UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, September 11, 1996
9A
U.S. Senate hikes military pay
New defense budget allocates pay raises new fighter planes
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The 1.5 million members of the military will get a 3 percent pay raise Jan. 1 with yesterday's final passage of the 1997 defense spending bill. President Clinton has said he will sign the measure.
The $265.6 billion bill, which passed in the Senate 73-26, continues the Republican agenda of adding more money than the president requested for weapons, particularly fighter planes and missile defense systems. But the most immediate impact of the bill may be felt in the pockets of enlisted personnel, noncommissioned officers and officers up and down the ranks.
The 3 percent raise specified in the legislation will give service members an additional percentage point increase beyond what they would have received automatically.
The Clinton administration said the pay increase was a key reason why the president would sign the defense authorization bill, despite reservations about its overall spending level. The House approved the measure Aug. 1.
While the bill applies to the fiscal year beginning next month, the raise begins the first of the year. For a typical private, it will
add $26 to a month's pay for a new total of $901; for a sergeant first class or master sergeant, among the longest-serving enlisted personnel in the military, the raise would add $65 per month, bringing the monthly total to $2,086; a Navy captain or colonel in the other services would get an additional $156 per month for $5,108.
"I think it's wonderful, especially for those of us who are enlisted," said Army Sgt. Ingrid Franco, a six-year Army veteran. "Anything, every little bit of money we can make, that's good news. It's an incentive for us to stay."
The bill also approves a 4.6 percent increase in the so-called basic allowance for quarters, a payment made to service members who live off base. The allowance varies by rank and number of dependents. In some cases, this increase will mean more money than the pay raise.
"Today's passage makes a strong statement of our commitment to support our men and women in uniform for funding for modernization and training as well as for quality of life programs for our military and their families," said Sen. Strom Thurmond, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee."This bill is a strong reflection of our appreciation for the daily sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform and their families."
The pay raise, though costly in purely budgetary terms, was widely supported for a number of
reasons: the general political popularity of showing support for the military; the need to keep the all-volunteer force competitive in the job market; and persistent reports of hardship among a few military personnel, particularly stories of service members on food stamps.
A Senate staff member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the 3 percent pay raise would roughly keep pace with inflation and was not expected to eliminate the food stamp problem.
Under the measure, military spending would increase by $1.3 billion this year, which is not enough to erase the effects of inflation. However, the bill adds $11.2 billion to the amount Clinton requested.
Only three Republicans voted against the bill: senators Hank Brown of Colorado, Mark Hatfield of Oregon and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
While previous statements threatened a veto because of the additional spending, Clinton decided to sign the bill because the increases largely go to programs that his budget plan supported. Administration officials said they would try to negotiate with the House and Senate appropriations committees to shift money from the Pentagon budget to domestic programs such as counter-terrorism.
Three-fourths of the $11.2 billion added by Republicans will purchase weapons and sponsor weapons research.
U.N. endorses global treaty against blasting
UNITED NATIONS — The General Assembly voted overwhelmingly last night to endorse a global treaty that would ban all nuclear test blasts — an agreement hailed by U.S. officials as a giant step toward ending the nuclear arms race.
The Associated Press
The action opens the door for the treaty to be signed by U.N. member states, although it must overcome strong opposition from India if it ever is to take effect.
Nuclear testing at risk
President Clinton is expected to sign the treaty when he visits New York for the General Assembly in two weeks.
One hundred fifty-eight members voted for the test ban. Three countries
voted for the test ban. Three countries — India, Bhutan and Libya — voted against it.
The endorsement is a milestone in our transition from the Cold War era to a new and safer time, said U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright.
The effect of this treaty will be greater security for all our citizens, a healthier environment . . . and a giant step closer toward ending a nuclear arms race that has endangered human survival for most of the past half century. "Albright said.
U. N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali applauded the pact, saying the prohibition of nuclear weapons tests was an important first step toward nuclear disarmament and the future elimination of all nuclear
weapons from the face of violence, which carried out its only test blast in 1974, voted against the agreement and said it would not endorse the treaty, blocking it from becoming law. Libya and Bhutan also voted against the treaty.
weapons from the face of the earth.
