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Cato Policy Report, July/August 1996

To Be Governed...

A collection of newspaper clips that speak for themselves

Right, immigrants aren't that dumb

There is no reason to think public schools are a magnet for Mexicans or Haitians to sneak into the United States.

--Chicago Tribune editorial, Apr. 15, 1996

Our pork barrel runneth over

When members of the House Appropriations Committee sat down to draft a Pentagon spending bill for 1997 a few weeks ago, they faced a momentary problem: what to do with all the money.

The Budget Committee, with the blessing of the Republican leadership, had allocated so much for defense--more than $10 billion over what President Clinton wanted--that there were funds left over even after billions of dollars had been designated for accelerated procurement of ships, aircraft and weapons.

The solution was to add almost $1 billion to the National Defense Sealift Fund, a little-known account that is emerging as a major source of business for Gulf Coast and southern California shipyards, which, like other Sun Belt industries, have newfound influence in the GOP-controlled Congress.

--Washington Post, June 30, 1996

No right to safety

Pizza deliverers . . . have been threatened, robbed, assaulted and even killed in the line of duty.

Such incidents are why many restaurants and other businesses refuse to deliver to some parts of town. . . .

The Board of Supervisors [in San Francisco] has . . . passed the first ordinance in the country making it illegal for businesses to single out parts of their normal service area for no deliveries. . . .

"When people advertise that they deliver, they should deliver everywhere," said Willie Kennedy, a member of the Board of Supervisors who pushed for the ordinance after her grandson could not have a pizza delivered to his home.

--New York Times, July 14, 1996

Government helping people

Over a year ago, officers of the White Otter Fish and Game Club in the southern Adirondacks set out to raise $150,000 for a new clubhouse where its dues-paying members could comfortably lounge, drink and swap stories after their duck hunts.

So they turned to an influential ally, a former club president who remains a member. He also happens to be the local State Senator, William R. Sears. . . .

Buried in [New York's] fat spending bills were nearly $1 million in appropriations for his chosen projects, including $150,000 for the private club. Mr. Sears's efforts on behalf of his friends are typical of one of the most secretive and least regulated forms of pork-barrel spending available to the New York State Legislature. It is called the member item. The state money appropriated for Mr. Sears's club was just one of several hundred member items that amounted to at least $150 million last year.

--New York Times, July 14, 1996

Will Dean Clinton flunk the citizens?

"To me, the community college is the institution in America which most clearly reflects how we ought to be organized, how we ought to work together, and what we ought to be trying to do as we move America into the 21st century," [President Clinton] recently told listeners at an advanced technology center at Central Piedmont Community College in North Carolina. "This country would work better if it worked more like a giant community college."

--Washington Post, July 14, 1996

What's the penalty for tearing off the French portion of the little tag on your mattress?

Quebec plans to resume strict enforcement of language laws in the province, where French speakers are in the overwhelming majority. . . .

Quebec leaders offered reassurances that the recommissioned police will have fewer powers and staff than in its heyday in the late 1970s and '80s, when random complaints about illegal English-language signs could lead to on-the-spot justice and fines.

"We can apply it with moderation, with a sense of decency about it, without bringing back the ghost of the language police," said David Payne, a Quebec government official.

--Washington Post, July 14, 1996

How generous

The investors who want to bring a major league baseball team to Northern Virginia offered yesterday to pay about a third of the cost of building a $300 million stadium.

--Washington Post, June 5, 1996

This article originally appeared in the July/August 1996 edition of Cato Policy Report.