Section A·Page 12
The University Daily Kansan
Thursday, August 19, 1999
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Gore project claims exaggerated savings
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON— Some of the cost savings claimed by Vice President Al Gore's project to streamline government were
overstated, and other cuts in expenses can't be substantiated, according to auditors who looked at changes in three agencies.
Gore's "reinventing government" project claimed $21.8 billion in savings it lacked evidence to support, inflated savings by double-counting cost cuts and took credit for savings that may have been the result of other efforts to
Gore: Exaggerated savings
our government bureaucracy, the General Accounting Office report said.
Project officials also neglected to take into account expenses that offset some of the savings, said the GAO, Congress' auditing and investigative arm.
White House officials disputed the GAO findings and said offsets to the savings were accounted for. They acknowledged that savings were overstated by several hundred million dollars but said the reinventing project is on track to save an estimated $137 billion and characterized the GAO's findings as an arcane debate about accounting.
"What really matters is that government is smaller than it's been since the Kennedy administration, and it operates better, more efficiently and is saving taxpayers money," said Linda Ricci, spokeswoman at the White House Office of Management and Budget, which calculated the savings estimates for Gore's project.
A House Republican who requested the report seized on its findings to criticize Gore, the front-running Democratic presidential candidate.
Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., chairman of the
House Government Reform Committee, said the report released Monday shows that Gore greatly exaggerated the success of his National Partnership for Reinventing Government.
"It looks like they were reinventing accounting rules," Burton said.
Gore launched the reinventing project in 1993, promising to make government work better and cost less by reducing bureaucracy, cutting contracting costs and relying more on technology. Project officials claim $107 billion in savings and say they have locked into place another $29.6 billion in savings.
GAO looked at almost $30 billion in claimed savings from reinvention initiatives at NASA and the departments of Agriculture and Energy. They found several problems:
— OMB did not keep records supporting $21.8 billion in claimed savings. Ricci said OMB did not save worksheets from the calculations, some of which were done six years ago. But she said that OMB budget specialists could reconstruct how they calculated the savings.
— The project claimed savings that could not be fully attributed to its efforts and actually resulted from separate efforts, said GAO. For example, Gore's project took full credit for savings at Energy Department weapons laboratories that would have occurred anyway because of the end of the Cold War. GAO noted.
— OMB double-counted estimated savings in at least two instances, thereby inflating cost cuts. Ricei disputed GAO's findings and said OMB analysts inadvertently double-counted in only one case, leading to an overstatement of about $770 million in savings. She said that was more than offset by another counting error in which OMB underestimated about $2 billion in savings.
Ricci said that NPR's estimate of $137 billion in savings will pan out.
"While I won't predict down to the dollar," Ricci said, "we will be comfortably within that range."
Smoking hazards worse than was earlier thought
The Associated Press
LONDON— Highlighting the dangers of passive smoking, a new study suggested Tuesday that breathing in other people's cigarette smoke makes nonsmokers 82 percent more likely to suffer a stroke.
The study by researchers at the University of Auckland in New Zealand is the most rigorous to date and gives more ammunition to those campaigning to have smoking banned in all workplaces and public areas.
Current estimates of how smoking increases the risk of various diseases are dramatically underestimated because the ill effects of secondhand smoke inhalation are not taken into account, say the researchers, whose work is published in the British medical journal Tobacco Control.
That means research into the hazards of tobacco smoke has artificially narrowed the true gap between smokers and people whose bodies really are tobacco-free, said Dr. Rodney Jackson, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Auckland and one of the authors of the study.
Because New Zealand's anti-passive-smoking legislation is among the most progressive in the world, it is easier to separate out people who have been exposed to secondhand smoke, he said.
The study examined 521 stroke patients in Auckland and compared them with 1,851 randomly selected healthy people matched by sex and age to see the effect of smoking and second-hand smoke on the chances of suffering a stroke. None of the subjects was older than 74.
"Half the people who have strokes are 75 or older, so these are premature strokes that should not be happening," said Ruth Bonita, the lead author of the study, who now runs the noncommunicable disease section at the World Health Organization.
Anyone who smoked at least one cigarette a day was termed a smoker. Those who had either never smoked or hadn't smoked for at least a decade were considered nonsmokers. Other former smokers were divided according to how long it had been since they stopped.
Lutherans, Episcopalians consider unity
The Associated Press
DENVER—Challenging his listeners to make history, a noted historian yesterday presented a controversial proposal for close unity, but not full-fledged merger, between the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Martin E. Marty, a Lutheran pastor and recently retired University of Chicago professor, was co-chairman of the panel that wrote the proposal.
also favors the pact.
"Through your vote, you can make history," Marty told the Lutheran church's national assembly.
The Episcopal, co-chairman,
Bishop Christopher Foping of Iowa,
told the assembly that they may not
have this opportunity again. He
prayed that they would not miss it.
"What a step into the new millennium," said Lutheran Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson, who
But in his sermon at opening worship Monday, Anderson said he faced the week's deliberations with fear of boiling frustrations, of misunderstood arguments, of temps out of control and of conflict that seems unresolvable.
Anderson's prepared text said some have talked about an ecumenical train wreck, but he omitted that remark.
Under the proposed pact, scheduled for a vote today, the 5.2 million Lutherans and 2.3 million Episcopalians would recognize and share each other's clergy and sacraments, cooperate in mission projects and make joint decisions on important issues.
The Rev. Daniel Perry, the ecumenical officer for the Episcopalians, said the pact would help both denominations because they could share clergy and mission work in urban and rural areas where
their resources are spread thin.
The pact needs two-thirds approval from the 1,039 delegates. Two years ago, the Episcopal Church gave overwhelming approval but the Lutheran assembly's vote fell just short of two-thirds. The pact has been slightly reworked since.
The sticking point is that in the future Lutherans must follow the Episcopal practice known as the historic episcopate. Each Lutheran bishop will be installed by three predecessor bishops in a line believed to extend back to Christ's apostles, and all clergy will be ordained by such bishops.
Catholic and Orthodox churches, like the Episcopalians and other Anglicans, follow this procedure. But Lutheran teaching does not require it and many Lutheran bodies, including those in the United States, have never followed it.
Hours before the assembly open
ing, a meeting of Lutheran bishops shared worries about this week's deliberations and the aftermath.
Bishop Richard Foss of Fargo, N.D., a staunch foe, assured his colleagues that no schism would occur if the Episcopal nact passes.
"There is zero chance of a breakaway church," he said. "That's just not on the table."
But several of his colleagues warned there would be hard feelings among members whichever side wins.
"We're a divided church on this issue," said Bishop Peter Rogness of Milwaukee.
Since 1892, when the Lutherans and Episcopalians first declared a preliminary level of fellowship, the Episcopal Church has seen a net loss of 455,000 members, or 16 percent. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has lost membership, too, but far less drastically.
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