Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 16

ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL (T.M. F5PPERDAY, Publisher 1926-1956 HP. PICKRELL, Editdr 1926-1964) (C THOMPSON LANG, Publisher 1956-1971) T.H. LANG, Publisher An Independent Newspaper Published at Journal Center, 7777 Jefferson NE 'l Albuquerque, NM 87109-4343, by the Journal Publishing Co. Reprint of this masthead prohibited Gerald J.

Crawford, Senior Editor Kent Walz, Editor B2 Sunday, January 21, 1996 EDITORIALS Read Clinton's Lips: No New Spending DAVID S. BRODER Syndicated Columnist anced-budget drive. But after that, the cuts explode. In the last four" years, Clinton would spend less in actual dollars on discretionary programs each year than the year before. And that is without factoring in inflation or the increase in the population being served by these programs.

What this means in practical terms is that his second term (and Al Gore's first term, should he be the successor) would see a steady impairment of the government's capacity to finance transportation, housing, environmental and human service programs. Clinton is unlikely to acknowledge that reality in his speech on Tuesday night. But it is an inevitable consequence of his political decision to resist savings of the scale Republicans are seeking in Medicare and Medicaid. Panetta argued that Clinton was being honorable and foresighted in balking at "structural changes" in Medicare and Medicaid, even at the price of future severe cuts in discretionary domestic spending. Certainly he has been helped politically by posing as the protector of those two popular medical entitlements.

Clinton also has been shrewd in postponing the real pain in the discretionary spending cuts until almost the end of the century. That way, he can claim to have "protected" his education and environmental and crime-fighting priorities. But since these programs depend on annual appropriations, the Republicans can and likely will force Clinton to deal with the money squeeze sooner rather than later. The reality is this: He has run out of discretionary funds. The more he promises on Tuesday night, the less of it he can deliver.

WASHINGTON On Tuesday night, President Clinton must confront the reality that will face every occupant of the Oval Office for the foreseeable future: He has no money to play with anymore. When he delivers the State of the Union Address which will double as the keynote of his 1996 presidential campaign Clinton will not have the option of showcasing an exciting catalogue of proposals. The realities of the budget make such a listing ludicrous. Even though the negotiating impasse remains unbroken, the congressional Republicans have won the larger part of their battle with Clinton over fiscal policy. Deficit-cutting has gained absolute ascendance over any significant effort to focus new governmental resources on the problems facing America at home.

As White House chief of staff Leon Panetta told reporters the other day, over the last eight months, Clinton has moved from a budget with $200 billion-a-year deficits forever, to one that would balance in 10 years under the lenient accounting standards of his own Office of Management and Budget, and finally to one which would balance in seven years under the stricter scoring of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). "That cost us $400 or $500 billion" of future spending authority, Panetta said. That's the money that would have paid for the promises Clinton would like to make. Clinton was bulldozed into these concessions by the power the Constitution gives Congress to control spending and by the determination of the Republicans to exercise that power to the full. It is true, of course, as Republicans like to point Threat of Violence Pays Off for Tribes U.S.

District Judge Martha Vazquez is being asked to approve a stipulation between the U.S. government and various Indian tribes in which the latter agree not to commit illegal acts if the chief U.S. law enforcement officer in New Mexico agrees not to move against the illegal acts they are already committing. Apparently there is no device that U.S. Attorney John Kelly will not agree to in exchange for avoiding the responsibilities of his office.

Kelly forced New Mexico's gaming tribes to go to court i when he declared their casinos illegal in light of the New Mexico Supreme Court's ruling that no electronic or casino I gambling is legal in New Mexico. He set a deadline for a response from the tribes, which they ignored. They then filed suit seeking a declaration that their gambling compacts are legal under federal law, notwithstanding the fact they are illegal under state law, and that they authorize casino 1 gambling. They further sought to enjoin Kelly from moving against them. But, after threatening to do his duty, Kelly apparently lost his stomach for enforcing the law or the Clinton administration ordered a political bypass of criminal law.

