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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 2001)
Bush courts Greenspan as economy worsens By lom Kaum The Associated Press WASHINGTON—The first Presi dent Bush blamed Alan Greenspan for contributing to his 1992 defeat by failing to cut interest rates quickly enough to spur the economy. The second Bush in the White House is seeing his hand strengthened by the same Federal Reserve chairman’s ag gressive rate cuts and unexpected support for tax relief. The slumping economy has accel erated a Bush-Greenspan courtship — and put them into an unusual al liance. The Fed’s half-point cut in a key short-term rate on Wednesday — its second such reduction in a month— should make it easier for Bush to press his case on Capitol Hill for an accompanying tax cut. The Fed move comes less than a week after Greenspan, in a remark able turnabout, sent a major valen tine to Bush, telling a Senate commit tee he now believes that a deep tax cut would help stimulate an econo my posting “close to zero growth. ” In the past, he spumed Bush’s pro posed $1.6 trillion, 10-year tax cut plan, suggesting the surplus should be used to pay down the national debt instead. The warming Bush-Greenspan re lationship comes against the back drop of a worsening economy. A con sumer confidence index released on Tuesday plunged to its lowest level since 1996, more and more compa nies have reported disappointing growth and rolling blackouts and growing debt by utilities are roiling California’s once-vibrant economy. The Fed’s back-to-back interest rate cuts underscore the seriousness with which Greenspan takes the eco nomic slowdown. A Republican economist, Greenspan was first picked for the Fed job by President Reagan in 1987 and reappointed in 1992 by the elder Bush and in 1996 and 2000 by Presi dent Clinton. During last year’s presidential campaign, the younger Bush was noncommittal on whether he would reappoint the widely respected Greenspan if elected. But since winning the election, Bush has actively courted Greenspan. His team gave Greenspan an early heads-up that Bush would nominate Paul O’Neill—the former head of Al coa Aluminum and a longtime friend of Greenspan — as treasury secretary. Bush’s chief economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, served on the Fed under Greenspan. Sometime Bush’s courting of Greenspan has been on the exuber ant side. When the two met in December, Bush clapped a hand on Greenspan’s shoulder and told reporters he was “a good man.” The shy Greenspan ap peared to recoil from the unexpected contact. Bush was lavish in praising Greenspan’s first half-point cut in in terest rates on Jan. 3, reversing the si lence-is-golden policy Clinton had followed. It was apparently not ap preciated by Greenspan. Presidential utterances on Fed moves can have unintended effects. “Mr. Greenspan needs to make his decisions independent of what I think. I learned a pretty good lesson during the transition,” Bush said on Tuesday. “That’s the last time I’m going to comment about the actions that Mr. Greenspan takes. ’ ’ And true to that promise, neither the White House nor the Treasury De partment commented on Wednes day’s Fed move. Greenspan’s detractors — and there are relatively few—suggest the nation’s top banker is too sensitive to political considerations. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., con tends that the Greenspan Fed erred in waiting too long to act on interest rate cuts. “This economic slowdown is not an accident,” he said. It’s a sentiment that the older Bush might endorse—but not the son. Bill would tighten ‘dangerous’ vote-by-mail system By Brad Cain The Associated Press SALEM—An Oregon House com mittee heard warnings that Oregon’s vote-by-mail system is vulnerable to fraud and abuse as the panel opened hearings Wednesday on a bill to out law “bring-your-ballot” parties and other organized ballot collection ef forts. “It’s very dangerous, and it is something we need to make sure doesn’t happen,” said Rep. Betsy Close, R-Albany, who is sponsoring the measure. Others who testified Wednesday said there has been no documented case of voter fraud and that there is no justification for making it more difficult for people to vote by mail. “We see this as an overreaction to a perception of a problem,” Paddy McGuire, deputy secretary of state, told the House Rules, Redistricting and Public Affairs Committee. The panel is considering bills seeking to make various changes in election laws in the wake of last No vember, when Oregon conducted the nation’s first all-mail-ballot general election. The 1998 law authorizing mail bal loting abolished the traditional polling place, although voters can give their ballots to others to deliver for them and they can hand deliver their ballots to “drop sites” instead of putting them in the mail. Close’s measure, HB2087, would eliminate the drop sites and further stipulate that only the voter or a member of the voter’s immediate family could mail in their ballot. The Albany Republican said she mainly is concerned about the door to-door ballot collection efforts that were used by many campaigns, which she said are an invitation to voter fraud. “We need safeguards to maintain the integrity of the ballot,” Close said. The committee also heard testimo ny from Multnomah county elec tions supervisor Vicki Ervin, who has said that unidentified people showed up at the downtown Port land elections office on election night and offered to deposit voters’ ballots for them. Ervin said her office also received many complaints about an unidenti fied woman who set up her own bal lot “drop box” on a street comer in southeast Portland and collected people’s ballots. “Those are the things that create a perception” of problems, Ervin said. Still, she said the Legislature needs to be careful not to place so many re strictions on vote-by-mail that a per son could run afoul of the law sim ply by helping a neighbor or friend deliver a ballot, a view also voiced by McGuire, the deputy secretary of state. “We are concerned that this bill outlaws Good Samaritanship,” McGuire said. Jacqueline Zimmer, a lobbyist for the Oregon Association of Area Agencies on Aging and Disabilities, said ballot drop sites that have proved to be popular at many senior centers would be illegal under Close’s bill. “We want to make sure some of our seniors don’t go to jail for help ing someone else vote,” Zimmer said. Be simple. You pick the heart, we type the text. Stop by or phone 346-4343. Be crazy! Write the most creative message and win a dinner for two at the Outback Steakhouse. name____ phone_■ _ address____ cash/check/credit card # __ writ© message to appear in ad here (If more than 25 words type may be small and hard to read) •ODE employees not eligible to win Of0gCM> IMfy EfflCHiki There is Beauty in Arithmetic. The Nautilus is a mathematical marvel. It constructs its home in an ever-expanding spiral of outward growth, and incidentally creates a work of art in harmony with its environment. 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