IOA - The Michigan Daily - Thursday,September 14, 1995
Sinn Fein
leader seeks
U.S. help in
peace talks
4 Gerry Adams meets
with Gore, says he's
willing to negotiate
From Daily Wire Services
WASHINGTON - Gerry Adams,
presidentofthelrish Republican Army's
political organization, met with Vice
President Gore and White House Na-
tional Security Adviser Anthony Lake
yesterday night to seek U.S. help in
breaking an impasse in negotiations
over the future of Northern Ireland.
The two-hour meeting produced no
specific proposals, U.S. officials said,
but reinforced the U.S. beliefthat some
formula can be developed that will be
acceptable to all sides.
Adams indicated he was willing to
negotiate with Britain on all issues,
including the critical question of disar-
mament of the IRA and Protestant para-
military organizations-though not on
the terms demanded by Britain, the of-
ficials said.
Little more than a year after Presi-
dent Clinton allowed Adams - once
reviled here as a mouthpiece for ter-
rorists- into this country for the first
time, he has become a familiar figure
here and is routinely received by se-
nior officials because the IRA has
honored its pledge to refrain from
violence.
But now Adams is in Washington at
a critical moment. A year after the IRA
declared a cease fire, negotiations have
given way to arguments about who is
responsible for the lack of progress
toward a permanent end of sectarian
violence. Britain has refused to con-
vene "all party" negotiations about the
future status of the northern provinces
until the IRA commits itself to disarm,
in a process euphemistically known as
"decommissioning" of weapons.
Sinn Fein, Adams's organization, has
told the British that this condition can-
not be met because, as Adams said in an
interview, "you can't expect people to
give up their weapons when they have
no other voice..
Much of the current discussion in
Washington, London, Dublin and
Belfast is about the search for a for-
mula out of this impasse, which the
White House is eager to resolve be-
fore Clinton goes to Ireland in late
November.
In interviews and speeches here this
week and at the White House last night,
Adams has stressed that Sinn Fein and
the IRA are committed to a peaceful
solution to the Northern Irish question.
But he also warned of the risk that
violence will resume if extremists
among Northern Ireland's Catholics-
whom Adams described as oppressed
victims ofdiscrimination in jobs, hous-
mg and education -conclude that they
cannot hope for improvement by politi-
cal means.
Adams and other Irish political lead-
ers say Britain added the key condition,
that the IRA begin disarmament before
the peace talks, only after the cease fire.
They say Britain sabotaged the pros-
pects for peace by doing so because
Britain knows the IRA will not agree to
disarm until a parallel political process
has begun.
In addition, Adams said, it is unfair
and unreasonable to ask only one party
to the conflict, the IRA, to begin dis-
arming when the British army and the
Protestant paramilitary organizations
face no such requirement.
British officials have countered that
after years of bombings and terrorist
attacks, the IRA must show it is sin-
cere about seeking peace by coming
to an agreement on decomissioning
before all-party political negotiations
begin.
Last week British Prime Minister
John Major and Irish Prime Minister
John Bruton called offa scheduled sum-
mit conference that was to have set up
an international commission to resolve
the decommissioning impasse.
That was supposed to be part of a
proposed "two track" formula, provid-
ingforboth talks and the commission to
proceed. That approach is still "promis-
ing," a White House official said night.
Senate panel votes
to reduce funds
for job traiuing
Specter says he'll delete provisions
tacked on by House conservatives
AP PHOTO
Michigan Gov. John Engler was one of several stats leaders In Washington yesterday as the Senate voted on welfare reform.
Governors express support for
Senate vote on welfare reform
WASHINGTON (AP) - Michigan
Gov. John Engler said yesterday he
approved of the Senate's vote against
capping additional payments for wel-
fare mothers who have more children,
saying it was consistent with turning
welfare overto the states without strings
attached.
"I've simply argued to be consis-
tent if we're going to turn it (welfare)
back to states, let's turn everything
back," Engler said after a short press
conference by a handful of Republi-
can governors attending their quar-
terly policy meeting with congres-
sional leaders.
Twenty Republicans, including
Michigan Sen. SpencerAbraham, sided
with all the Democrats as the Senate
stripped the family cap policy from the
Republican blueprint to overhaul the
nation's welfare programs.
