Associated Press ^^TAX/Q FilOF ST NefisSkan
Edited by Todd Cooper X 1J / ▼ T U X-/lVJl-JLf X Md«y, March i», i«w
Clinton's lobbying to sell economic plan might pay off
WASHINGTON — President
Clinton lobbied intensely to persuade
Congress to support his economic plan,
courting special interests at private
White House meetings while the
Democratic National Committee
mobilized voters to influence their
lawmakers.
The campaign-style drive, involv
ing virtually every arm of the admin
istration and party, was continuing
right up to the last minute with Clinton
personally calling wavering lawmak
ers Thursday to shore up support.
The effort was so far-reaching that
even a Republican congressional
staffer was asked to call a Democratic
congressmen to ask for support.
“It seems like everybody down
there is in the selling game,” said
William Pitts, a senior aide to House
Republican Leader Robert Michel.
Pitts was solicited by the Democratic
Party by telephone at his home last
week.
The Clinton effort appeared poised
for victory Thursday with the House
expected to approve his economic
package with no significant changes
and favorable Senate action expected
next week.
“I think at this point you’ve got to
give the guy an A-plus,” said Gregory
Lebel of George Washington
University’s graduate school of po
litical management. ‘‘I would put him
on a par with Ronald Reagan, which
is to say superb.”
Mouse makes strong moves
to close out Reaganomics
WASHINGTON — The House
moved Thursday to close the book on
Reaganomics and embrace President
Clinton’s economic prescription for
new spending to create jobs coupled
with long-term budget cuts and tax
increases to whittle the deficit.
“It is clear that the time has come
to make a fundamental change in
policy and direction,” Clinton told
Treasury employees.
Democratic leaders predicted that
in a long day of debate, they would
sieamroll Republicans and approve
two of Clinton’s economic recovery
measures.
One would lay the blueprint for
future bills trimming the deficit by
$510 billion over the next five years,
to be split evenly between spending
cuts and tax increases. It resembled a
plaa ihafiannfc was also debating.
The other would pump $163 bil
lion in new spending into community
development grants, small business
loans and other job-creating projects.
The administration says the measure
would create 219,000 jobs this year
and more later.
On a tally 295 to 135, the House
killed a GOP budget that would have
cut spending by $429 billion over the
next five years.
“We’ve had no-pain presidencies
for 12 years, and now the pain facing
the American people is greater than
anything we could have possibly
imagined,” said Rep. John Biyant, D
Texas. “A president that’s willing to.
. .say we need to make cuts and we
need to increase taxes in certain areas
is a president with courage who de
serves to be followed.”
“They think a large federal eov
emraent is the answer,” said Rep.
John Kasjch, i,-ObicwMWe believe
empowering the individual and get
ting government off individuals’ backs
is the answer.”
Taking no chances, Democrats
even limited the number of amend
ments GOP lawmakers could offer.
“We were royally zapped,” Rep.
Robert Walker, R-Pa., moaned in an
interview.
Democratic leaders were piecing
together an amendment trimming the
jobs package by about $ 10 million. Its
goal was to remove projects that Re
publicans had chided as ludicrous
wastes of money: $3.2 million to pro
duce atlases atout fish populations
and $800,000 to get America’s
whitewater canoeing team ready for
the 1996 Olympics.
“The goal here is to have the few
est number of Democrats defect,” said
Rep. Philip Sharp. “We’re interested
in demonstrating we have the capac
ity to govern.”
-44
It seems like
everybody down
there Is In the selling
game.
-Pitts
Michel's aide
-ft -
Some Republicans, however, are
questioning whether the president was
running afoul of a longstanding law
that bars the executive branch from
spending taxpayers’ money for any
letter, phone call or other effort meant
to influence members of Congress on
pending legislation.
“While I can sympathize with your
desire to create a lobbying network on
behalf of your legislative proposals,
there is a clear line of appropriate
ness,” Michel wrote in a letter this
week to the White House.
. .It seems that your own White
House staff is in violation” of the law,
“and that these efforts should cease
immediately,” he wrote.
White House communications di
rector George Stephanopoulos said
he did not know if Michel’s letter had
been reviewed. But he asserted, “No
member of the White House is break -
ing the law.”
Serbs block U.N. convoys
and brutally assault Sarajevo
SARAJEVO, Bosnia
Herzegovina — Serbs blocked vi
tal U.N. convoys to desperate
Srebrenica and two other Muslim
enclaves Thursday, and subjected
Sarajevo to one of the worst as
saults of the Bosnian war.
Intense artil
I lery fire hit cen
tral Sarajevo and
[ continued for a
second day in
suburbs around
the airport, pro
viding a grim
-welcome for
Gen. Lars Erik
Wahlgren, the new U.N. com
mander in former Yugoslavia.
