Surplush
USA
Today and the New York Times
lead with a surprisingly large revised Congressional Budget Office 10-year
estimate of the federal budget surplus, now thought to be as much as a
boom-driven $1.9 trillion, nearly, notes the Times , twice last year's
CBO estimate. The Washington Post gives its whole above-the-fold space to
D.C.'s snowstorm, pushing the surplus down below the fold. The Los Angeles
Times ' top non-local story is the research bombshell that the standard
long-term estrogen/progestin replacement therapy for menopause substantially
increases the risk of breast cancer, a story also fronted by the WP .
The Wall Street Journal front-page news box is topped by
the new surplus estimate, which the LAT stuffs to Page 12.
The coverage states that President Clinton and the leading presidential
candidates quickly weighed in on how they would variously divvy up the surplus
among tax cuts, spending, debt reduction, and Social Security and Medicare
reinforcement. But the front pages contain a built-in reminder not to spend the
money just yet: The surplus stories are juxtaposed with reporting about how the
East Coast's blizzard was such a surprise. The WP notes that Monday, the
National Weather Service used a new IBM supercomputer and enhanced software to
predict a "total accumulation less than one inch."
Both the WP and LAT make it clear that the new hormone study
was quite extensive--conducted over 15 years and covering some 46,000 women.
But the WP says high up that it impacts 8.6 million post-menopausal
women, whereas the LAT doesn't mention menopause until the eighth
paragraph and never mentions the number of women at risk. Both stories mention
that progestin also reduces the risk of uterine cancer, which prompts a
suggestion: It would be helpful if the papers would get in the habit of
accompanying stories about the particular potential cancer risk of a given
substance with a graphic summarizing all its known cancer plusses and
minuses.
The papers go inside with the latest in the Elián González saga: After the
Immigration and Naturalization Service threatened the boy's Miami relatives
with revocation of his permission to temporarily reside in the U.S., they
relented and agreed to allow his visiting grandmothers to see him today. But
the feds also made it clear to the g-moms that they will not be allowed to take
Elián back to Cuba at this time.
The NYT runs a Reuters dispatch saying that China is implementing new
vetting procedures designed to prevent Chinese Web sites from containing state
secrets--which in China, the paper explains, means virtually any information
not specifically approved for publication. The WSJ follows up its report
yesterday that Chinese authorities would require companies doing business
in-country to reveal their encryption software. Today's development is that the
country's spy agency will help ensure compliance. Western countries, the paper
explains, are worried that providing this information will lead to rampant
Chinese knockoffs. Although technology companies aren't saying much officially
about this, the Journal says some will, rather than surrender source
code, simply halt exports to China.
The WP reports that all the presidential candidates submit to
interviews about their pre-political lives in a one-hour MTV special airing
tonight, Where Were You at 22? All, that is, except George W. Bush,
who instead dispatches a cousin and friend to sing his praises. The result,
says the paper, is that "Bush is the only candidate who comes across like he's
got a closet bursting with frat house skeletons."
The WSJ reports that former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, who had
been pressured by Whitewater prosecutors into cooperating with their
investigation as part of a guilty plea deal, was hired last year by an
Indonesian cable TV company controlled by Clinton friend James Riady. This is
significant, the paper explains, because Riady was previously suspected of
paying large consulting fees to Webster Hubbell to buy Hubbell's silence on
various Whitewater topics.
The WP runs an editorial and a letter today bearing on the
controversy sparked when a D.C. taxi commissioner said that cabdrivers should
for their own safety refuse to pick up "dangerous-looking" young black male
passengers and avoid taking fares to "dangerous neighborhoods." Both the
editorial and the letter (from the head of the city cab commission) state that
failing to serve potential clients because of their race and redlining of
neighborhoods are both banned by the city's cab rules. As they should be. But
there's a complication here that both the editorial and the letter overlook,
but that cab drivers cannot: Although the local rules say a cab driver cannot
ignore a fare on the basis of "personal appearance," this obviously can't mean
that drivers must see threatening behavior before refusing to pick someone up.
Imagine for instance that you are a cab driver and around the corner from the
county jail you are peacefully flagged down by a young man in a bright orange
jumpsuit stamped "Property of County Jail." You'd be nuts to pick him up and no
law could possibly make it otherwise, even though he only looks like
trouble.
A doctor writes a letter to the NYT that poses a good question:
Although Bill Bradley and his doctor have discounted his recent heart episodes,
would a doctor examining him to determine eligibility for a $1 million health
and disability policy agree? Perhaps the dailies ought to pose this question to
some insurance company docs.