In any event, Kelly is letting the Indians off the hook with his stip-V ulation to ignore the illegality of the Indian casinos while their civil suit against him is pending and accepting as quid pro quo the Indians' promise that they will "refrain from taking any and all action to close public highways and thoroughfares crossing Indian land in New Mexico ther, the tribes renounce the use of force or violence in the pursuit of their goal of keeping the casinos Additionally, the Indians say they will "voluntarily comply with the decision of the court (Vdzquez) in this case. The tribes will cease all Class III gaming operations within IS days of entry by this court of a final judgment declaring the tribes are operating in violation of federal law And, if Judge Vazquez doesn't sign off on this stipulation, are the tribes bound to defy her order? These are, to be sure, 'r burdensome concessions by the Indian gamblers! And, tragically, were it not for Guy Clark, Max Coll and George Buffett, plaintiffs in the state lawsuit that resulted in voiding of the compacts, non-Indian New Mexicans wouldn't even have a voice in these dealings between the federal government and the Indian tribes. The subject mat- ter r-, gambling is one that Congress specifically made subject to state law. Judge Vazquez delayed approving Kel-; ly's stipulation when Clark, Coll and Buffett's lawyer, Victor r-', Marshall, filed a motion to intervene. 'Although the U.S.

Attorney has officially stated that the casinos are operating illegally, he appears to be negotiating non-enforcement of the laws. The court should not be used as a vehicle for such overt evasion of the law," stated the if interveners' motion. Unless intervention is allowed, no one in this case will stand up for the Constitution and laws of the state of New Mexico, and for the decisions of the Supreme Court of New Mexico." 1, New Mexico is locked in an acrimonious public debate on the legality and morality of wide-open Indian gambling because Gov. Gary Johnson illegally usurped the authority of the Legislature by trying to legalize on Indian land that which is illegal in New Mexico. It is at his feet that blame for the current mess can be laid.

However, Johnson's new fellow traveler in seeking to legalize Las Vegas on the Rio Grande without regard for the niceties of law is U.S. Attorney John Kelly. By his disinclination to carry out his duty to enforce federal law, compounded by his willingness to bargain away in secret his discretion to do so, Kelly turns his back on his oath to enforce the federal law for all New Mexicans. The first decision, for Judge Vazquez, is whether to give federal court approval to litigation by threat of terrorism. As for the New Mexico Legislature, if any in that body still contemplate changes in the law to make Indian gambling legal after the fact, they should consider whether they wish to further reward the successful blackmailing of Kelly and the United States government by the threat of violence.

If the federal government is not concerned about its obligation to the laws of the state of New Mexico in the matter of Indi- an gaming, should the state make it easier by changing its laws to let a pusillanimous federal law enforcement estab- lishment off the hook? out, that even under their version of the balanced budget, more will be spent by Washington every year than the year before. But most of that additional spending will be absorbed by interest payments, inflation and the steady increase in the number of people especially the elderly who receive government subsistence checks. Discretionary spending, the money that is available once interest payments on the national debt and the entitlement payments for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have been made, will be squeezed harder every year, whether the final spending plan resembles Clinton's or Congress' version of a balanced budget. In Clinton's plan, for example, discretionary spending would be reduced $295 billion over the next seven years almost double the $154 billion in savings he foresees in Medicare and Medicaid. (Both figures rely on the CBO's December baseline estimate of planned government spending for comparison.) The Clinton cuts are purposely back-loaded, totaling just $33 billion from a projected $1.67 trillion sum in the first three years of the bal Tax Needs To Be Simple, Not Flat ROBERT RENO mm i ii'w lit' tftfiiifflttrfi -ftwi Ncwsday faint in his praise of the commission's labors.

"This is the beginning," Dole said. "I think it has great potential." "This commission did not end the debate," Gingrich said. For all its obsession with simplicity, the flat tax movement ultimately comes up against these details from hell. And the Kemp Commission tiptoes gingerly through them like they were an overflowing sewer. Even if the flat tax movement collapses though, it could leave a residual legacy.

What has attracted such consistent support in the polls is not the idea of exempting capital income or taxing millionaires at lower rates. It is the notion of simplicity. If the "reformers" would concentrate on making the tax code intelligible and forget some of their more perverse concepts of equity, there is still a vast amount of reform to be accomplished. Within the flat tax movement there is wide, even bitter dispute that is causing Republicans to say some very nasty things about each other. Steve Forbes says it is terribly important to exempt income from dividends, interest and capital gains from taxation.

Phii Graniin says it's uafair. Pat Buchanan says it's outrageous. Lamar Alexander says it's nutty. Dole insists any plan must be revenue neutral. The supply-siders say it doesn't matter.

As for charitable, home-mortgage and property-tax deductions, they're still "on the table," which means they could get wiped out. If they're retained, the new flat rate will have to be high. If they're not, any chance of passage will not be. "We're not going to get sidetracked into which deduction is more important," said Jack Kemp. Picking and choosing is, of course, the hard part of any tax reform program.