The family cap was viewed by some
conservative Republicans as a way to
help bring down illegitimate births.
Abraham has introduced an amend-
ment to the welfare bill that would
award an unspecified amount of "bo-
nus" money to states that keep their
illegitimacy rates down without see-
ing an increase in abortion rates. The
amendment likely will be voted on
this week.
Engler, in chairing the governor's
welfare task force, had consistently ar-
gued that federal welfare policy had
failed and welfare should be turned
over to the states with no strings at-
tached. That way, states could have the
flexibility to run programs and experi-
ment so successful models could be
copied by other states.
Tuesday's vote would still leave the
state the option to adopt a family cap
policy, as a dozen have done. Michigan
is not one of them.
The governors' press conference
was dominated by questions about
any progress they might have made
on Medicaid, which has yet to reach
the Senate floor for debate. Republi-
can governors had been squabbling
over how much the formula for dis-
tributing limited funding over the next
seven years should take into account
the needs of states with high-growth
populations.
House and Senate Republicans want
to save $182 billion from Medicaid
spending in seven years.
The distribution of federal Medicaid
funding is important to states because it
accounts for about 40 percent of all
federal dollars flowing to them.
Michigan's share of Medicaid payments
eats up about 20 percent of its general
fund.
Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt said the gov-
ernors had made progress, but he and
Gov. Jim Edgar of Illinois, who heads
up the governors' task force on Medic-
aid, remained tight-lipped about de-
tails.
"This is not an easy process," Leavitt
said. "We're very close. We will come
up with a formula."
"We're very close to the final pack-
age," said House Speaker Newt
Gingrich.
Sen. John Chafee (R-R.I.), chairman
of the Senate Finance Medicaid sub-
committee, is skeptical of turning over
the Medicaid funding in the form of
block grants to the states. He favors
keeping Medicaid as an entitlement,
meaning those who qualify under the
law for Medicaid are entitled to fund-
ing.
The Republican governors want the
block grants without such strings, which
they claim will hamper efficiency, sav-
ings and experimentation. Dole said he
hoped the Senate's committee bill on
Medicaid would eliminate the
program's entitlement status.
"This has been a real partnership.
Not a place for photo opportunities,"
Dole said of the congressional leader-
ship discussions.
From Daily Wire Services
WASHINGTON- A Senate appro-
priationspanel yesterday approveddeep
reductions in job-training programs in
the coming fiscal year but restored some
ofthe funds cut by the House for educa-
tion and social programs.
In a clear appeal to Republican mod-
erates, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.),
whose subcommittee drafted the $62.8
billion bill financing the Labor, Educa-
tion and Health and Human Services
departments, also said he intended to
delete a host of provisions tacked on by
anti-abortion and pro-business conser-
vatives in the House when he presents
the measure to the full Senate Appro-
priations Committee tomorrow.
Among the controversial riders are
limits on federal research on human
embryos, restrictions on the ability of
non-profit organizations to use their
own funds for lobbying, and curbs on
the power of the National Labor Rela-
tions Board.
But efforts are expected in the Senate
to restore at least some of the riders, and
on the House side yesterday, House
Appropriations Committee Chairman
Bob Livingston (R-La.), noted that the
Senate would have to reach an accom-
modation with the House.
"The riders are not dead," he said.
Administration officials, while ac-
knowledging that Specter's proposal
was a "step closer" to what they wanted,
said it still fell far short of adequately
funding the president's key priorities.
Budget Director Alice Rivlin called it
"unacceptable."
With the moderate Specter and an-
other appropriations subcommittee
chairman, conservative Sen. Phil
Gramm (R-Texas), both running for
president, their spending bills have be-
come showcases oftheir legislative pri-
orities - and also a study in the con-
trasts between them.
Last week, Gramm offered an aus-
tere budget for the Commerce and State
departments and voted against fellow
Republicans who succeeded in restor-
ing modest sums for several accounts
eliminated by one of the Senate's lead-
ing budget cutters.
While Gramm emphasized cuts in
regulatory agencies and stepped-up
spending for crime fighting and immi-
gration control, Specter sought to pro-
tect education programs in his bill. He
called the funds available to him for
social programs "insufficient."
