Banner Graphic, Volume 15, Number 431, Greencastle, Putnam County, 17 December 1985 — Page 2

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The Putnam County Banner Graphic, December 17,1985

Brother, can you spare a billion?

Federal government empty as House rejects spending bill l/ASUIMn'TAM , .. , ’I

WASHINGTON (AP) Much of the federal government was running on empty today and Congress' plans to adjourn for the year were in shambles after the House rejected an omnibus, $370 billion spending bill that would have restored the flow of money. Conservatives upset with the overall size of the measure, liberals angry at increases included for the Pentagon, and other legislators concerned about a possible future pay raise for members of Congress joined to kill the measure on a 239-170 vote shortly before midnight Monday. “It’s never wise to keep the House in after 11 (p.m.),” said Rep. Lynn Martin, R--111. “It’s like managing a nursery school without a nap.”

Shuttle launch delayed

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The launching of Columbia was postponed 24 hours after the countdown team fell far behind today in readying the flagship of the fleet for its first flight in more than two years. “They had too much work to do, and they just ran out of time,” said George Diller, a spokesman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The launching was reset for 7 a m. EST

Torch cited in blast

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) Firefighters searched the smoldering rubble of a leveled two-story gas company today for a missing person after a propane tank explosion and fire that killed 11 people and injured 13. Twenty-seven employees of the Rocky Mountain Natural Gas Co. in this westcentral Colorado town were believed to be in the building when the explosion occurred Monday morning. Two people escaped injury. A welding torch that was lighted near an almost empty 1,000-gallon propane tank apparently triggered the blast in a garage where repairs were done, said Les Sitter, a company vice president at its Denver

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House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr, DMass., angrily warned that rejection of the money bill could keep Congress meeting right up to Christmas. “We have enough work to carry us until (next) Monday or Tuesday," O’Neill said. With the end of the first session of the 99th Congress nowhere in sight, President Reagan sought a resurrection in the House of his tax overhaul plan that was buried last week by near-unanimous Republican defections. Congress’ chaotic year-end lurch also included possible action on: —Massive farm legislation touching everything from food stamps to agricultural research and providing about $52 billion over five years for price and in-

Thursday, with Columbia carrying a crew of seven that includes a Florida congressman and the first HispanicAmerican astronaut. The ship recently underwent an 18-month overhaul to remove test gear and add sophisticated electronic equipment. Officials said on Monday the schedule was tight for a Wednesday morning launch.

headquarters. Fire still burned under the wreckage at nightfall. “We’ll continue to look in the rubble in case there were people there who were not Rocky Mountain employees,” city manager Mike Copp said late Monday. Since the office did not take payments, Copp said, visitors were unlikely. Company president Don Parsons refused to speculate on the cause of the blast, and said he would wait for an investigation. He confirmed that a propane tank on a flatbed trailer apparently was undergoing repairs. “I doubt if the tank was full, but I expect it had some propane in it,” he said.

come support programs. —A federal guarantee of the troubled Farm Credit System. —Legislation promised in the budget adopted last August to force about SBO billion in deficit-reduction action over the next three years. Government workers were told to report to work as usual today although the spending authority of many federal agencies technically ended at 6 p.m. Monday with the expiration of a stopgap measure Congress enacted last week. Action was expected today in the House and Senate on a short-term measure to keep affected agencies operating at current levels through the end of the week. l as rejected in the House

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The fast-attack, nuclear-powered submarine ''Louisville” joined the United States Navy fleet Saturday after its launching at Electric Boat Shipyard in Groton, Conn. Admiral

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would have carried the agencies without a regular appropriation through the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends next Sept. 30. The measure is necessary because seven of the 13 regular annual appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 have yet to either gain final congressional action or be signed into law. Edwin L. Dale Jr., spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said late Monday, “All workers will come to work tomorrow morning (today) and they will get the word then as to whether they will go into a shutdown mode or not.” The overnight lapse in spending authority was not expected to cause any

Kinnaird McKee, director of the Navy's nuclear propulsion program, called the $282 million ship a "bargain” for the Navy. (AP Laserphoto)

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disruption of government operations. In the push toward adjournment, legislators have scrambled to use the urgently-needed spending bill as a vehicle for pet projects that otherwise would not be enacted. In addition, House and Senate negotiators finishing work on the spending bill Monday voted to allow senators to earn an extra $7,510 a year in speaking fees and opened the door to a 1987 pay raise for all legislators. The provision would allow members of the Senate to earn as much as 40 percent above their $75,100 congressional pay in outside honoraria. The current limit is 30 percent.