Under U.N. pressure, Bosnian
Serbs allowed three blocked aid
convoys into Bosnia Wednesday
and Thursday. They then stopped
all three, signaling they were deter
mined to cement their hold over
much of eastern Bosnia regardless
of international criticism and peace
talks m New York.
“The main message from here is
that someone has to stop the Serbs
from advancing,” said Larry
Hollingworth, a U.N. refugee offi
cial, by ham radio from Srebrenica.
“Like some evil Jabberwocky, they
must be stopped.”
In a French TV interview re
layed to Zagreb by ham radio op
erators, Gen. Philippe Morillon,
the U.N. commander in Bosnia,
said the stalled Srebrenica convoy
should arrive Friday.
S “It has been agreed for the con
voy to be tomorrow at 8 a.m. on the
demarcation line and at 8:30 it
should enter Srebrenica,” Morillon
was quoted as saying. He said 12
women and children were to be
evacuated.
Bosnia’s U.N. ambassador ac
cused four Serbian planes of bomb
ing villages near Srebrenica on
Wednesday night,even as the U.N.
Security Council was condemning
a bombing raid four days earlier.
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Tobacco tax revenues going up in smoke
It seems to make perfect sense —
if cigarettes rob Americans of their
health, why not tax them more to help
pay for health insurance?
One answer Because revenues
from tobacco taxes are crumbling like
the ash on a cheap cigar, along with
the percentage of Americans who
smoke.
They’re butting out for health rea
sons or because tax increases make it
too expensive. Either way, the public
treasury is taking a hit.
A 50-state survey by The Associ
ated Press found 20 states reporting
tobacco product tax revenues in de
cline and 11 others that were in de
cline until they raised their excise tax.
The rest generally were static.
The same goes for federal tobacco
revenues, which fell until the excise
tax went up from 16 cents to 20 cents
a pack in 1991. This year it went up
to 24 cents.
While tobacco taxes yield lots of
ready money at first, they ’re unlikely
to provide long-term funding for some
thing huge and growing like universal
health care.
Call it The Incredible Shrinking
Tax Base.
In 1965, the year after the first U.S.
surgeon general’s report linked smok
ing to cancer, 42.4 percent of Ameri
cans over 18 smoked. By 1990 that
figure had dropped to 25.5 percent.
Accordingly, government treasur
ies have eased their dependence on
tobacco.
Among the states, tobacco taxes
peaked in 1968 in providing 5.2 per
cent of state revenues. That share has
fallen to 1.9 percent. Smokers’ cur
rent $5.8 billion contribution to the
federal poi is 0.4 percent of all rev
enues, a mere puff compared to the
1.39 percent in 1968.
This pattern of sliding revenues
has two chief causes, economists say.
Tobacco taxes don’t grow with the
economy, necessitating regular hikes.
And when tobacco taxes get high
enough, some smokersquitand would
be smokers don’t start.
The Minnesota Revenue Depart
ment offered this equation: For every
10 percent increase in the price of
cigarettes, sales fall 4.3 percent.
The tax on smokers is “a mecha
nism to limit consumption,” Mark
Muchow, chief tax analyst for the
West Virginia Division of Tax and
Revenue. “Every time the cigarette
tax is increased, a few more people
say, ‘It’s time to quit.”’
Experts clear actor of abuse charges
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A team
of child sexual abuse experts cleared
Woody Allen of Mia Farrow’s charge
that he molested their adopted 7-year
old daughter, the fi Im maker and actor
said Thursday.
Allen said he would seek custody
of the girl and his other children.
Farrow had accused Allen of sexu
ally abusing the child, Dylan, in Au
gust at Farrow’s Bridgewater home.
Farrow had been Allen’s companion
and favorite leading lady for 12 years
until a bitter split last summer, when
he disclosed that he was romantically
involved with Farrow’s 22-year-old
■ n" ■ ' -.1 — ' ■
daughter.
Allen and Farrow arrived sepa
rately Thursday at Yale-New Haven
Hospital and were briefed together by
three child sexual abuse experts on a
repent they compiled as part of a state
police investigation of the allegations.
Allen emerged from the 21/2-hour
meeting and told reporters and pho
tographers that the report found “I
never ever used my daughter, that no
sexual abuse took place.” Allen said
the meeting was unemotional and
uneventful. There were no tears,” he
said.
OfFarrow’s allegations, Allen said:
_ >
“A terrible, terrible crime has been
committed against my daughter."
Farrow wouldn’t comment on the
report, except to say, “I’ll always
stand by my children."
Her attorney, Eleanor Alter, said
Farrow felt the Yale team’s findings
were “incomplete and inaccurate."
The Yale group, despite Ms.
Farrow’s request, declined to meet
with people whose information
would've been vitally important to
their findings, including Ms. Farrow s
older children and an eyewitness to
part of the abuse, Alter said.
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