Dole, at Kemp's side, seemed The brood hens on the Kemp Commission, charged with the job of incubating a new Republican tax system, have with much clucking, cackling and flapping of wings, laid something of an egg. If the commission had a coherent mission it was to come up with a Republican position that would be something the party could run on next November, even use as a model for tax reform in the current session of Congress. In its report this week the commission did convey the notion that the present tax system should be carpet-bombed and pulled up by its roots. That's the easy part. What it very carefully didn't do was say just how the new system should be configured, what a new flat rate should be and which if any of the present deductions loopholes actually should be retained.

All these questions are critically important to whether the entire notion of a flat tar system has any chance of passage in Congress and to whether or not it will result in a massive shift of the tax burden from the rich to the wage-earning and salaried middle class. And so I guess the real question is: If this loyal commission of members handpicked by Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich can't agree on a single position, what are the remotest chances that the Congress will? 7T7 Global Warming Priesthood Embraces All Calamities CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER Syndicated Columnist cold air. So blaming the blizzard on the greenhouse effect is 100 percent wrong." But, theology is rarely daunted by fact. One commentator lists not just the snowstorm of '96, but last year's heat waves, the flood of '93, and Hurricanes Andrew and Iniki as recent natural disasters that are perhaps "not wholly" natural. Among the "more intense weather events" claimed to conform to greenhouse theory is last year's flooding in Texas "with hailstones the size of baseballs." First Sodom.

Now Texas. Environmental fundamentalists are testing the limits of our credulity when they find in every freak snowstorm or flood not some natural variation that we have seen before and will see again, but the wrath of God for man's presumption in inventing the internal combustion engine. served as journalistic hook for the current global warming hysteria? Isn't it a symptom of the greenhouse "calamity" effect? "Utter, nonsense," says Patrick Michaels, professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and author of more than 200 articles on global climate change. "Any suggestion that ocean warming caused the blizzard of '96 makes no sense. Sea surface temperature over the Western Atlantic has changed very little in the recent decade except for a profound cooling of the northwestern portion." Moreover, explained Michaels to a Marshall Institute Roundtable, "the problem with generating mid-Atlantic snow is, in any case, not a lack of moisture.

The problem is getting enough cold air from southeastern Canada into a storm. Yet all projections for an enhanced greenhouse effect reduce the depth of tive religion that can match this one for attributing natural calamity to the transgressions of man this time around, to man's sins against Mother Earth and her environmental priesthood? In fact, the. historical record directly contradicts the theology. Harvard astrophysicist Sallie Baliu- nas, points out that in Northern Europe over the last thousand years, the increased devastation and occurrence of storms is closely linked to cooler rather than warmer temperatures. Sublime conditions prevailed during the 10th-12th centuries (roughly 1 degree warmer than now).

In the 13th century, when a cooling began that lasted centuries, storms and sea flooding in the area around the North Sea increased dramatically in severity and frequency. But what about our storm, the huge mid-Atlantic blizzard that warming, but of all weather "extremes," i.e., calamities.1 How? Warming increases water evaporation, adding moisture and energy to the atmosphere, making for more rain and storms and, mirablle dictu, "more severe droughts" as well. Huh? Exact opposites again? Yes, writes the Times' William Stevens: "in cases where atmospheric" la'tion conspires" a deliciously revealing anthropomorphism "to keep rain away from a given area." So global warming has now become a theory of everything, or at least everything bad: rain, snow, heat, cold, storms, droughts. You name it, we caused it. When anything unpredictable and unwanted occurs particularly if it occurs near a media center like Washington or New York we can now blame it on global warming and, by extension, on us.

Is there a primi WASHINGTON -1 have a theory 'abou't the earthquakes, mudslides, brush fires and floods that have lately devastated California. My theory is that these afflictions will not stop until the Menendez broth- ers have been put away for good. Now, I know my theory is what antique, indeed fundamentalist. No more fundamentalist, how- ever, than the theory being peddled in the elite media about the higher meaning of the savage snowstorm that hit the American Northeast. "Blame Global Warming for the Blizzard," declares The New York Times.

A sensational Newsweek coyer story ups the ante: "Blizzards, Hurricanes: Blame Global -Warming." tVHuh? We've been lectured incessantly 'on- how prideful man is spewing tons' of fossil fuel carbon dioxide into the atmosphere causing global warming. We've been told further that this desecration of nature will ultimately wipe out winter, turn Kansas to desert and put Long Island under water. Now comes the exact opposite climatic event a monster snowstorm and that, too, is caused by our sinning against Gaea? Yes, holds the newest variation in environmental scolding. Global warming is now the cause not just of.