Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • 14

ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL CT-M. FtPreRIUY. PtAbater 1936.1966 HP PKXFJXI, Edoor 192S19M) (C THOMPSON LANG, Piisbsbsr 19S6- 1971) TJL LANG, Publisher An Independent Newspaper Pu61hed at Journal Center, 7777 Jefferaa NE Albuquerque, KM bf the JuuruJ Pubtutuc Co. Rrpncu of this mawhrad prohibited St mum us ib mm WtkU Gerald J. 0wf or Senior EJifcr B2 Sunday, July 29, 2001 EDITORIALS Aw II lIWliIW TaW I Be Cautious Cutting State's Income Tax -Tne state of New Mexico collected $117 million more in tax-; than expected in the fiscal year that ended June 30.

Surely, hen, state government can afford to cut income taxes by $72 million a year. Voters and taxpayers will hear that argument from Republi-; xan Gov. Gary Johnson in the coming weeks and months. What hey may not hear from Johnson, but ought to keep in mind: JZ The surplus he advocates converting to income tax relief came mainly from taxes on natural gas production. The income tax cut would carve a significant chunk out of a stable source of recurring revenue.

Taxes on natural gas are unstable. Last year's increase in natural gas revenue could evaporate. Next year's collections could come in below projections. State government cannot quickly adapt to a downward swing in the volatile energy market by legislating an upswing in other revenue. Complicating the overall revenue picture is the effect Washington's income tax reduction will have on state collections, which are linked to federal calculations.

State revenue surplus projections do not take into account continual budget overruns of executive branch agencies. The New Mexico Highway and Transportation Department and the Health and Human Services Department's supplemental budget requests will help flatten what appears to be a very ample budgetary cushion. The debate is not about whether the state should cut taxes, but how much. The Legislature enacted a tax package that reduced the rate in the highest advocated by Johnson as a spur td economic development. The package was vetoed by the governor, even though it came within million nf meeting Johnson's $72 million target, according to House Speaker Ben Lujan.

1 Excess cash in state accounts fires the urge to spend among legislators with underfunded pet projects. Controlling this urge in these unsettled financial times is imperative. The Legislature with its longer institutional memory knows that energy-based revenues can boom and remembers that Human Cloning Ban a Glaring Need CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER Syndicated Columnist porters and their biotech industry allies trying to pass a bill that would cross that line not in some slippery-slope future, but right now. Apologists for Greenwood will say: Science will march on anyway. Human cloning will be performed.

Might as well give in and just regulate it because a full ban will fail anyway. Wrong. Very wrong. Why? Simple: You're a brilliant young scientist graduating from medical ichooL You have sieving future in biotechnology, where peer recognition, publications, honors, financial rewards, maybe even a Nobel Prize await you. Where are you going to spend your life? Working on an outlawed procedure? If cloning is outlawed, will you devote yourself to research that cannot see the light of day, that will leave you ostracized and working in shadow, that will render you liable to arrest, prosecution and disgrace? True, some will make that choice.

Every generation has its Kevorkian. But they will be very small in number. And like Kevorkian, they will not be very bright. mad scientist is no genius." Dr. Frankensteins invariably produce lousy science.

What is Kevorkian's great contribution to science? suicide machine that your average Hitler Youth could have turned out as a summer camp project Of course, you cannot -stop cloning completely. But make it Illegal and you will have robbed it Of its most important resource: great young minds. If we act now by passing Weldon, we can retard this monstrosity by decades. Enough time to regain our moral equilibrium and the recognition that the human embryo, cloned or not, is not to be created for the sole purpose of being poked and prodded, strip-mined for parts and then destroyed. If Weldon is stopped, the game is up.

If Congress cannot pass the Weldon ban on cloning, then stem cell research itself must not be supported either because then all: the vaunted promises about not permitting the creation of human embryos solely for their exploitation" and destruction will have been shotort in advance to be a fraud. ft Copyright, The Washington Post Writers Group and protects the launching of the most ghoulish and dangerous enterprise in modern scientific history: the creation of nascent cloned human life for the sole purpose of its exploitation and destruction. What does one say t6 stem cell opponents? They warned about the slippery slope. They said: Once you start using discarded embryos, the next step is creating embryos for their parts. Frist and I and others have argued: No, we can draw the line.

Why should anyone believe us? Even before the president has decided on federal support for stem cell research, we find stem cell sup- WASHINGTON Hadn't we all agreed we supporters of stem cell research that it was morally OK to destroy a tiny human embryo" for its possibly curative stem cells because these embryos from fertility clinics were going to be discarded anyway? Hadn't we also agreed that human embryos should not be created solely for the purpose of being dismembered and then destroyed for the benefit of others? Indeed, when Sen. Bill Frist made that brilliant presentation oq the floor of the Senate supporting stem cell research, he included among his conditions a total ban on creating human embryos just to be stem-cell farms. Why then- are so many stem cell supporters in Congress, lining up behind a supposedly "anti-cloning bill" that would, in fact, legalize the creation of cloned human embryos solely for purposes of research and destruction? Sound surreal? It is. There are two bills in Congress regarding cloning. The Weldon bill bans the creation of cloned human embryos for any purpose, whether for growing them into cloned human children or for using them for research or for their parts, and then destroying them.

The competing Greenwood "Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001" prohibits only the creation of a cloned child. It protects and indeed codifies the creation of cloned human embryos for industrial and research purposes. Under Greenwood, points out distinguished bioethicist Leon Kass, "embryo production is explicitly licensed and treated like drug manufacture." It becomes an industry, complete with industrial secrecy protections. Greenwood, he says correctly, should really be called the "Human Embryo Cloning Registration and Industry Facilitation and Protection Act of 2001." Greenwood is a nightmare and an abomination. First of all, once the industry of cloning human embryos has begun, and thousands are being grown, bought and sold, who is going to prevent them from being implanted in a woman and developed into a cloned child? Even more perversely, when that inevitably occurs, what is the federal government going to do: Force that woman to abort the clone? The movies have it wrong.

