Senate passes new spending bill
WASHINGTON (AP) - Republicans pushed
the last and biggest spending bill of fiscal 2000
through the House on Thursday despite a
promised veto by President Clinton.
The spending-measurer approved on a near
party-line 218-211 vote, also carries a 0.97 per
cent across-the-board cut in federal agencies’ bud
gets.
Senate passage is expected early next week,
the next step in a political dance that will lead to a
Clinton veto and then intensified budget talks.
Even so, Republicans claimed a triumph as
they moved toward finishing the last of the new
fiscal year’s 13 annual spending bills.
They also rallied around twin themes - pro
tecting Social Security and not boosting taxes -
that they hope will propel them in next year’s elec
tions.
“Today’s vote is a victory for the American
taxpayer and America’s seniors,” said House
Speaker Dennis Hasten, as dozens of GOP law
makers gathered on the Capitol’s East Lawn. A
four-piece jazz band played “Pennies from
Heaven.”
“Mr. President, please make the responsible
decision for American taxpayers and American
seniors and sign this important bill into law,” said
Hasten, R-Ill.
But Clinton stood ready to veto the measure
because of the damage he said the spending cuts
would inflict on defense, schools and other pro
grams.
He also objected that the GOP did not provide
money he sought to help communities hire thou
sands of elementary school teachers.
The president also joined Congressional
Democrats in insisting that Republicans already
had violated their own pledge and were on track to
spend billions in Social Security funds.
“We’re going to have to work together to get a
budget that works,” Clinton told reporters. “And
all this sort of smoke and mirrors that they have
been doing and claiming that we and the
Democrats were trying to spend the Social
Security surplus when they were spending it all
along is not helpful.”
Neither side, however, was ready to let the
budget fight produce a government shutdown.
So Congress sent Clinton a measure letting
federal agencies function through Nov. 5 as the
two sides work through their differences. It was
the third temporary extension for agencies since
fiscal 2000 began on Oct. 1; the second was set to
expire tonight.
The House vote was 424-2, Senate passage
was by voice vote, and Clinton’s signature was
expected quickly.
Meanwhile, Clinton acknowledged what has
been a political fact in Washington for many
weeks: that his proposals to extend the solvency of
Medicare and Social Security and create a new
Medicare prescription drug benefit would have to
wait until next year.
“I think they’re making a big mistake,” Clinton
u
I think they re making a
big mistake. We can
come back to all that early
next year.”
President Clinton
said of GOP opposition to handling those matters
in Congress’ few remaining weeks. He added, “We
can come back to all that early next year.”
Overhauling Social Security and Medicare,
the government’s huge pension and health-care
programs, has been a top Clinton priority. But the
political and technical difficulties of revamping
those programs, plus the enormous price tags,
have made it difficult for a bipartisan consensus to
emerge.
The spending bill the House approved
Thursday contained $314 billion for education,
labor and health programs for the new fiscal year
and $429 million for the District of Columbia
budget. It included more than Clinton wanted for
the Job Corps and AIDS treatment, but less than
he wants for substance abuse and programs for the
elderly.
Two teen-agers
ticketed for vandalism
Lincoln police ticketed two
Lincoln teen-agers with 18 counts
of vandalism early Thursday morn
ing after an officer caught them
puncturing car tires along a resi
dential street in south Lincoln.
A Lincoln police officer on
patrol at about 2 30 a.m. saw the
pair driving slowly along the 3100
block of S. 32nd Street and stop
near a parked van, officer
Katherine Finnell said-: After a
moment, the car in which the teen
agers were driving sped away.
The spree was Lincoln’s third
instance of large-scale vandalism
in the last eight days.
Four Lincoln men were arrest
ed Sunday on suspicion of firing a
BB gun into 22 cars in northwest
Lincoln.
On the night of Oct. 20, three
Mickle Middle School students
broke into the school and smeared
paint across several classrooms
and the principal’s office.
ATM stolen from truck stop
An ATM was stolen from a
truck stop outside Lincoln at about
4:45 a.m. Thursday morning,
Lancaster County Sheriff Terry
Wagner said.
The ATM was taken from the
Shoemaker’s Texaco Truck Stop at
the intersection of Highway 77 and
Saltillo Road by people who first
broke through a window, then carried
the machine out.
Two men arrested
on suspicion of theft
Sheriff’s deputies arrested two
men Thursday morning after the pair
allegedly stole a car from a home
near the intersection of S.W. 42nd
Street and Martell Road, drove the
stolen car into a ditch and fled from
pursuing officers, Wagner said.
A deputy sent to the scene of the
crime was passed by the pair as they
fled, Wagner said.
The deputy chased the two men
into Lincoln, finally stopping the car
near the intersection of S. 14th and
Cushman streets. One of the men
fled the scene but was later found
hiding in a Dumpster with the help
of a Lincoln Police Department dog.
Nick Roberts, 25, was arrested
on suspicion of DWI and theft from
motor vehicle. Matthew Hernandez,
23, was also arrested on suspicion of
theft from motor vehicle.
Compiled by senior staff writer
Jake Bleed
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Managing Editor: Sarah Baker
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRtGHT 1999
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
Candidates slam
Bush for no-show
■ Five GOP candidates
debate abortion and taxes
in New Hampshire.
HANOVER, N.H. (AP) -
Republican presidential hopefuls dis
cussed abortion, health care and taxes
Thursday night in a generally polite
campaign debate spiced by jabs direct
ed by Steve Forbes and Gary Bauer at
absent front-runner, George W. Bush.
“Perhaps in the future at a forum
like this if we call it a fund-raiser he
might show up,” Forbes said of the
Texas governor, whom he accused of
skipping campaign events to raise
funds for his candidacy.