Tax reform alive, but still uncertain

WASHINGTON (AP) President Reagan’s effort to rewrite the federal income tax, kept alive by his high-stakes lobbying of reluctant Republicans, is getting a second chance in the House with no assurance it can pass. As the House struggled toward adjournment for the year, Democratic leaders accepted a Republican agreement that could lead to a final vote on the measure today. Reagan promised that at least 50 of the 182 Republicans would support the bill, and the GOP was given some concessions that were little more than face-saving devices. Treasury Secretary James A. Baker 111 “has told me he has a list available of at least 50 (GOP) members who will vote for the rule (procedures for considering the bill) and for the bill,” Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-111., manager of the legislation, told reporters. Reagan himself called House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill to say the Republicans had met Democrats’ conditions. But because Republican leaders have been so active in their opposition, the speaker said, the GOP might have to find even more votes to assure passage. Few lawmakers were willing to forecast victory for a bill that is opposed by the floor leaders of both parties: Democrat Jim Wright of Texas and Republican Robert Michel of Illinois. The House Rules Committee cleared the way for consideration today of the Democratic bill and a Republican substitute. When the Democratic plan of tax overhaul, the president's No. 1 legislative

Symthetic Fuels Corp. victim of move to balance U.S. budget

WASHINGTON (AP) - The remains of what once was a S2O billion program to wean the United States from its dependence on foreign oil has become the first victim of Congress’ new resolve to balance the federal budget by 1991. Amid a clamor to reduce budget deficits and with the blessings of the Reagan administration, House and Senate negotiators agreed Monday to kill the 5-year-old Synthetic Fuels Corp. and eliminate its subsidies for squeezing oil and natural gas from the nation’s vast shale and coal deposits. Specifically, the congressional budget conferees took back $6.1 billion of the remaining $6.6 billion in uncommitted funds that the agency had for awarding federal loan guarantees and price supports to synfuels projects. The action on a $370 billion bill to fund most federal agencies through next Sep-

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SPEAKER TIP O'NEILL Angry warning

goal of his second term, was called up last week, all but 14 Republicans sided against the measure and, on a 223-202 vote, the House refused even to consider it. That embarrassing defeat prompted the president to go to the Capitol Monday, where he put his prestige on the line and pleaded his case. “The president was very nice, very conciliatory ... but he was not very convincing,” Rep. Vin Weber, RMinn., told reporters. Top GOP leaders offered little reason for optimism. Barring some changes in the bill itself, said Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, chairman of the Republican Conference, “I don’t see the votes right now for the bill.” Less than three hours later, Baker was emerging from the office of Republican Leader Robert'Michel of Illinois with the announcement that O’Neill had been promised the 50 GOP votes. Republicans were assured: —The House will vote on not only the GOP substitute but a Republican amendment to it that would keep present-law tax treatment of pensions. The Democratic bill would raise taxes on many pensions, including those received by millions of retired federal, state and local workers. —The president will write a letter promising to veto any final tax bill that has an individual tax rate over 35 percent (the present top rate is 50 percent; the Democrats’ bill sets 38 percent), that imposes that rate on any taxable income under $70,000 (the Democrats’ top rate hits single people whose taxable income is over $60,000) and that does not offer adequate tax incentives for business investment.

tember put the final nail in the coffin of the quasi-government lending bank vilified for years by its critics as a “boondoggle” for oil companies and other corporate sponsors of government-aided synfuels projects. “The Synthetic Fuels Corp. should have been killed long ago,” said Rep. Silvio Conte, R-Mass., one of the agency’s leading opponents. “The ability of that agency to waste taxpayer money knows no bounds.” In its brief history, the agency had awarded a total of $1.3 billion in subsidies to four projects one each in California, Colorado, Texas and Louisiana. But with world oil prices falling 30 percent over the last three years, those subsidies guaranteeing coal gasification and shale oil projects two to four times the costs of natural gas and imported oil had become a symbol of government largess gone astray.

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