“su- News digest
Beer lobby trying to drown out chances of ‘sin tax’
WASHINGTON—A thousand beer sell
ers inundated Capitol Hill on Tuesday top
ing to avoid picking up some of the tab for
President Clinton’s health care plan.
Fresh from a daylong training session in
which they were pumped full of statistics
and arguments, the wholesalers and brewers
hoped to meet with virtually every member
of the House and Senate.
Their mission was to confront any in
crease in the excise tax on beer—a “sin tax”
— before it was proposed to pay for the
health care plan.
“Remember, you’re not going up there to
save the world” but instead to save jobs,
Henry King, director of the Brewers Asso
ciation of America, told the beer sellers in a
private training session beforehand.
For Bo Huggins, who with his father
owns a Miller-Heineken distributorship in
Houston, the first stop was the office of Rep.
Mike Andrews, D-Texas.
Andrews is a member of the House Ways
and Means Committee, which gets the first
crack at any legislation dealing with taxes,
and is also a leader in the effort to impose a
stiff new tax on cigarettes.
Huggins said he came away “encouraged
that he (Andrews) seemed to understand the
difference between tobacco and beer.”
But the Houston lawmaker made no com
mitments, explaining to his guest that often
Congress must deal with issues as they are
packaged by the White House.
“I hope beer is not in the mix,” Andrews
said. But he noted: “The administration is
struggling to pay for health care.”
Clinton has promised a comprehensive
health care reform package by May 5 that
will, among other things, provide health
insurance for the 36 million Americans cur
rently without it.
To help pay for the plan, many anticipate
the White House will propose higher excise
taxes on alcohol and tobacco products —
and perhaps firearms.
The beer sellers’ lobbying onslaught is
not the first to hit Capitol Hill since work
began on the health plan. Last week hun
dreds of doctors lobbied lawmakers in a
campaign organized by the American Medi
cal Association.
“The guy from back home is the best
lobbyist going,” explained Ronald A.
I hope beer Is not In the
mix. (But) the administra
tion is struggling to pay
for health care.
--Andrews
House representative
-99 -
Sarasin, president of the National Beer
Wholesalers Association, which helped or
ganize Tuesday’s campaign.
“It’s extremely effective for people to
come to Washington from back home.
There’s a message there, even if he doesn’t
say anything,” he said.
Israel seals off West Bank
after policemen’s murder
HADER A, Israel — Gunmen shot
to death two Israeli traffic policemen
sitting in a squad car Tuesday, and the
government struck back by barring
the West Bank’s 1 million Palestin
ians from entering Israel.
Police blamed militant Arabs for
the pre-dawn slayings. The assas
sinations at an intersection near this
town in Israel’s heartland appeared to
escalate a wave of Arab attacks that
has claimed 13 Israeli lives in March.
Twenty-six Palestinians also have
been killed this month.
The unrest provoked a public out
cry that threatened to weaken Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin at a ti me when
he is defending the U.S.-sponsored
peace process against demands from
Israeli hard-liners to scrap it.
Palestinians said the tough mea
swe of sealing the occupied territo
ries and barring 120,000 Palestinians
from their jobs iif Israel would dam
age peace prospects.
In Washington, White House
spokesman George Stephanopoulos
said the Clinton administration wants
to keep the peace talks on track but
said: “We’re obviously concerned by
the escalating violence on all sides.”
Most recent attacks on Israelis have
happened in the occupied lands, espe
cially the Gaza Strip, which was scaled
on Monday after the stabbing death of
a Jew. But Hadera is a city of 40,000
-44
We’re obviously con
cerned by the
escalating violence on
all sides.
- Stephanopoulos
White House spokesman
-tt -
people, eight miles from the West
Bank.
Police said highway patrolmen
Mordechai Yisrael, 35, and Daniel
Hazut, 32, were found slumped in
their car, riddled with machine gun
bullets, their weapons gone.
“This event represents the bank
ruptcy of the Rabin government,’’said
Daniel Hazut’s brother, Gadi.
Rabin, who is also defense minis
iw.cancelcdhisengagcmenuto^al (
with the violence, unprecedentedsince
the Palestinian uprising began in De
cember 1987.
About 200 people gathered at the
scene of the killings, in the country
side outside Hadcra, chanting “Death
to the Arabs!” and “Rabin go home!”
Benny Harby, a 38-year-old me
chanic, said: “This morning my kids
crawled into bed with me and told me
there was a murder nearby. ... I’m
frightened.”
Right-wingers denounced the gov
cmment for failing to hall the vio
lence.
“The blood of Israeli citizens be
ing murdered and stabbed without
letup is on this government’s head,”
said former Defense Minister Ariel
Sharon of the Likud party.
Most of this month’s Palestinian
deaths, which include six youths
under 13, have resulted from army
gunfire during rioting.
Congress keeps
jobs bill intact
WASHINGTON — Democrats
erased an embarrassing setback the
Senate had dealt to President Cl inton ’ s
jobs bill as Congress resumed its drive
Tuesday to complete the first pieces
of the White House’s economic pro
gram.
In a watershed 52-48 vote, the
Senate reversed itself and killed a
Republican amendment trimming the
$16.3 billion jobs measure. Lawmak
ers had given the GOP provision pre
liminary approval on a48-44 vote the
night before.
The tally showed that the chamber’s
majority Democrats will probably be
able to keep enough of their 57 mem
bers together to muscle the jobs mea
sure through the Senate largely intact.
Even before the vote, Clinton
sounded undaunted when asked if the
Senate would pass the legislation.
“I’m optimistic. I think so,” he
said.
The bill, which would provide
money for mass transit, summer job
and other employment-heavy pro
grams, isa majorelcmentof Clinton’s
plans for economic revival.
