Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.issues,americast.usa-today.issues From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: issues Fri, Aug 21 1992 Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 04:08:23 EDT Message-ID: 08-21 0000 DECISIONLINE: Issues & Debate USA TODAY Update Aug. 21-23, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network Here are some of the issues and topics being debated across the nation Friday morning in USA TODAY: Disclosure, Family Values, President Bush. TODAY'S DEBATE - DISCLOSURE: USA TODAY'S OPINION: It's a maxim of home-buying that during the first hard rain after you move in, the basement turns into a scale model of Okefenokee Swamp. ... Mandatory seller-disclosure laws promise to lower the frequency of such surprises. ... That's why everyone gains from the get-it-on-the-table openness that mandatory disclosure laws foster. ... Most brokers and agents say such laws short-circuit debate about whether they told buyers of defects - the accusation behind two of three lawsuits now filed against them. Even sellers gain. They needn't rip houses apart seeking flaws - just disclose known ones. ... Disclosure laws also wouldn't end buyers' need to get houses inspected, or absolve agents and brokers from their legal duty to disclose known defects. But such laws would smooth home buying for all involved. More states should adopt them. Making the first mortgage payment should be the biggest jolt most home buyers have to face. OTHER VIEW: JEFF RIGGENBACH, writer and broadcaster: The last time I bought a house ... I was told by the seller that the roof was virtually brand-new. ... Then I moved in, on a rainy night in November, and found to my horror that it was raining inside the house as well as outside. Would a disclosure law ... have saved me the cost of a new roof? I don't see how. A law is nothing but a piece of paper. ... no disclosure law can possibly prevent anyone from selling you a defective house. All it could do is give you a basis for suing him after you found out you've been had. But there's already a basis for suing people who sell you a bill of goods. We don't need new disclosure laws to make that possible. ... Most of all, we do not need to further encourage the widespread tendency to look to government for protection against all risks of living. ... A nation of weak, irresponsible individuals who've forgotten how to take care of themselves after decades of depending on government ... (is) a weak nation, one unlikely to re-establish itself in its old position of pre-eminence in world affairs. VOICES ACROSS THE NATION ON FAMILY VALUES: CHANTILLY, Va., Gregory Nikiel, 36, electrical engineer: I'm not too impressed by the talk of family values because it means they're avoiding the real issues. It's not their job to be our moral leaders, but to make the country economically strong. I'm still interested in the S&L problem. That seems to have gone away fairly neatly. HILLSBOROUGH, N.C., Barbara Yoder, 47, craftswoman:potter: Not all families consist of a mother, father and 2.5 children. I share a household with a companion and have helped raise her son since he was 10. Families like ours are overlooked. I'm interested in hearing what's being done to meet the needs of diverse families. GRAND FORKS, N.D., Mike Bitz, 25, elementary school principal: It means good Christian values: that you treat other people like you'd like to be treated, and you put your family before your job. I don't know if the president can do a whole lot about it. America would be better off if people would go toward family values. VERNON, Calif., Willie D. Hall, 58, comm. affairs consultant: They're talking about family values as simply a political statement. Family values to me means that individuals are committed to each other. They have trust in each other and try their best to live up to that trust. I don't see political candidates actually doing that. LANCASTER, Pa., Kathleen Tierney, 35, coach, athletic director: It's a reaction to moral and ethical decisions that should be made outside political forums. I'm taken aback by the amount of coverage this issue has received. Not all families have 2.5 kids and two cars in the garage. It's not the reality of the demographics of our country. TOPIC - BUSH: Al Neuharth is the founder of USA TODAY. One of the things George Bush promised this week is "the most stirring political comeback since Harry Truman gave them hell" in 1948. Bush's Trumanesque stance scored with supporters here (in Houston). Will it sell across the USA? Probably depends on how well a feisty, fighting Bush wears day in and day out between now and November. When Truman slugged it out with his opponents, he did it with good-natured quips. No venom. He was a folksy Midwesterner who choked opponents with a velvet glove. ... So far, as Bush has taken off the gloves, he has picked up a sledgehammer. ... He seems to some to come across as an angry, if not an arrogant, New Englander. Truman took his gentler "Give 'em hell" campaign on a relentless railroad crisscrossing of the country. ... In two months, more than 6 million saw him with their own eyes. Heard him with their own ears. Felt for him in their bones. ... So far, Bush campaign plans have him sticking to airplanes. ... Appearances scheduled to put him on the tube for short sound bites in prime time. When voters see a fighting Bush on TV or read about him in the newspapers, will it grab them the way Truman's feistiness in the flesh did? ... If Bush is to come back as he has promised, he may have to follow in Truman's whistle-stop tracks. And swap his sledgehammer for Harry's tough but gentler touch. So far, those boys on the bus, Bill and Al, seem to be stealing more of Truman's stuff. Issues & Debate Editor: Susan M. Andrews. (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