"India will never sign this unequal treaty. Not now. Not later," Indian representative Arundhati Ghose told the assembly.
India has said the treaty is flawed because it does not include provisions for disarmament. India also said the major powers could refine their arsenals despite the treaty by using highly advanced tests that did not involve nuclear explosions.
india's rival, Pakistan, also said it would not sign the agreement.
The treaty must be signed and ratified by the 44 nations known to have nuclear weapons capability, including India and Pakistan, to have the force of law.
The five declared nuclear powers — the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China — support the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The five major nuclear powers have detonated all but one of the 2,045 known test blasts carried out since 1945.
The overwhelming support from the General Assembly could pressure countries to honor the ban even if they refuse to sign the agreement. Only Cuba, Lebanon, Syria, Tanzania and Mauritius abstained from yesterday's vote.
Many countries have expressed the hope that the treaty would be a major move toward nuclear disarmament.
The treaty should be followed by steps to eliminate nuclear weapons within an agreed time frame, said
"There is a serious and real risk therefore that the nuclear arms race would be reignited."
Javad Zarif
Iran deputy minister
for foreign affairs
Egyptian representative Mounir Zahran.
But delegates from some developing countries joined India in expressing concern that the treaty did not call for disarmament or ban laboratory testing.
"The treaty will allow the most technologically sophisticated nuclear weapons states to continue to improve their arsenals," said Zimbabwean Ambassador M.T. Mapuranga. The treaty "does not dissolve the nuclear club but only makes it more exclusive," he said.
India blocked the proposed treaty last month at a Geneva drafting conference. Australia moved to circumvent the veto by taking the unusual step of bringing the proposal to the assembly as a resolution.
Treaties generally are brought to the assembly for endorsement only after they have been unanimously approved at drafting conferences.
Presidential candidates envision overhauled IRS system
Dole and Perot say system needs to be friendlier, leaner
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Republican Bob Dole and Reform party nominee Ross Perot are campaigning for president on ending the Internal Revenue Service as we know it.
The candidates envision a leaner, friendlier agency — or perhaps no agency at all. But even they acknowledge someone has to collect the nation's taxes.
But Perot makes his intentions clear with advertisements depicting "IRS" in large capital letters, surrounded by a circle and bisected by a slash.
Dole, in his economic plan, revealed limited details on his proposals for the IRS. Perot, in a 30-minute infomercial first aired Sunday, offered next to none.
He promises a fair, paperless, modern system. Experts question whether that means an end to audits and other headaches that are part of today's tax system.
"You can't change the IRS as we know it without changing the tax system as we know it," said J.D. Foster of the Tax Foundation, a conservative research organization in Washington.
Perot said only that he would consult the experts, run a computer analysis of reform plans and select the best.
Dole, pitching a 15 percent income tax cut, said a new system should be lower, flatter, fairer, simpler and more savings-oriented. He would eliminate tax-return filing altogether for 40 million low and middle-income taxpayers.
Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan Business School said that would be possible, even without
J. D. FOSTER Tax Foundation Representative
radically changing the tax system. Deductions and credits would have to be paired, he said. And a more sophisticated system of payroll withholding would be required to account for midyear changes, like
"it's done that way in both the United Kingdom and in Japan. A typical taxpayer does not have to file a tax return. . . . At the end of the year, it (withholding) works out just right," he said.
the birth of a child, that raise or lower tax liability.
Dole also wants to shift the burden of proof in tax disputes. Taxpayers now must prove their returns are accurate, and the IRS has no obligation to prove they're not.
While the switch sounds attractive, it almost certainly would involve a more complex process than the current system, said Joseph Lane of Menlo Park, Calif., a former IRS division chief who now represents taxpayers.
Dole also proposed a one-year
"What this says is that the IRS will no longer be able to look to the person who files the return and has all the data," he said. "Instead, the IRS would have to go in with a summons to everyone you did business with."
amnesty for payment of back taxes without interest or penalties, a move that probably would bring in more revenue at the risk of angering taxpayers who pay fully and on time.
And he wants to cut the IRS' 110,000-person staff by 30 percent and shift the agency's remaining resources toward helping taxpayers file correct returns and away from auditing for mistakes.
