By The
Associated Press
Edited by Kristine Long
News digest
Nebraskan
Monday, February 7,1994
Lobbyists dispute Clinton’s proposed budget
WASHINGTON — Liberal Dem
ocrats and lobbyists aimed fire at Pres
ident Clinton on Sunday for cuts he
will seek in his 1995 budget, but ad
ministration officials defended the
S1.5 trillion blueprint on the eve of its
release.
“I’m not satisfied with the budget,”
Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., chair
man of the Congressional Black Cau
cus, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the
Press.”
M fume focused on Clinton’s plans
to whittle down spending for public
housing and heating assistance, say
ing, “Those things arc getting close to
becoming what wc call non-negotia
ble items.”
Clinton’s package, for the fiscal
year that begins next Oct. 1, will lack
the dramatic tax increases and spend
ing reductions the president sought a
year ago in his first budget. That pro
posal paved the way for last summer’s
enactment of his ncar-5500 billion
deficit-reduction plan.
But to meet the tight strictures
imposed by last August’s package —
and pay for increases Clinton wants
for scores of other programs — the
budget will propose eliminating 115
small programs, and holding nearly
600 others at or below the amounts
they were allowed for this year.
The proposed cuts would total $25
billion. Of that, $8 billion will be used
to beef up favored programs such as
job training and technological re
search, and the rest to contain a 1995
deficit the administration will project
at $176.1 billion — the lowest level
since 1989.
Word of the spending cuts has al
ready angered many members of Con
gress, all of whom have favorite pro
grams they furiously defend. Law
makers will spend most of the year
deciding which of the president’s pro
posals to embrace and which to ig
nore.
Special interest groups are also
wasting little time gearing up.
The American Public Transit As
sociation warned Sunday that nearly
seven in 10 mass transit systems would
have to raise fares if Congress ap
proves Clinton’s proposal to cut oper
ating assistance to commuter train
and bus systems.
Clinton wants to cut the program
by S200 million from its current S800
million level, government and indus
try officials have said. A program for
helping local governments buy buses
and other equipment would be in
creased instead.
Administration officials said cuts
in those and other, programs were
needed to help reduce the deficit "and
to pay for increases in education, crime
fighting and other favored initiatives.
“The fact that we are now in an area
where we’ve got to control govern
ment spending, it’s a great opportuni
ty to redirect the role of government,”
White House Budget Director Leon
Panetta said on ABC’s “This Week
With David Brinkley.”
The budget will claim that tens of
billions of dollars can be saved over
the next five years if Congress enacts
Clinton’s plan to revamp health care.
Part of the savings will come from a
previously announced plan to increase
the cigarette tax.
Other details of Clinton’s budget
include:
• $69 million for research on alter
native fuel vehicles,$25 million more
than this year.
• A reduction in the program that
helps the poor pay heating bills from
$1.4 billion this year to $730 million
in 1995.
• $100 million over the next two
years to build a new railroad terminal
to replace Pennsylvania Station in
Manhattan, in the home state of Sen
ate Finance Committee Chairman
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y.
• A $196 million cut in Agricul
ture Department flood-prevention and
watershed programs.
Test service overhauls SAT,
calculators will be allowed
PRINCETON, N .J.—The venerable SAT
is getting its first major overhaul in two
decades. It will allow use of calculators and
will better test critical thinking skills.
But critics say the revisions to the assess
ment test are only cosmetic and don’t ad
dress what they see as an underlying bias
against women and minorities.
“I t’s an attempt to make the SAT look 1 ike
it will measure higher-order thinking skills,”
said Cinthia Schuman, head of the National
Center for Fair and Open Testing. “You
really can’t measure higher-order thinking
skills in questions answered inone minute or
less, or when students can’t show their work
or do anything except choose from preselected
possibilities.”
The Scholastic Aptitude Test first ap
peared in 1926. It is used by most U.S.
colleges to evaluate potential students. It
consists of two sections, one measuring ver
bal abilities and one measuring mathemati
cal skills. Each section is worth 200 to 800
points.
H igh school students will first see the new
version March 19.
Officials from the Princeton-based Edu
cational Testing Service, which administers
the test, say it’s the first major overhaul to the
SAT since 1974.
The verbal section will contain fewer
reading passages, but the passages will be
longer. The test clso will include a pair of
passages on similar subjects, which students
will be asked to compare.