House-Senate negotiators began
putting the finishing touches on a
compromise outline for a five-year,
We will have to fly
Orville and Wilbur
Wright’s plane out of
the museum if these
cuts stick - „ ..
-Kasich
congressman
$500 billion deficit reduction.
Each Dcmocratic-controlled
chamber had approved similar bud
get-cutting blueprints earlier this
month, with each backing Clinton’s
mix of tax increases on the rich and
deep defense cuts. The Senate mea
sure has slightly higher tax increases,
while the House version contained
slightly deeper defense cuts.
Congress' Democratic leaders want
to approve a compromise deficit-re
duction outline this week. The mea
sure sets goals for tax and spending
bills lawmakers will consider later
this year.
“We will have to fly Orville and
Wilbur Wright’s plane out of the
museum if these cuts slick,’’said Rep.
John Kasich,R-Ohio, ranking Repub
lican on the House Budget Commit
tee.
|-WORLD WIRE-1
Bush to receive Kuwaiti degree
KUWAIT — Former President
Bush will visit the emirate April
13-15 and receive an honorary de
gree from Kuwait University.
Kuwait’s minister of education
said Tuesday that Bush was invited
by the ruling emir, Sheik Jabcr al
Ahmcd al-Sabah.
Bush spokesman Andrew Maner
confirmed the travel schedule in
Houston.
Similar honorary degrees have
been given to former British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher and to
Javier Perez de Cuellar, the former
secretary-general of the United
Nations, for their roles in liberating
Kuwait from seven months of Iraqi
occupation.
Clinton to end long-standing ban
w/vanimj iurs — 1 nc wnitc
House plans to end the ban on
federally financed abortions for
poor women, which critics say
would put taxpayers into the “grisly
business” of abortion.
Both sides predicted a heated
battle in Congress. White House
spokesman George Stephanopoulos
said Tuesday that Clinton would
not include me ban when he sends
his fiscal 1994 budget to Congress
next week.
For 16 years, the ban, which
originated in Congress, has been
written into the budget. It bars fed
erally paid Medicaid abortions ex
cept when there is a threat to the
woman’s life.
NelSra&kan
Editor Chris Hoptensperger Night News Editors Stephanie Purdy
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Editor Publications Board Chairman Doug Fiedler
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Yeltsin warned not to hold referendum
Muatuw—Keiormist lawmak
ers advised President Boris Yeltsin on
Tuesday not to hold his own referen
■■■■■■■ dum and cau
Honed about dis
content in the
army as he plots
strategy in the
battle with par
1 lament.
Yeltsin’s chief
of staff said the
president might hold a plebiscite to
counter an April 25 referendum on his
leadership that was approved Mon
day by the Congress of People’s Depu
ties. -
1 still don t know whether I should
take part in the April 25 referendum or
oppose it,” legislatorGIcb Yakunin,a
Russian Orthodox priest and staunch
Yeltsin supporter, told the ITAR-Tass
news agency.
The four-day emergency Congress
session failed to decide the fight be
tween president and parliament, al
though Yeltsin’s opponents did suc
ceed in eroding his powers. The oppo
nents fell only 72 votes short of the
689 needed to remove him from of
fice in a vote Sunday.
Many lawmakers oppose Yeltsin’s
free-market reforms and Western-ori
ented foreign policy.
The Congress approved the April
25 referendum, which Yeltsin him
self had proposed as a way to resolve
the political crisis. The lawmakers
added a question on whether Russians
support die painful economic reforms
he launched 15 months ago.
Yeltsin’s chief of staff, Sergei
Filatov, told the newspaper Izvestia
that the Congress could not block the
president from “carrying out his sim
plest and most democratic plan.” The
referendum would ask voters to ap
prove the basic principlesMf a new
constitution that would strengthen the
presidency and replace the Congress
with a smaller, bicameral legislature.
Cities now waking up to defense cuts
WASHINGTON — It’s no secret
that the Cold War is over or that the
military is shrinking. But many com
munities whose prosperity was built
on defense dollars are just discover
ing that the cutbacks will strike close
to home.
“Most people don't have any idea
what cuts in defense spending mean
for their local economy,” said Vir
ginia Maver, who wrote a book on the
subject tor the National League of
Cities.
In some areas of the country, such
as southern California and southeast
Connecticut, communities know full
well the sling of defense reductions
and are responding. Mayer says they
are the exceptions.
“Naw, it’ll never happen here,” is
a common attitude, said Don Jordan,
vice mayor of Seaside, Calif., a town
of 39,000 which was caught flat
footed when it, indeed, did happen at
nearby Fort Ord.
- it
Most people don’t have any Idea what cuts In
defense spending mean for their local economy.
--Mayer
author
---|i -
In 1991, the Army decided to move
the 7lh Infantry Division out of Ord,
population from
>rdan said the move
stripped Seaside, which is 80 miles
south of San Francisco, of about 30
percent of its economic base.
“The word’s out now: You better
start assessing the economic vulner
ability if your area has a particular
military installation in it,” Jordan said.
The word has been heard in Grand
Prairie, Texas, and none too soon.
Gary Gwyn, the city manager, said he
was “stunned” — and without an ad
justment plan — when the Pentagon
this month recommended closing a
W V
base adjacent to Grand Prairie, which
is between Dallas and Fort Worth.
Closure of the Naval Air Station
Dallas would mean losing 1,700 ac
tive duly military and 8(X) civilian
jobs — a big blow for Grand Prairie,
a city of 105,000 people that also is
beginning to feel defense industry
cuts.
It’s not hard to see why many local
governments have been slow to re
spond. Although the demilitarization
of the economy is well under way, the
biggest declines in defense spending
and cuts in defense industry jobs are
yet to be seen. 1