Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.issues From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: issues Wed, Mar 11 1992 Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 05:46:04 EST Message-ID: 03-11 0000 DECISIONLINE: Issues & Debate USA TODAY Update March 11, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network Here are some of the issues and topics being debated across the nation Wednesday morning in USA TODAY: Blacks; Lotteries; Spending. TODAY'S DEBATE - BLACK SELF-HELP: USA TODAY'S OPINION: Waiting for government to solve your problems is like waiting for Santa Claus. The wiser you get, the less you wait. That's what Dennis Rahiim Watson, executive director of the National Black Youth Leadership Council, tells young black males. His message is heavy on values and respect for elders. The time to heed that message is now. As government snores at the switch; the black family - the best engine for progress - is running out of steam: Three out of every four black children born in the '80s will grow up in a fatherless household. More young black males are in the criminal justice system - 609,000 - than are enrolled in colleges. Homicide is the No. 1 killer of black men. And Black males have a jobless rate twice that of white men. An indifferent government eventually may grind out solutions, but the crisis is too urgent to wait. Civil rights groups, community leaders and churches must respond with self-help approaches. ... Of the 2.2 million black males ages 16 to 24, 439,000 attend college, about a million are employed and more than 200,000 serve in the armed forces. Government still must provide resources, such as Head Start and job training, but the plight of the black family is too serious to wait for Uncle Sam. OTHER VIEW: JULIANNE MALVEAUX, a San Francisco writer, lecturer and economist: For too long, African-Americans have been told that we could succeed if only we believed and tried a little self-help. We should pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, wearing boots or not. ... These noble myths wear thin in the face of reality. Black people are twice as likely as whites to be unemployed, three times as likely to be poor. Our kids are more likely to die as infants, our men more likely not to live to retirement age. ... How can we believe in an American dream unless we see it implemented? Who will provide the magic dust for black America, if not our government? We need leadership that will not stoop to the use of racist images and rhetoric. We need a programmatic commitment, an urban Marshall Plan that provides jobs, services, opportunities. We need strong civil rights laws, and we need them enforced. VOICES ACROSS THE NATION ON LIMITING LOTTERY TICKETS SOME CAN BUY: COCOA, Fla., Janice Pack, 33, exotic-bird shop owner: I favor restrictions. It's kind of a pipe dream that the average person can spend a dollar or two and become a millionaire. If that possibility were taken away, the average person would stop buying tickets and it would defeat the purpose of having lotteries. UNION CITY, Ga., William Brown, 36, shipping clerk: If they're willing to spend that much money, let them. My concept of the lottery is that it's to raise revenue for the state. No matter who buys the tickets, the state gets its money. LAS VEGAS, Nev., Paula Marie Spencer, 28, radio personality: I don't think there should be limits, even though I don't really approve of what they did. It's an open lottery. If you want to buy as many as you can, go right ahead. WEST VALLEY, Utah, Jerry Dixon, 41, accountant: When any state or casino is having a gambling operation, they set the rules. Casinos have table limits. If states want to, they can set limits on the number of tickets you can buy. As long as the odds a state gives out are accurate, that's all the gambler needs to know. GLENDALE, W.Va., Paul Bissett, 65, insurance agent: We shouldn't panic over one big winner. The Australian group could have lost. The purpose of a lottery is still to raise money for the state, for the elderly and for education. So, states should keep lotteries simple and not cut back on the number of tickets anyone can buy. TOPIC - WASTEFUL GOVERNMENT SPENDING: WILLIAM PROXMIRE, retired from the U.S. Senate in 1988 after representing the state of Wisconsin for 31 years, was interviewed by USA TODAY's Richard Wolf. HAS WASTEFUL GOVERNMENT SPENDING GOTTEN WORSE OVER THE YEARS? I'm sure it has escalated. I don't think anybody has attempted to cut back on this practice. It's a matter of judgment as to what's wasteful, but the budget itself has just gone right through the roof. When I came into Congress, we had a deficit in the Truman administration of $2 billion. Then in Eisenhower's, the average deficit was around $2.5 billion. Now, it's $400 billion. No matter what you allow for inflation, that is a fantastic escalation. IS ANY ONE PARTY MORE RESPONSIBLE THAN THE OTHER? I made a chart of how much it increased in every administration, and the Republican administrations have increased it a lot more. But that's irrelevant. They all made huge, huge, huge increases. And when you're spending that much more money, you're spending it in these wasteful projects very often. And they get a lot less scrutiny. WHY DO "PORK-BARREL" PROJECTS, GET LESS SCRUTINY? It's much easier to slip in a wasteful $5-, $10-, $15-, $20 million program into a budget that already has several trillion dollars. You get the argument: "Don't worry about it, Proxmire; we're spending $2-3 billion anyway. What difference does it make if we give a million dollars to so and so?" Issues & Debate Editor: Michele Coleman. (1-919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution violates federal law. This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM