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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 30, 1992)
Nation’s urban officials meet, discuss economy NEW ORLEANS, La. (AP) — Officials from the nation’s cities and towns set their sights Sunday on bolstering their local economics through a 30 percent cut in defense spending and an overhaul of the weighty federal mandates that cal away at their budgets. Members of the National League of Cities, in their annual meeting here, put forth a S10 billion eco nomic recovery plan that empha sizes transportation funds,commu nity development programs and an aid package to troubled urban ar eas. It also asks for reform of federal entitlements and a 30 percent cut in defense spending, not to exceed $200 billion, with 60 pcrccntof th<r savings going to federal debt re duction and the remainder going into city aid. The NLC’s board of directors gave the plan to representatives of President-elect Clinton’s transition team in a private Saturday meet ing, and "they felt the proposals were realistic,” said Orlando, Fla., Mayor Glenda Hood, president of the NLC. “The feasibility of movingahead with these, we were told, was there,” Hood said. “They’ve already be gun talking about these initiatives. We were assured discussions were being conducted at the highest level.” Clinton representatives at Saturday’s meeting were Henry Cisneros, former mayor of San Antonio, and Gene Sperling, a leader of Clinton’s economic strat egy team. Neither was immedi ately available Sunday for com ment. Paramount among the concerns of local government officials is reform of entitlements, which re quire either no annual appropria tion by Congress or appropriations according to an established law or program rule. Such programs include Medi care and Medicaid, food stamps, foster care services and payments to civil service retirement or dis ability funds. “Pass along with those burdens some of the resources needed to do the job,” said Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. “All we ask of any administration in Washington is give us a chance to be a partner. If we send taxes to Washington, we’d like to get some of them back.” Asa candidate, Cl inlon proposed a Rebuild America program that would put funds into transporta tion, a national information net work, environmental technology for cleanups and recycling, and de fense economic conversion. Healso pledged funds for rebuilding city infrastructures, creating inner-city investment networks, hiring more police officers and creating a Na tional Police Corps for fighting crime. Under fire Sarajevo suburb struggles tp survive siege oAKAJE, VvJ, cosma Hcrzegovina (AP) — Cut off from the rest of the city and exposed for seven months to close-range Serb gunfire, the high-rise suburb of Dobrinja has become Sarajevo’s state-of-the-art example of siege survival. In a desperate plight during heavy fighting last summer, Dobrinja remains one of the most dangerous areas of the capital. About 10,000 of the 12,000 housing units have been damaged. The death toll has climbed from 72 in July to 230. Instead of unraveling, the tight knit community has improved medical care, food supply and public services so dramatically that some people now sneak in from outside. “It seems a bit strange, because we’re still on the front line,” said Srcbrcn Dizdar, a community spokesman. “But people feel more secure here, because it’s better organized.” The only route in and out is in easy range of Serb snipers and machine gunners. Visitors speed into a bunkered basement parking garage to check in with sentries. Residents can leave only with special permission, and those who don’t return on schedule risk having their apartments given away to newly arrived refugees. “It’s loo dangerous to run a commuter service back and forth,” Dizdar said. So infrequent is contact with Sarajevo that “people there treat me like an endangered species when I visit,” said Dobrinja resident Bo/.ana Bcnic, 40. Developed as part of Sarajevo’s preparations for the 1984 Winter Olympics, Dobrinja now has an estimated 45,000 residents, includ ing about 8,000 refugees from elsewhere, Diz.dar said. - a These people are fight ing for survival. They’re very serious about their problems. You don’t hear a lot of talk, talk, talk. They act. — Hajir Dobrinja doctor -ft " Some people from other parts of Sarajevo try to move to Dobrinja, sometimes slipping in at night, he said, because they believe the food supply is more equitably distrib uted. “There’s no black market,” Dizdar said. “In the city it’s almost everywhere, and people look after themselves. We’ve proved that there will be a fair share. Everyone gets the same amount.” Dr. Youssef