Yesterday he engineered the defeat,
by a vote of 12 to 3, ofan amendment by
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) to transfer
$150 million from President Clinton's
Goals 2000 education reform program
to another account. Gregg said the pro-
gram, which had been eliminated in the
House, was "walking around money"
for consultants.
"It's important to keep centrists in
key positions on the Appropriations
Committee," Specter said in an inter-
view. "Senator (Mark) Hatfield (chair-
man of the committee) needs all the
help he can get to hold the center."
To ease some of the pressures on
Specter, Hatfield provided Specter with
$1.5 billion more than had been allo-
cated in the more-stringent House bill.
But under the Republican plan to bal-
ance the budget by 2002, Specter was
still forced to reduce his bill $4.3 billion
below the current year.
"If (Alice) Rivlin is criticizing (the
bill), I'd like her to show me how she'd
do it differently," Specter said.
According to the Office of Manage-
ment and Budget, the bill cuts by $2
billion the funds available for adult and
youth job training, summer jobs for
youth, and dislocated workers, and
leaves uncertain whether there will be a
summer youth jobs program in 1996.
Specter said he had poured virtually
all the extra money he had into educa-
tion accounts. But he still reduced Title
I, the federal government's main pro-
gram forlow-income elementary-school
children, by nearly $700 million below
the 1995 level.
The National Institutes of Health were
granted $300 million more than this year,
asmallprincreasethanthe House, and the
Healthy Start program for young people
was funded at the level requested by the
administration, as were family planning
and a key domestic violence account.
The National Labor Relations Board,
whose funds were slashed by 20 per-
cent in the House, received the same
budget as 1995.
Unlike the House bill, Specter's pro-
posal will not prohibit the funding of the
surgeon general's office, but a fight over
that is expected on the Senate floor.
Specter, who will be seeking the presi-
dency in such cold states as Iowa and
New Hampshire in a few months, pro-
vided some protection for the embattled
program that helps poor people with
utility bills.
The labor, education and health bill
is one of a number of spending bills
now moving rapidly through the Sen-
ate, but one ran into a snag yesterday at
the Congressional Budget Office.
Appropriators were told their plans
for overhauling the Department of
Housing and Urban Development would
result in a half-billion-dollar cash short-
fall in 1996, stemming from the costs to
the Federal Housing Administration of
a slight increase in defaults and other
factors.
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, W.Va., ranking
Democrat on the Appropriations Com-
mittee, chided subcommittee Chairman
Christopher S. "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., for
bringing the bill forward with the mat-
ter unsettled.
Earlier in the day, the Senate sub-
committee handling agricultural appro-
priations approved a $63 billion spend-
ing bill that will fund nutrition, food-
stamp and food -safety programs.
The bill includes a provision that
would stop the Agriculture
Department from enforcing its new
labeling rule for chickens. The
rule, announced by the department
last month, would require the
poultry industry to label chickens as
fresh, "hard chilled" or frozen based on
the temperatures used for storage and
shipping.
John Raffetto, a spokesman for the
California Poultry Industry Federation,
said Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), the
subcommittee chairman, "is winning
some points at home, but when people
find out, they will be surprised.... I
hope the Senate will not embarrass iself
by turning anti-consumer."
The nation's poultry industry has
split over the rule, with Eastern and
Southern growers, who ship frozen
chickens, opposing the labeling re-
quirement. A spokesman for Cochran
could not be reached for comment.
The House did not include a similar
provision when it approved the ap-
propriations bill.
Confusion hits GOP Medicare reforms
Lawmakers await ruling
from Congressional
Budget Office
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON - Republican
plans to revamp the Medicare system
are bogged down in confusion and un-
certainty over the potential savings from
moving millions of beneficiaries into
health maintenance organizations and
other forms of managed care.
"The big unknown" is how much in
prospective savings from managed care
will be counted by the Congressional
Budget Office, Sen. Bill Frist(R-Tenn.)
a heart transplant surgeon and one of
the key GOP health policy-makers, said
yesterday.
The CBO ruling is part of a complex
puzzle to determine how much of the
Republican target of $270 billion in
future savings over seven years will
come from three choices: managed care,
making beneficiaries pay more or from
reducing reimbursements to hospitals
and doctors.
