SCRAPBOOK
Scrapbook SMATTZ'S JANET RENO PRORTEM Add one more straw to the camel's back of evidence that Janet Reno's Justice Department has ceased to function as an independent law-enforcement agency—and...
...Customs officials initially endorsed the measure heartily...
...The Breindel Foundation will accept additional donations from interested parties...
...The latest example comes from PBS's frontline series of investigative reports...
...Journalists who wish to be considered should submit no more than five editorials or columns, together with a $25 entry fee, before December 31 of each year...
...A NEW PRIZE The Scrapbook is pleased and proud to note the establishment last week of the Eric Breindel Memorial Foundation...
...Joe Henrickson, Frontline further reports, has never been contacted by the Justice Department...
...Simple: They can hire high-skilled foreign nationals on a temporary basis...
...Then labor and the White House got involved, and Customs was forced to withdraw its endorsement...
...federal policy won't allow it...
...Except when they can't...
...Two days later, however, something peculiar happened to the House of Representatives' version of this bill...
...The "American Competitiveness Act," proposed by Sen...
...But it turned out to be not much of a dilemma at all...
...Labor's argument was that the rotating of agents violated the collective bargaining agreement between the Treasury Department and the National Treasury Employees Union...
...In the course of his inquiry, Smaltz stumbled across someone named Joe Henrickson, who had once piloted Tyson's fleet of corporate airplanes...
...CLINTON'S LOVE OF LABOR How far is President Clinton in the pocket of organized labor these days...
...The foundation will administer the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism—a $10,000 prize to be presented annually to the "columnist or editorialist whose work best reflects the spirit that animated the writings of Eric Breindel: love of country and its democratic institutions, as well as the act of bearing witness to the evils of totalitarianism...
...But it's a problem, too, in this respect: In certain occupational categories—relatively well-paid, high-tech positions in particular—there are now more jobs available than there are American workers qualified to do them...
...The dilemma at the White House was over whom to side with, a constituency group or drug fighters...
...But he and his advisers fear Gingrich is asking for trouble...
...Archer thinks this is too cute...
...That's good news, of course...
...The idea is to let the Customs Service rotate its agents, temporarily or permanently, to stop the flow of drugs at crucial (but changing) locations on American borders...
...News Corporation, Breindel's employer and the corporate parent of this magazine, has made a generous initial pledge to the foundation, devoted to Breindel's memory...
...He and Newt do agree on the broader tax issue: Even with a possible cigarette-tax hike, there has to be a net tax cut in 1998...
...NO NET TAX INCREASE!_ House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Bill Archer, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, see eye to eye on most things—but not on cutting the tax rate on capital gains to 15 percent this year...
...The culprit was the infamously immigration-phobic Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas and chairman of Judiciary's immigration subcommittee...
...Whereupon Smaltz wrote a letter to the attorney general asking her to sanction an expansion of his jurisdiction to cover this new testimony about influence peddling...
...Whereupon Janet Reno rejected Smaltz's request and told him the Justice Department itself would investigate Henrickson's allegations about cash payoffs to Bill Clinton...
...Take the plan in the anti-drug bill that came up in the House last week...
...What can American companies do to fill spot labor shortages like these, and thus continue contributing to economic expansion...
...And why not...
...None of them, actually...
...Well, analysts from both the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Tax Committee calculate that the cut wouldn't raise much revenue at all, certainly not enough to offset the killing of the marriage penalty...
...Smith's provisions neuter the bill...
...Spencer Abraham of Michigan, would raise the number of visas for high-skilled workers to 95,000 annually for a period of six years, beginning immediately...
...Henrickson told Smaltz he'd never met Mike Espy...
...Whereupon Tyson Foods began an intensive anti-Smaltz lobbying campaign in Washington—and James Carville began smearing the independent counsel as a "liar...
...Archer would slash the rate to zero if he had his druthers...
...Gingrich believes the reduction from the current 20 percent would generate enough revenue to pay for eliminating the marriage penalty, at least for one year...
...GIVE US YOUR HUDDLED ENGINEERS The American economy is currently purring along at effective full employment...
...Immigration law caps the number of work-related "H-1B" visas for high-skilled foreign nationals at 65,000 each fiscal year...
...But Henrickson also said that he had several times been instructed by Tyson executives to deliver envelopes stuffed with $100 bills to then-governor Clinton in Little Rock...
...Gingrich's response: We'll bring in some outside experts to justify the cut...
...Last week's episode, reported by correspondent Peter Boyer, profiled the experience of Donald Smaltz, the independent counsel appointed to investigate allegations of a corrupt relationship between Tyson Foods of Arkansas, the poultry firm, and former Clinton agriculture secretary Mike Espy...
...Breindel, a distinguished columnist, editor, and WEEKLY STANDARD contributor, died suddenly in March at the age of 42...
...Instead, he would prefer to cut other taxes this year...
...And the bill passed with a resounding bipartisan 78-20 final vote...
...Its address is 1211 Avenue of the Americas, Third Floor, New York, New York 10036...
...More than ever, and even on small matters...
...Will the House leadership reverse Smith's machinations and save the Abraham bill, or does Ted Kennedy have a new set of allies in the Republican House...
...The Judiciary Committee reported it to the floor, complete with Kennedylike pro-union restrictions—only worse...
...And which of the committee's Democrats was able to sneak these Big Labor provisions through...
...If it isn't lifted, at least 30,000 U.S.-based jobs (and the production and tax revenue they would generate) will wither...
...Halfway through fiscal 1998, this year's quota has already been reached...
...Ted Kennedy and the AFL-CIO, who had sought to attach cripplingly restrictive amendments to the legislation, were beaten...
...It was their idea...
...Scrapbook SMATTZ'S JANET RENO PRORTEM Add one more straw to the camel's back of evidence that Janet Reno's Justice Department has ceased to function as an independent law-enforcement agency—and now operates, instead, as a coordinated arm of the president's personal criminal-defense team...
...And they can't right now...
...Last Monday, we're pleased to report, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill to correct this anomaly...
Vol. 3 • June 1998 • No. 37