Hajir, head of Dobrinja’s hospital, look refuge in the suburb when Serbs overran his neighborhood at the start of the war. He’s been so impressed by the people that he wants to stay after the war. “These people arc fighting for survival,” Hajir said. “They’re very serious about their problems. You don’t hear a lot of talk, talk, talk. They act.” Dobrinja had no hospital before the war. Hajir single-handedly opened one in a storefront when he saw so many wounded people with no way to get to Sarajevo hospitals. “I saw many people die,” Hajir said. “I began an operation with my bare hands. I had to improvise everything.” On June 17, when more than 200 Dobrinja soldiers and civilians were wounded, Hajir said he performed 27 operations in one day, with only local anesthetic. The hospital now has 11 doctors, 46 nurses, 30 beds, ample supplies of medicine and sophisticated equipment, much of its provided by U.N. relief officials. The hospital appears cleaner, more modem and more efficiently run than its larger counterparts in central Sarajevo. The community government has divided the suburb into sectors and assigned leaders for each street and each high-rise entryway. “This all developed during the war,” Dizdar said. “We were just a sleepy suburb before. We didn’t have any sort of government. Professors study GNP oy iviarK narms Staff Reporter_p^v__ 1 he gross national product figures released by the federal government may not accurately reflect the country’s economic output, accord ing to a study by two economics pro fessors at the University of Ncbraska Lincoln. Associate professor ScottFucssanti assistant professor Hendrik Van Den Berg said GNP figures had shown economic growth, despite the feel ings of many Americans that they were not cconom ical ly belter off than they used to be. The two-year study, which was published in the October issue of The Economist magazine, shows two ma jor reasons why growth in the GNP numbers does run match actual eco nomic growth. One of the reasons, Van Den Berg said, stems from the entrance of women into thcjwork force. ' Because women now do less cook ing, cleaning, sc wing and other house hold chores, he said, families spend more money to have those things done. The money spent for those ser vices, Van Den Berg said, shows up in the GNP, but families do not gain economically. For example, he said, a m icrowavc meal costs more than a traditionally prepared one. That extra money paid for such meals shows up as growth in the GNP, but the person who cals the microwave meal is not really better off. The other reason GNP num bers arc not matching actual output. Van Den Berg said, is because of steady growth in what economists call transaction activities. Transaction activities, he said, arc services such as police and fire pro tection, national defense and govern ment bureaucracy. Van Den Berg said the continual expansion of such programs had in creased GNP figures. While those services arc needed, he said, their growth docs not neces sarily reflect overall economic im provement. With the study, Fucss and Van Den Berg systematically estimated trans action activities and household ex penses, then removed them from GNP calculations and came up with “actual output,” Van Den Berg said. The gross national product figures may not accurately reflect the country’s economic output, according to a study by two economics professors at UNL. The following compares the two from 1983 to 1989 and reflects how they differ over time: Scon Maur0r/DN From 1983 lo 1989, he said, the GNP figure increased 2.86 percent, while actual economic growth was 2.28 percent. Since 1950, he said, GNP numbers have consistently overestimated cco nom ic growth by about half a percent age point. Van Den Berg said he and Fucss now were researching more recent economic figures. Living standards in 1990 and 1991 may have stagnated or declined, Van Den Berg said,despite small increases in GNP figures. “We may have, in the past two years, been suffering real declines in the economy,” he said. Van Den Berg said the study had been the subject of a lot of national attention, including an article written for Forbes magazine. “Hopefully, this will generate movement toward alternative ways to measure GNP to belter reflect the standard of living in the country;” he said. COMMIUNTUV TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1 SNEAK PREVIEW MARY RIEPMA ROSS THEATRE brought to you courtesy of sponsored by 1 UPC INTERNATIONAL FILMS COMMITTEE P • . UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA, LINCOLN "^P^ ^priTll. Passes are available at 200 Nebraska Union 1 .4. U 2nd 300 East Student Union. Free Poster to the first 50 students with completed Sprint application.