The House Republicans are particu-
larly optimistic about managed care,
hoping it can provide them with $80
billion or $90 billion in savings. If the
CBO, the arbiter of legislation, won't
count or "score" those savings, the law-
makers would have to impose a much
higher financial burden on beneficia-
ries and providers. It is not known when
the CBO will finish its analysis.
House and Senate Republicans will
meet today to discuss Medicare, with-
out having a complete, detailed plan
among either group despite looming
deadlines. The Senate Finance Com-
mittee plans to have its bill completed
Sept. 22, with the House Ways and
Means Committee expecting to finish
by Sept. 29.
Hoping to sustain a sense of urgency
over the issue, House Speaker Newt
Gingrich (R-Ga.) will promote the GOP
call for reform at a televised national
town hall meeting tomorrow, which will
be distributed by the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce through satellite links to thou-
sands of sites across the United States. He
will be joined by billionaire businessman
and former presidential candidate Ross
Perot, in a live program allowing viewers
to call in with questions.
However, Gingrich's appearance is
likely to be long on rhetoric and short
on details of the GOP blueprint.
"Nothing is written in stone," Rep.
Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) said yester-
day, discussingthe GOP Medicare plan.
"The general theory at this point is: as
long as everything is optional ... and
not locked in, we can live with it," said
Cox, chairman of the House Republi-
can policy'committee.
Cox conceded that few new details
are likely to emerge at today's all-Re-
publican meeting, but said the primary
goal of the session is to educate GOP
members about the emerging solutions.
"We just want to make sure that every-
body knows what's going on," Cox
said. "And we want their feedback and
to hear any concerns they have."
The general approach in the House
seems to require savings of approxi-
mately $110 billion or$120 billion from
reduced payments to doctors and hospi-
tals, $60 billion or $70 billion by re-
quiring Medicare beneficiaries to pay
more for their monthly insurance pre-
miums, and $80 billion or $90 billion in
savings from the movement ofmillions
of persons into HMOs. The last cat-
egory is the most difficult because just
9 percent ofthe 37 million beneficiaries
now belong to HMOs. The vast major-
itv are free to choose any doctor or
Rep. John A. Boehner(R-Ohio), head
of the House GOP conference, said the
unusual four-hour meeting today marks
the end of "phase one" of the Republi-
can drive to overhaul Medicare. That
phase was largely a public relations
effort - getting the message out to the
public that the program needs to be
restructured in order to ensure its long-
term solvency.
Medicare has been growing at a rate
of 10 percent a year, and the GOP wants
to slow the spending to an increase of
6.5 percent annually. The proposed sav-
ings of $270 billion are a key compo-
nent in the GOP plan to balance the
budget in seven years.
After bringing home the message,
Boehner said, the new phase of the
Republican effort will be a focus on the
specific solutions.
But Boehner conceded that detailed
numbers are unlikely to be available by
the time of the meeting, joking that
when fellow Republicans press him for
the figures, he would respond: "Ask
Newt."
FBI raids 120 homes. in cbild-pomn probe
Dozens arrested in nationwide
investigation that spanned 2 years
WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI made at least a dozen
arrests and searched 120 homes nationwide yesterday, con-
cluding a two-year investigation into the use of the nation's
largest computer network to distribute child pornography
and arrange sex with children.
The raids involving America Online users marked the first
time federal agents investigated the misuse of such networks
for exchanging typed conversation and other material from
computer to computer.
"We are not going to permit exciting new technology to be
misused to exploit and injure children," Attorney General
Janet Reno said.
U.S. child protection laws make it a crime to create,
possess or disseminate child pornography. Violators face up
to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
ity, she said.
"We're very troubled that some of the members have used
the service for illegal activity," McGraw said.
Child pornography isn't allowed on America Online's
public spaces, and is usually transmitted via private elec-
tronic mail and private chat rooms.
The FBI said its investigation showed that child pornogra-
phers are turning to such computer networks more and more
to lure curious youths.
"The utilization of online services or bulletin board sys-
tems is rapidly becoming one of the most prevalent tech-
niques for individuals to share pornographic pictures of
minors, as well as to identify and recruit children into
sexually illicit relationships," the FBI said in a statement.
Previously, four people had been arrested for traveling
across state lines with the purpose of having sex with under-
cover agents posing as minors who had been recruited
through the online network, the FBI said.
During the latest investigation, the FBI said it collected
r