The IRS already is struggling to keep offices open and answer its telephones in the face of a 2 percent budget cut imposed by the Republican-majority Congress this year and the 6 to 9 percent cut contemplated for fiscal 1997.
President Clinton doesn't share sentiment for dismantling the IRS.
Instead, Clinton signed a bill in July aimed at curbing abuses by the tax collector. "We have to make sure that the IRS doesn't tangle the American people up in red tape, that it is not arbitrary and that taxpayers
are treated with the respect to which they're entitled," he said.
The law allows taxpayers to sue the IRS for up to $1 million for reckless collections, sets up a taxpayers' advocate and expands obligations on the agency to deal faster with disputes and refunds.
Meanwhile, as Dole and Perot speak of sweeping change, a study commission established by Congress is starting work on a plan for improving IRS taxpayer service and internal management.
"I's a dangerous situation," Israel
Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, cochairman of the commission with Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., said the election-year debate could help in the push for thoughtful reform
"These political-year exhortations, while they may seem sometimes too simple and too populist, really can play a constructive role if they lead to pressure on Congress to both simplify the code and modernize the service," Portman said.
The Associated Press
PONCE, Puerto Rico — Threatening a direct hit early yesterday, Hurricane Hortense bullied Puerto Rico with wind-whipped torrents of rain, flattening cars with downed trees and leaving thousands without power.
Hurricane Hortense unleashes its fury on Puerto Rico
Forecasters called Hortense, the eighth storm and fifth hurricane of the Atlantic season, volatile and dangerous. It comes on the heels of Hurricane Fran, which skirted the Caribbean before slamming into the eastern United States late last week, killing more than two dozen people.
Matos, director of the San Juan bureau of the National Weather Service, warned at a news conference late Monday.
A hurricane warning was posted for Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic's southern coast. A tropical storm warning was in effect for the U.S. and British Virgin Islands.
At 2 a.m. EDT yesterday, Hortense was 25 miles southwest of Ponce, according to the National Hurricane Center near Miami. The hurricane was moving northwest at nine mph and was expected to gain
Forecasters said there was a six percent chance that the coast of Florida would feel the effects of Hortense by tomorrow morning.
strength
Gov. Pedro Rossello, warning the whole island would be affected, urged people in low-lying areas to evacuate. He said he was concerned that only 550 of the 3.6 million islanders had sought refuge in government-run shelters.
Islanders boarded up windows, lined up to buy water, then rushed to the beaches Monday to watch the waters rise, the winds churn the seas and surfers glory in the challenge.
Hundreds of tourist yachts, sailboats, house boats and government vessels sought shelter in mangrove swamps in bays of southwestern Puerto Rico.
Power was knocked out late Monday for 226,000 of the island's 1.1 million electricity consumers.
The hurricane center warned rainfall of up to 12 inches and more could produce life-threatening flash floods and mud slides in Puerto Rico and strong onshore winds could produce storm surge flooding. There was also an isolated threat of tornadoes over Puerto Rico.
At St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, waves as tall as a house crashed over the 15-foot pier where cruise ships anchor at Frederiksted on Monday. Winds howled and gusted near 70 mph, driving sheets of rain that covered roads with four
feet of water and flooded homes.
"These storms are crazy. I pray it doesn't veer toward us." Jose Escobar said, boarding up the window of the store where he works in Ponce. He hurried to finish so he could wait out the storm at home with his wife and five children.
Hortense grew to hurricane strength Monday and enlarged to a 470-mile-wide mass, with sustained winds near 80 mph in the center and weaker tropical storm-force winds toward the edge.
Hortense also changed direction, stalling south of St. Croix and then drifting northwest toward Puerto Rico.
At the Tropical Si liquor store in
Ponce, people stood in long lines to buy water. Rafael Martinez, Ponce resident, waited nearly half an hour.
"This is the last thing I have to do.
What will be, will be," he said.
Carmen Emilia Rodriguez, Ponce resident, was getting ready to evacuate her 84-year-old mother and a 91-year-old neighbor from their tiny beachfront homes. Already, waves were slapping the rocks 10 feet in front of the porch.
She was taking them to a friend's home farther inland in Ponce.
HEALTH FAIR '96
"All the garbage and all the driftwood was up here during each storm," Rodriguez said. "We are going."
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