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.
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