Copyright 2000 The Washington Post
The Washington
Post
November 4, 2000, Saturday, Final Edition
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A10
LENGTH: 678 words
HEADLINE:
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
BODY:
House
Recesses,
But Budget Work Ahead
The House finally
recessed yesterday, four days before the election, after GOP leaders concluded
there was no reason to stay in town. Congress will reconvene Nov. 14 for a
special "lame duck" session to finish work on the budget.
Although
budget negotiations between Congress and the White House reached an impasse this
week, Republicans kept the House in session in an effort to show that they would
not be pressured by President Clinton.
"The fact is we were willing to
stay and work and stop the president from spending the surplus and getting
federal control of the schools," said House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey
(R-Tex.). "The president thought he could bully us . . . but it was a
miscalculation."
But Democrats dismissed the House Republicans' decision
to stay in town as political grandstanding. Polls indicate that Democrats have a
chance of taking back the House or the Senate, and Democratic leaders argued
that the collapse of the budget negotiations this week illustrates the ineptness
of GOP leaders and will work against them on Tuesday.
"The 106th
Congress--if it ever ends--will go down as one of the most divided and
ineffectual Congresses ever," said Rep. Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.), the ranking
Ways and Means Committee Democrat. "The problem has been a dysfunctional
Republican leadership that cannot make a decision without consulting the
special-interest groups that helped put them in power."
Agriculture Chief Vows
No Cuts in Subsidies
Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman says he has no plans to cut
federal crop subsidies next year, which would decrease if he followed a formula
established in the 1996 farm law.
The government guarantees farmers a
minimum price, known as a "loan rate," for crops such as corn, wheat, soybeans,
rice and cotton. When market prices are below the loan rate, as they are now,
farmers are paid the difference.
The 1996 formula calculates the subsidy
rate based on fluctuations in market prices. Under that formula, the rate for
corn would fall from $ 1.89 per bushel to $ 1.76, the wheat rate would drop from
$ 2.58 to $ 2.43, and the soybean rate would drop from $ 5.26 to $ 4.92.
Agent Sues to Remove
FBI Gag on Operation
A 20-year veteran FBI agent went to court seeking the right to
report to President Clinton and key members of Congress what he considers
serious and criminal misconduct by federal workers during a top-secret,
undercover national security operation.
FBI Director Louis J. Freeh and
Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder have denied agent Joseph G. Rogoskey
permission to relay his allegations to Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine K.
Albright, and House and Senate committees that oversee the FBI.
In a
lawsuit against the FBI and the Justice Department, Rogoskey said that as an
undercover agent he "witnessed acts of serious misconduct and violation of
federal law by employees of the federal government during the course of their
employment."
"We understand all the allegations of government misconduct
have long been appropriately addressed," FBI spokesman Steven Berry said. "The
FBI has not seen the lawsuit and therefore cannot comment."
Study: Medicaid Failing
Many AIDS Patients
Medicaid programs in the four states with the greatest number of
AIDS patients are failing to deliver proper drug treatments to large numbers of
their patients, government-funded research found. Among them, Texas fared the
worst, with almost two-thirds of its patients not getting the powerful AIDS
drugs they need, according to preliminary findings.
Similar problems
were found in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, or ADAP, meant
to help low-income, uninsured people infected with HIV or full-blown AIDS.
The research, conducted under federal contract by the University of
California at San Francisco, measured how many prescriptions were filled for
patients in Medicaid and ADAP. The aim was to provide the first
reliable measure of how many people get the drugs they need.
LOAD-DATE: November 04, 2000