Forbes was on the receiving end on
another issue, when conservative
activist Bauer said his flat tax proposal
would let some corporations escape
taxes “while you are paying 25 percent
between the income tax and the payroll
tax,” he said.
“Gary you’re wrong,” Forbes
rebutted, and noted proudly that while
he was alone among GOP hopefuls in
supporting a flat tax four years ago,
others have now joined the cause.
But for the most part, the five men
on stage stuck to the issues, refraining
from attacking one another.
Stressing his opposition to abor
tion, Sen. John McCain said the
Republican Party must nevertheless
reach out to voters who differ and
“have respectful disagreements” - and
not a single one of his four rivals on the
Dartmouth College stage offered any
immediate challenge.
Forbes, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Bauer
and radio commentator Alan Keyes all
said the nation’s health care system
needs reforming.Each offered slightly
different prescriptions, and none made
any immediate attempt to draw dis
tinctions with his rivals.
Together, the five men shared the
stage for a debate sponsored by CNN
and WMUR-TV. It was the second
such event in two nights in the state
where the first presidential primary
ballots of2000 will be cast in January.
Onstage before the television cam
eras began rolling, the candidates
fielded questions from the audience on
gay rights and China. Bauer, a conser
vative activist, used the pre-debate to
get the first jab at Bush, calling him
“the absent governor from Texas.”
McCain, who emphasized his sig
nature issue of campaign finance dur
ing the evening, has emerged as Bush’s
closest rival in the polls, particularly in
the wake of Elizabeth Dole’s recent
withdrawal from the race.
Bush, the GOP front-runner by far,
decided in advance not to attend. But
he made his presence felt, granting an
interview to the Manchester television
station two hours before the camera
was switched on for the debate.
Falun Gong members
vow defiance at event
BEIJING (AP) - Nearly 30 mem
bers of the banned Falun Gong spiritu
al movement spoke out Thursday at an
extraordinary news conference orga
nized in secrecy, denouncing torture at
the hands of Chinese police and
promising continued defiance.
One member displayed wrists
bruised by manacles; another told how
police burned her face with an electric
baton; an 11-year-old said he was
expelled from school for his beliefs.
China’s Communist Party, mean
while, promised it would show no
mercy to what it called “the devil cult”
Police detained at least 20 Falun
Gong members Thursday on die vast
expanse of Beijing’s Tiananmen
Square, pushing them into blue-and
white minibuses and driving away.
Seven foreign reporters contacted
by e-mail about the news conference
first met at a restaurant on one side of
Beijing. Then under escort by mem
bers, the reporters changed taxis twice
before arriving at a suburban hotel.
The slow-motion exercises the 30
followers performed to close out the
news conference were once common
sights in city parks but have been
rarely seen in public since the ban.
The Falun Gong members were far
from the ill-educated dupes officials
often portray them to be, and included
a government aerospace researcher, a
shoe factory manager, a radio reporter
and two police officers, both
Communist Party members.
■Washington
Clinton advocates help
for debt-ridden Nigeria
WASHINGTON (AP) - Calling
Nigeria’s debt burden “neither morally
right nor economically sound,”
President Clinton appealed to
Congress and other countries Thursday
to help the African nation back onto its
feet through debt relief and improved
trade.
After meeting with Nigerian
President Olusegun Obasanjo, Clinton
offered law enforcement assistance to
help recover national assets stolen
under the regime of the late Gen. Sani
Abacha.
He also said he would advocate
“generous” debt rescheduling for
Nigeria through the Paris Club), the
group of major creditor nations that
determines the type of relief granted to
debtor nations.
■ Armenia
Nation mourns the loss
of its prime minister
YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) -
President Robert Kocharian declared
three days of nationwide mourning on
Thursday to honor the prime minister
and seven others killed by gunmen in an
attack on parliament.
The assassinations stunned the
nation. Armenians gathered to discuss
the killings in offices, on the streets and
at bus stops - some of them openly
weeping.
The gunmen, who said they opened
fire to punish corrupt officials, surren
dered Thursday morning after they
were allowed to speak on national tele
vision and were promised a fair trial.
They turned over their weapons and
freed about 40 hostages taken after they
burst into the parliament and opened
fire Wednesday.
■ South Dakota
Investigators continue
search for clues after crash
MINA, S.D. (AP) - Investigators
picked through Payne Stewart’s shat
tered Learjet on Thursday for valves
and other small parts that might help
answer whether the golfer’s flight was
doomed by a loss of oxygen in the
cabin.
The National Transportation Safety
Board also said it is looking closely at
three similar Leaijet crashes over the
past two decades.
Still, investigators are concerned
that the cause of Stewart’s crash will
never be known because the plane and
the bodies were so severely damaged,
according to a high-level government
official who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
■ Washington
Clinton acknowledges affair
may hurt Gore campaign
WASHINGTON (AP) - President
Clinton conceded Thursday that his
impeachment scandal may hurt Vice
President A1 Gore’s election hopes,
acknowledging that “a lot of people
who may not like me may hold it
against him.”
But Clinton said any Americans
who fault Gore also should give him
credit for the administration’s accom
plishments, including the longest
peacetime economic expansion in his
tory, the lowest unemployment in 29
years and other achievements.
“You know, people are not dumb.
They vote for what is in their interest,”
Clinton said
His remark came on the heels of
blunt criticism from Gore about
Clinton’s conduct
In remarks that surprised and irri
tated some White House officials, Gore
said during his debate Wednesday night
with former Sen. Bill Bradley that
Clinton’s behavior had disappointed
and angered him.