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 Mon, May 4 1992 Date: Mon, 4 May 92 05:17:38 EDT Message-ID: 05-04 0000 DECISIONLINE: Issues & Debate USA TODAY Update May 4, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network Here are some of the issues and topics being debated across the nation Monday morning in USA TODAY: Budget; Campaign; Racism. TODAY'S DEBATE - BALANCING THE BUDGET: USA TODAY'S OPINION: Awash in voter anger, Congress is looking to the leaky old "SS Balanced Budget Amendment" for rescue. ... Saying the budget must balance is different from making it balance. That responsibility belongs to those who've been ducking it - Congress, the president and the electorate. What's worse, balanced-budget proposals invite chaos. They create greater temptations to make the ledger simply look good - a habit that helped put us $400 billion deeper in the hole. And what happens if the budget doesn't balance? Does government shut down? Does the president decide not to honor social security checks? Does Congress make sudden cuts or enact a drastic tax increase that may be economically unsound? The proposals don't say, but the possibilities are frightening. An amendment wouldn't take effect for years. This year alone, the deficit grew by $4000 per household. A better, faster way to reduce the deficit: Face up to the need to increase taxes and cut spending. That's not painless. But planning for the long term rather than scrambling to make up a shortfall can spread the pain more fairly. OTHER VIEW: CHARLES W. STENHOLM, D-Texas, a member of the House Budget Committee: Two years ago, USA TODAY editorially decried the then-$168 billion deficit but argued that a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget would have no positive impact. Today, absent that amendment, we approach a $400 billion deficit, a $4 trillion debt and another opportunity for Congress to find the backbone we need for fiscal responsibility. Like that 1990 editorialist, we are convinced that no amendment can balance the budget in itself. We're also convinced the president and Congress need far more incentive than we currently have if we are to do what must be done. For 53 of the past 61 years, the government has spent more than it's taken in; 53 years is no short trend. This long-term, institutional problem requires a long-term, historically based (first suggested by Thomas Jefferson) solution. A constitutional amendment will not solve our deficit problem - only tough choices can do that. But the amendment will raise the threshold of difficulty for deficit spending and will prevent both the executive branch and Congress from acting as though deficits don't exist. VOICES ACROSS THE NATION ON THE CAMPAIGN FINANCE BILL: MACON, Ga., Herbert Dennard, 46, railroad worker: The President should sign it. Political action committees already have too much control. They give a lot of money to campaigns and they give it for a reason. They give it for influence. So anything that would stop or slow that down would be beneficial to the American people. BALTIMORE, Md., Eileen Fitzpatrick, 19, student: President Bush should sign the bill because too much money is being spent in congressional campaigns. The law would help reduce the influence of special interests on Congress, and the public would benefit. KITTANNING, Pa., Tom Beranty, 40, teacher: I am a Republican, but I'm in favor of the president signing it because anyone running for office should not be at a disadvantage to an incumbent. Special interests would not benefit as much with this. They have too much to say about who's elected on a national level. OMAHA, Neb., Shawn Ilg, 25, law student: The president should sign the bill. Any legislation that helps limit special interests' influence is needed. I've worked in Washington, D.C. PAC money and interest groups have more influence than individual citizens, and that's not the way Congress is supposed to run. LOWELL, Ind., Suzanne Eovaldi, 56, comm. college teacher: Sign it if there can be a protection that the money isn't laundered through large organizations. The PAC groups just funnel the money to the candidates. The people we have elected to serve us seem to be so self-serving. Certainly, I'm in favor of fairing up the system. TOPIC - RACISM: THOMAS KOCHMAN, professor of communications and theater at the University of Illinois and author of Black and White, Styles in Conflict. Kochman was interviewed by USA TODAY's Sharon Shahid. WHY DO PEOPLE VIEW RACISM IN THE RODNEY KING TRIAL DIFFERENTLY? This is what I call socially based patterns of difference. Whites start from a premise that a situation is not racist until we prove it is. Blacks start from a premise that the situation is until you prove it's not. WHY IS THAT? I think the Anglo culture sees racism as acts of commission and blacks see racism as acts of omission - what you're not doing. And in this case, the whole issue of how protected are people in society and how vulnerable are they. What it suggests is that some lives are worth more than other lives. WHAT ELSE PLAYS INTO THE DIFFERENT PERCEPTIONS? The other component is in how whites or blacks wish to perceive things. Whites wish to believe that a situation is not racist because if they had to concede that it was, they'd have to do guilt over it - and whites don't want to do guilt. That's why you get constant denial on the white side when blacks say: "This is racist." 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