In the mathematical section, the biggest
change will be that students can bring along
calculators.
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Clinton summons meeting
to plan strategy for Bosnia
WASHINGTON — President Clinton con
ferred with his top national security advisers
Sunday to chart a course for dealing with esca
lating violence in Bosnia amid intensifying
calls from Congress for air strikes.
A top administration official said Western
military action was clearly “on the table” in the
aftermath of a mortar attack Saturday in a
market in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo that
left 68 dead and hundreds wounded.
And Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole
asserted that a decision by Clinton to order air
strikes would have “strong bipartisan support”
in Congress.
But Clinton — along with other allied lead
ers — appeared still to be groping for an effec
tive strategy for ending the bloodshed in the
former Yugoslavia.
A day after he sent a u.i>. medical team anu
three transport planes to Sarajevo to help evac
uate the wounded, Clinton summoned top na
tional security officials to the White House to
discuss the deteriorating situation.
He was leaving later in the day for Houston
on a 2 1/2-day trip that will combine political
fund raising with promoting his health-care
program. Aides said the president did not con
sider the situation to be enough of a crisis to
warrant delaying the trip.
An administration official, speaking on con
dition of anonymity, said Clinton asked for an
update on the situation and was also eager for
details on what the medical team had learned in
Sarajevo.
Clinton — who late Saturday issued a state
ment condemning the “cowardly act” and call
ing for engaging allies on next steps—was not
likely to take any steps without consulting with
NATO partners, the official said.
In Munich, Germany, Defense Secretary
William Perry said that the United States would
not invoke air strikes unilaterally, noting the
difficulty imposed by the presence of 28,000
lightly armed U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia.
Perry denounced the attack on civilians in
Sarajevo as an “unforgivable incident” but sug
gested air strikes would have limited value in
ending the civil strife. He called instead for a
negotiated settlement.
“It is time for responsible leaders among the
warring factions tostep forward and be counted. (
It is time for the international community to ’
stand together and bring the maximum pressure
to bear,” Perry said at a military conference in
Munich.
Perry’s remarks seemed to back away from
comments the day before when he suggested
“stronger action, including air strikes,” might
be warranted to prevent the “strangulation” of
Sarajevo.
Dole suggested it was time for air strikes
against Serbian positions.
“I think it would certainly send a strong
message to Belgrade,” Dole said.
Discovery astronauts jail
to release science satellite
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA failed
to release a science satellite from space shuttle
Discovery on Sunday and considered canceling
the troubled experiment.
It was not clear whether NASA would try
again Monday to deploy the Wake Shield Facil
ity or give up altogether on the experiment,
which had been one of the primary purposes of
the shuttle mission.
Even if the satellite could be deployed Mon
day, officials said all the science objectives
could not be met.
The Wake Shield was supposed to fly free of
the shuttle for two days so scientists could try to
grow semiconductor films in the ultra-clean
wake created by the saucer-shaped craft. There
wouldn’t be enough time for two days of free
flight even if the latest problem — a guidance
sensor snafu—could be resolved in time for a
Monday release.
As Discovery whizzed around Earth with the
Wake Shield propped on the end of the shuttle
crane, the crew and ground controllers raced
against the clock to resolve a problem with a
-
horizon sensor on the satellite. The sensor is
supposed to helpguide the satellite when it flies.
None of the repair attempts worked, and
Sunday’s three release opportunities slipped by
as they had the day before.
Discovery’s six crew members were stym icd
Saturday by radio interference and glare from
the sun. Those problems were resolved easily
Sunday: Jan Davis tilted the satellite on the end
of the arm to eliminate the radio interference,
and the crew relied on electronic signals rather
than five status lights obscured by the glare.
The crew was disappointed after two days of
failure, especially astronaut Ronald Sega, who
had spent years working on the Wake Shield.
Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalcv, the first Russian to
fly on a U.S. shuttle, had trained for more than
a year to retrieve the satellite with Discovery’s
robot arm.
Scientists had hoped to grow seven wafers of
gallium arsenide on the Wake Shield, a 12-foot,
stainless steel disc. The $13.5 million satellite
was managed by the University of Houston and
Space Industries Inc. of Houston.
Nebraskan
Editor
Jinmyl
472-17M
Managing Editor Adaana Laftln
Assoc News Editors Jaff Zaiany
3tava Smith
Night News Editors Jeff
in
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