Banner Graphic, Volume 21, Number 205, Greencastle, Putnam County, 3 May 1991 — Page 2

THE BANNER GRAPHIC May 3,1991

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‘Significant’ movement reported in budget talks

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Gov. Evan Bayh has hailed “significant movement” in budget negotiations after Republicans said they wouldn’t block a Democratic proposal if they were offered concessions to limit property tax increases. Although Democrats were reluctant to accept that condition, their legislative leaders and Bayh expressed optimism Thursday that the change in the GOP stance could lead soon to an agreement on a new state budget and a special legislative session to vote on the accord. “TODAY HAS BEEN a very productive day,” said Bayh. “There has been significant movement by all parties to find common ground. “I see no reason these issues can’t be resolved in short order,” Bayh said after meeting with legislative leaders twice on Thursday. Bayh said he might call a special session as soon as next week if a final agreement is reached. He plans to meet again with legislative leaders on Monday after they have had time to consult with budget analysts and try to work out final details of a budget agreement. REPUBLICAN leaders made it clear they were willing to let most of the Democratic plan move forward, but they didn’t promise to vote for it in a special session. GOP leaders said they still oppose a part of the Democratic plan that would rescind a reduction in auto excise tax rates and use the money generated for public schools. But Senate President Pro Tern Robert D. Garton, R-Columbus, said, “If they want to vote on a tax increase, we’ll allow that vote.” “THIS IS THE budget they’re asking for, and I think it draws a clear distinction between the two parties,” said House Minority Leader Paul S. Mannweiler, R-In-dianapolis. Mannweiler said Republicans decided not to block the Democratic plan when “we saw no movement on the other side.”

Quayle golf trip cost taxpayers $27,000

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) People here say it would lake some extravagant living to rack up a $5,000 bill overnight, as Vice President Dan Quayle’s entourage reportedly did during a golfing junket “They must have had French wine ... or something,” said Helen Fincher, director of the Augusta-

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GOV. EVAN BAYH A solution next week?

“When negotiations become senseless, what else do you do?” he said. He said he expected the spending plan to pass the House and perhaps the Senate. IN RETURN FOR their offer, Republicans want to drop proposals to give local schools more flexibility to increase property taxes to meet certain operating costs. The GOP also wants the general property tax increase that would be required by the budget to be limited to about 5 percent. Democrats had proposed a 6 percent increase in property taxes to support schools. “They have not agreed to local flexibility and I need that to get votes in the House,” said House Ways and Means Chairman B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend. HOUSE SPEAKER Michael K. Phillips, D-Boonville, said his caucus is “very firm” on giving schools flexibility to raise more money locally. Republicans agreed with the Democratic target of providing schools overall funding increases including both local and state money of 4 percent next year and 3 percent the following year. But to achieve that goal with

Richmond County Convention & Visitors Bureau. CBS REPORTED Wednesday that Quayle and Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner traveled to Augusta aboard an Air Force jet last Friday to play golf at the exclusive Augusta National Golf Club, which hosts the Masters Tournament. They returned to Washington on Saturday. The nework said the trip cost taxpayers $27,000 flying time, SIO,OOO for Secret Service and military travel expenses, and $5,000 for meals and lodging for the agents and five-man flight crew. David Beckwith, the vice president’s spokesman, would not say how many people made the trip or how much it cost.

Unemployment falls to

WASHINGTON (AP) The nation’s jobless rate fell to 6.6 per-

lower local contributions from the property tax would require the state to kick in more money drawn from its cash reserves, said Bauer. UNDER THE GOP proposal, about S2OO million in reserves would have to be spent, leaving about S3OO million, said Bauer. “It takes a substantial amount of money to buy that property tax down” to the level proposed by the GOP, said Bauer. Bayh said more negotiations will be needed to work out final details of the $21.6 billion state spending plan. But he said the plan, as now envisioned, would meet his three goals of providing sufficient education funding, protecting some of the state’s cash reserves and avoiding future tax increases. WHILE THE budget talks moved ahead, other loose ends remained. No agreement has been reached on redistricting, the other major issue left unresolved when the Legislature completed its regular session Tuesday. Both parties said they have agreed to reopen talks about new legislative and congressional districts. Bayh urged lawmakers to put redistricting aside until a budget agreement is reached. HE SAID HE TOLD lawmakers he finds it “completely unacceptable” that budget talks have been delayed by bickering over the drawing of new legislative district maps. In addition to redistricting, legislators also discussed other issues that might be brought up at a special session. That list isn’t final, but Phillips said it might have six or more bills, including parimutuel wagering legislation, economic development proposals wanted by Lt. Gov. Frank O’Bannon and some local government bills. Other lawmakers were reluctant to allow that many issues to be discussed at the special session. Bayh and other legislative leaders have said they want a special session to be short, perhaps lasting one day.