The SfiBSMt. they also go bust The volatility of the energy market and the economy in general inspires legislative caution and caution the side to err toward in fiscal policy. Preschool Programs Deliver Results The national studies have shown it. Now, an Albuquerque study demonstrates again that enriching the pre-school experience of deprived children pays off in higher acade-lt jnic achievement down the road. implication is that investment in preschool education early childhood programs really pays off," said Richard Boyle, a senior research scientist with the University of New Mexico Institute for Social Research.

The city of Albuquerque commissioned the study, which examined the city's Child Development program, the Albuquerque Public Schools Even Start program and Youth Development Head Start pro-. gram. The study found that after fourth grade, graduates of all three outperformed students who did not attend any preschool program. The study found no measurable differences in results among the three programs. "Apparently, something about the preschool experience helps prevent the kinds of disabilities that require children to be given special education services during the later elementary years," states the report.

The city is to be commended in the first instance for offering its Child Development program to deserving citizens, and in the second instance for commissioning a study to determine whether the program is obtaining the desired results." Whether the appropriate agency is the city, APS, YDI or some other entity, expanding facilities for enriching early childhood learning experience in Albuquerque would be a pro- dent investment in our children's future. "NmW.MOMMtfGRAND KTOINGTOGETMY STEM CELLS" ol Rotunda Navajo Code Talkers, Patriotism Filled Capit IMICHAEL COLEMAN 3nc Journal Washington Bureau WASHINGTON, D.C. i- Once in a while, Washington rises above predictable, partisan politics and spends a moment contemplating patriotism and national pride. Last Thursday when Congress honored the Navajo Code Talkers with Congressional medals was that kind of day. It seemed everyone who is anyone in this town, including the president, the speaker of the House and four-star generals, came to the Capitol Rotunda to pay tribute to the Code Talkers.

Even Hollywood celebrities, who are making a major motion picture about the Code Talkers' role in World War II, showed up. Of course, they also spent much of the day pitching their movie to the hordes of media covering the Code Talkers' big day. "Academy-award winning actor Nicolas Cage, who stars as a Code Talkers' bodyguard in the upcoming "Windtalkers," seemed genuinely moved by the Navajo took a moment to speak with me after I spotted him in a Senate hallway Thursday morning. Cage teamed with acclaimed action director John Woo to make "Windtalkers." He said he and Woo wanted to do a more "meaningful" movie coming to light now." 4 Woo, who answered my questions even though his publicist said he didn't have time, told me he chose to direct the film because it is a story of men from different backgrounds working together to achieve something bigger than themselves. "After I heard about this story, I was so moved," Woo said.

"These people did a great contribution to this country and I truly admired their "It's very emotional, this movie," Woo said. "It's all about friendship how these men, these different kinds of people, work together and come together. That's my usual theme." Samuel Billison, president of the Navajo Code Talkers Association, said Woo and the movie's other producers met with theode Talkers three times for consultation on the movie. "They came and actually sat down with us," Billison said. "They brought their script and we changed some of it we deleted 'some items that weren't Navajo." MGM Studios gave the association $10,000 for its help.

The studio also will host a fund-raiser for the Navajo Code Talkers Association in November in Washington. One of the requests the association made, naturally, was for more Native Americans in the cast. MGM obliged, casting Roger Willie, a Navajo from Continental Divide, N.M., who has never before acted in a movie, as one of the Code Talkers. Adam Beach, a Canadian Native American, also stars in the film. Willie said MGM did a good job of keeping the movie authentic.

"I was very involved with the cultural aspects and the language," Willie told me at an MGM reception after the Capitol ceremony. "I'm proud of this move. The producers and directors were so sensitive about portraying (the Navajo elements of the movie) as accurately as they could." Political celebrities sLo took time Thursday morning to greet the Code Talkers. Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican and Vietnam war hero, stopped by a breakfast Sen.

Jeff Bingaman hosted for the Code Talkers. Bingaman, also sponsored the bill authorizing the congressional medals. McCain said he has always admired the Code Talkers' story. i "We're old friends," McCain, who repre- sents the Arizona portion of the Navajo reservation, told me. "It's a wonderful, remarkable story in American history, one that is part of not only Indian history and pride but of all Americans." Ben Nighthorse CampbeU, a Colorado' Republican and the only Native American in the Senate, said he hoped the publicity i from Thursday's events will expand public awareness of Indian issues.

ii "I hope this wouldn't just go by as a photo- op to hype the new movie," he said. "If you look at the history of the Native Americans, they have suffered greatly at the hands of; the federal government. Things are getting better, but a lot of suffering is still going on." fz: Bingaman said Friday he was deeply moved by the Capitol ceremony, and confessed he got goosebumps during." the Marines' presentation of the colors and' singing of the National Anthem. "It was a wonderful tribute to the Navajo Code Talkers and the heroic services they provided to their country," Bingaman said. than some of their recent, individual projects.

Cage said ew people know that the Nava-jos developed a secret code using their native language to help the U.S. defeat the Japanese in the Pacific in World War II. "What inspired me was the idea of different cultures interacting," said Cage, whose, gaze is every bit as intense in person as it is on the silver screen. "The fact that these brave warriors were fighting with the rest of us was a surprise. No one really knew that they were in World War II alongside the rest of us.

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