Clinton told the Democratic Leadership Council in his first extensive review
He said he was eager for cooperation with the new Republican majorities in Congress and equally eager for a "contest of ideas" about how best to cut the budget and the government, reform welfare and help workers adjust to frightening economic change.
Winning that contest, Clinton said,
would depend on a good deal of
Democratic unity, something that
had been nonexistent since the
party's midterm debacle and in short
supply for many months before that.
passion there again."
During the president's silence, Republicans have made daily pronouncements about their plans, winning widespread public support along the way.
Anger at Clinton and his White House extends deep into the ranks of defeated and narrowly re-elected Democrats from Capitol Hill and the gubernatorial ranks. And it will take much more than one combative speech to salve the wounds. Still, many Democrats viewed Clinton's remarks as a welcome start.
"There was fire in the belly," said Al A
From, the DLC president. "There was
A Times Mirror national survey of 1,511 Americans conducted last weekend and released yesterday found that 52 percent supported the GOP agenda and 62 percent believed Republicans would be successful in getting things done.
in contrast, 46 percent said they viewed Clinton unfavorably, almost equal to the 51 percent who held a favorable view. And 66 percent of Democrats in the survey said they wanted other candidates to challenge Clinton for the party's 1996 nomination.
For now, there are only rumors of potential challenges. But that could change if Clinton's standing hasn't substantially improved by spring. Still, Clinton could very well benefit from the extraordinarily high expectations voters now have of the Republicans, which was a burden as well as a blessing that Clinton carried when he took office two years ago.
GOP to end tax support for some caucuses
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Democratic leaders of special-interest caucuses, chafing over Republican plans to end taxpayer support for such groups, accused the GOP yesterday of seeking to limit the power of minorities and women on Canitol Hill.
"This is a backlash against the increasing power of blacks, Hispanics, Asians and women in Congress,"
charged Rep. Kweisi Mfume, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, which has some 40 members.
The GOP retorted that "the place is under new management."
Republicans had served notice that once they take over the House in January, they will move to eliminate public funding for the various caucuses, mostly of liberal political persuasion, which had been a fixture under the Democratic-controlled Congresses
of recent years.
Republicans, Democrats battle over interest hike
Democrates held two press conferences to express, in the harshest terms, their dismay at the decision Tuesday to eliminate the 28 taxpayer-funded congressional groups.
Republicans countered with a news conference of their own, saying these legislative service organizations should operate under House ethics rules, without public funding — just as 110 "member" groups now do.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Alan Greenspan made it clear yesterday that the Federal Reserve is ready to push interest rates still higher to battle inflation, despite Democrats' warnings that such a move would heighten the risk of a recession.
But in a hint of the political changes in the offing, Republicans who will be taking control of Congress next year praised the Fed's resolve and said they wanted to rewrite its legal charter to remove full employment as one of the goals of monetary policy.
Such a change, if approved, would mark a dramatic revision of the 1978 law under which the Fed operates, which requires the central bank to pursue the goals of maximum employment, stable prices and moderate, long-term interestrates.
Democrats immediately attacked the proposal by Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., who is in line to become chairman of the Joint Economic Committee next year, saying it would allow the Fed to be even more narrowly focused on fighting inflation than it is now and that such a policy would ignore the economic misery caused by rising unemployment.
Greenspan, a Republican first appointed Fed chairman by President Reagan, said he personally would favor a single-purpose mandate of fighting inflation, although he said that Mack's suggestion of a specific target of 2 percent might
prove too inflexible.
Mack's suggestion came at a hearing called by Democrats in an effort to head off a seventh rate increase this year by the Fed when policymakers next meet on Dec. 20.
Sens, Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said that a seventh rate increase would be totally unjustified, coming so soon after the 0.75 percentage point increase in rates on Nov. 15. They said that the Fed's rate boosts ran the risk of dramatically slowing the economy next year and possibly bringing on a recession.
Greenspan's critics said that even though unemployment last month fell to a four-year low of 5.6 percent, consumer prices this year are rising at an annual rate of just 2.6 percent, even lower than last year's rate, showing that inflation is not a problem.
But Greenspan said the Fed was worried about future inflation and was beginning to see increased signs of rising costs of raw materials. He said rising demand, if not dampened, could encourage producers to pass on their increased costs to consumers.
Greenspan refused to tip his hand about whether the central bank will raise interest rates again on Dec. 20, but his 2 1/2 hours of testimony left no doubt that the central bank is worried that the economy is still growing too rapidly and must be slowed in order to keep inflation at bay.
Travel office chief charged for pocketing expense funds
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The former White House travel office chief was charged yesterday with embezzling from news organizations in a case that renews debate over the 1993 firing of employees, which arranged for reporters to travel with the president.
A federal grand jury indictment said Billy R. Dale, a veteran of more than 30
years at the White House, had pocketed over $68,000 that news organizations paid to cover their reporters' travel expenses.
But in two counts of embezzlement and conversion, the grand jury only charged Dale with stealing more than $33,297,75. The grand jurors said some of the $68,000 had been taken more than five years ago. A statute of limitations prohibits charges against actions that old.
Dale's attorney, Steven Tabackman, was out of town yesterday, but he had denied Monday that Dale took any money and pledged to mount a vigorous trial defense.
Tabackman said he could show Dale had substituted his own cash for office checks he had deposited in his personal bank account if Dale's handwritten ledgers, now missing from his White House office, could be found or if expense payment records could be obtained from businesses overseas.
Tabackman has suggested his client was being made a scapegoat because of embarrassment the White House suffered over the firing of Dale and six subordinates.
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