“WHAT CBS HAD was a blind estimate, nothing more, it was a guess,” he said. “I don’t have any cost estimates.” The jet seats 12, plus the flight crew. If the maximum of 10 aides and agents were on board plus the five crewmembers the daily expenses for each would be about $333. The interest in use of government aircraft stems from disclosures that White House chief of staff John Sununu traveled extensively on military aircraft for political and personal use. The White House is reviewing records of Sununu’s trips. QUAYLE, LIKE President Bush, uses military aircraft for all personal, political and official travel, due to security and com-

cent in April, an unexpected improvement that marked the first decline in unemployment in nearly a year, the government reported today. The 0.2 percentage point decline in the civilian jobless rate, down from March’s rate of 6.8 percent,

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Saddam Hussein, shown here before the Persian Gulf War surrounded by his army officers, could have been the target of a coup attempt by his own military if the United States had acted faster to support the plan. A report prepared for

Anti-Saddam coup got no U.S. support: Senate report

WASHINGTON (AP) height of the rebellion in Iraq, senior officials in Saddam Hussein’s army approached an Iraqi dissident group in exile with an offer of cooperation, says a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff report. But the planned defection and possibly a coup attempt against Saddam was shelved because the United Slates failed to support it, said the report, written by Peter Galbraith, a senior aide to committee Chairman Claiborne Pell, D-R.I. THE REPORT, ISSUED Thursday, said the would-be Iraqi defectors “contemplated bringing possibly decisive force to the side of the rebels” but first wanted a signal that the United States would be supportive. It attributed the information to unnamed Kurdish and Arab opposition leaders. The State Department declined to respond for the past two weeks to inquiries about the matter, and an official said Thursday that the department probably would save its answer for congressional hearings that are expected later on the administration’s Iraq policy. The Iraqi military officials were dealing with the Joint Action Committee, an alliance of Kurdish, Sunni, Shiite and other Iraqi dissidents formed in Beirut, the report said. IT SAID THE GROUPS Put aside their religious

munications requirements, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. Located on the Georgia-South Carolina border, Augusta is known as “The Garden City of the South.” It has a population of about 208,000. Hotel rooms range from about $25 a night at the Econo Lodge to S3OO for a suite at the historic Partridge Inn. Cottages at Augusta National are expensive, but the club would not disclose its rates. “IT SOUNDS LIKE they may have stayed at Augusta National,” Ms. Fincher said. “If they’d played golf, that would have been some money. None of us know where they were or what they did. It was very hush-hush. They really got in and out very quietly.”

6.6 percent; first drop in a year

was the first decrease in unemployment since last May, when the rate fell from 5.4 percent to 5.3 percent, the Labor Department said. THE NUMBER of unemployed Americans decreased by 300,000 in April, the agency said. However, the government noted that at 8.3

the Senate Foreign Relations Committee claimed the U.S. failed to recognize the coalescing of the Iraqi opposition and thus failed to react in enough time to move the plan forward. (AP photo)

and ethnic differences to concentrate on removing Saddam from power and establishing a more democratic Iraq. But the United States failed to pick up on the change in the opposition groups, the report said. U.S-, officials “continued to see the opposition in caricature,” fearing that the Kurds sought a separate state and the Shiites wanted an Iranian-style Islamic fundamentalist regime, it contended. Relying on a no-contact policy established in 198&, the State Department refused to meet with the opposition groups on several occasions, the report said. “THE PUBLIC SNUB OF Kurdish and other Iraqi opposition leaders was read as a clear indication the United States did not want the popular rebellion to succeed,” it said. Galbraith, who has longstanding ties to the Kurds, visited the Kurdish area of northern Iraq and the Kuwait-Iraq border region in late March and met with Iraqi opposition figures in Damascus, Frankfurt, Paris and Washington. His meetings included sessions with Kurdish party leader Jalal Talabani. During the Persian Gulf War, President Bush had made several public statements urging the Iraqi people to rise up and overthrow Saddam. And he had secretly signed authorizations for the CIA to aid Iraqi dissident groups, intelligence sources.

Mt fll B I j k f I

VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE Expensive golf junket

million, the ranks of the jobless still number more than 1.4 million higher than last July, when the current recession began. Though unemployment fell in April, today’s report also provided a bit of bleak economic news U.S. businesses continued to cut

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jobs last month as non-farm payrolls fell by 125,000. The number of unemployed and the job loss number can differ because they are derived from different surveys. In addition, the total number of the jobless can decrease because people quit looking for work and drop out of the labor force. TODAY’S REPORT also said that while the number of people working in April grew, about half of the increase was in selfemployment, which would riot show up in the payroll survey that showed jobs falling by 125,000.

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