The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault in New York. After a summary of the news this Tuesday, we'll have a debate about the tough new guidelines for getting a job in Washington. Then seven leading black authors in a forum on black power. And finally an Anne Taylor Fleming essay on California weather. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton said today he will cut the White House staff by 25 percent, eliminating 350 positions. He said his senior staff will be paid 6 to 10 percent less than President Bush's staff. White House officials said the changes will save about $10 million from an overall White House budget of 200 million. Mr. Clinton told reporters it was all part of his effort to reduce the deficit. He said it was important to cut government spending before asking others to make sacrifices.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I take these steps not simply to save the taxpayers money but also because I believe this smaller White House will actually work better and serve the American people better. Too often in recent years our government has been on automatic pilot. People do things today just because that's the way they were done yesterday. It has grown to satisfy not only the needs of the people but its own needs. America has changed, but Washington hasn't. Now as have so many businesses before, our government must reform itself to regain the people's trust and to be able to take the lead in the challenging decisions which are ahead of us.

MR. LEHRER: White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said today potential presidential appointees were being questioned more closely since the Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood controversies. But she said nobody'skeeping track of how many candidates have been dropped over the taxes and other domestic health issues raised. The New York Times said today at least a dozen potential appointees had been disqualified because of it. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. On another matter, Myers said the President plans to lift the immigration ban on foreigners who have the AIDS virus. He said people with the virus were not considered a threat to public health. He said there was no timetable yet for lifting the ban. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: A judge in Ann Arbor, Michigan, today ordered General Motors not to close its Willow Run plant in Ipsilanti. GM had planned to shut it down and move the operation to Arlington, Texas, eliminating more than 4,000 Michigan jobs. The judge ruled that GM had, in effect, promised to keep the plant open when it was granted tax abatements by Ipsilanti Township in the 1980s. GM officials denied making any such promises. The company will appeal the ruling.

MR. LEHRER: United Nations officials in Geneva today accused Serbs of mounting a new wave of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. The head of the main U.N. refugee organization said at least 5,000 Muslims have fled Eastern Bosnia to the Muslim-held town of Tuzla. They said they had been shelled and starved out of towns near the Serbian border. Fighting continued across Bosnia despite a series of prisoner swaps between the warring parties. Some of the Muslim prisoners showed wounds they said were from beating during their captivity. Haiti today agreed to allow international observers to monitor the human rights situation the country. The U.N. Secretary General hailed the agreement as an effective first step for the restoration of democracy in Haiti. Haiti's military-backed government withdrew from a similar agreement last week.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The Netherlands today adopted Europe's most liberal policy toward mercy killing for the incurably ill. The Dutch parliament left laws against euthanasia on the books, but it voted to protect doctors from prosecution. Thousands of mercy killings are already believed to take place in the Netherlands each year. That's it for the News Summary. Now it's on to the tough job of getting a job in Washington, a black power forum and California weather. FOCUS - SQUEAKY CLEAN

MR. LEHRER: The latest big Washington cause and effect is our lead story tonight. What the Clarence Thomas hearings did for new awareness and practice concerning sexual harassment, the Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood cases are now doing to high level jobs in the U.S. Government and to the vast, non-taxpaying underground economy. The major focus is on hiring illegal immigrants in violations of tax laws for household help. We're going to start tonight with a look at the laws involved in all of this. Deborah Walker is a partner at KPMG Peat Marwick, an international accounting firm. Warren Leiden is executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a professional society for immigration lawyers. Ms. Walker, let's begin with some basics. What is required when somebody is hired to do work around the house, whether it's to mow the lawn, baby sitting, cleaning or whatever?

MS. WALKER: Well, the first thing you have to do is determine whether you've got an employee or an independent contractor. And that's really an issue of control. It depends on whether you control how and when they do the work, whether they bring their own tools. So in the situation where you're hiring somebody to come into your house and take care of your children, clean your house, you supply the tools, you tell them when to be there, when to leave, they're probably an employee. When you hire a lawn service that drives up and brings out all their lawnmowers and their clippers and cuts the grass and leaves, they're probably hired as an independent contractor.

MR. LEHRER: What about the kid down the block who comes, uses your lawnmower and mows your lawn?

MS. WALKER: Well, that's closer to an employee if you tell him when to come and when to do it. On the other hand, if he tells you when he's going to come, we get into a really tough situation, that vast array area. Now you can file a form with the IRS and ask them, and the IRS will look at your facts and circumstances and make a determination.

MR. LEHRER: Let's say you determine that this person is, in fact, an employee under the law. Then what must you do in order to be legal?

MS. WALKER: Well, the first thing you have to do is find out what their Social Security number is. And if, in fact, they don't have a Social Security number, perhaps you suggest that they get a Social Security number by filing a Form FF5. Then ask you pay them on a quarterly basis, you withhold Social Security taxes, or in some cases you can pay that Social Security liability for them. When they are hired as an employee, they're responsible for paying some Social Security taxes, and the employer is responsible for paying the Social Security taxes. And many times with domestic help the employer pays both shares.

MR. LEHRER: Go ahead.

MS. WALKER: Okay. Then quarterly you file a Form 942 paying these taxes, and then the next thing you have to do is annually give them a W2.

MR. LEHRER: What about -- just speaking of W2's, do you have to withhold income tax?

MS. WALKER: No. Income tax is not required to be withheld for domestic help. So it's just the Social Security.

MR. LEHRER: So there are what, about nine or ten forms for employees that have to be filed over the course of a year?

MS. WALKER: Probably more like six or seven. But sure, you have quarterly 942s. You have an annual 940 form for unemployment taxes. You have a W4 form. If you don't have an employer ID number, the IRS will issue you an employer ID number when you first file your Form 942, the very first employer form for domestic help, however, some people apply for an employer ID number.

MR. LEHRER: As a practical matter, how widespread is ignoring this?

MS. WALKER: Well, it's hard to say. I think probably most people just aren't aware of the issues, and certainly Congress is aware of the problem. In many pending legislation or the tax legislation that was passed last year and not signed by the President, we were going to simplify it all by putting it on your annual 1040 form.

MR. LEHRER: You mean alert you to the fact that you had to do this?

MS. WALKER: We would require you to pay the tax with that form, and that way people when they're filling out their 1040 forms would think about other tax liabilities that they might have, which I think would increase awareness, and certainly recent news events have increased awareness.

MR. LEHRER: Before recent news events, what was the attitude of the IRS and the Social Security Administration and all other government agencies involved in enforcing the things that you just outlined?

MS. WALKER: Well, I think the IRS, of course, the IRS is there to enforce the law, but they are also there to make sure that people understand the law and then that they comply with the law. So people say to me, well, you know, I'm afraid to pay my back taxes because they're going to do something to me. Well, the IRS is interested in getting people complying with the law as it stands today. And they want all the back taxes, the interest, and the penalties, but you're not going to go to jail for filing these back taxes. You're not going to be considered a bad person. You know, what we would advise anybody to do was file the back taxes, pay the interest and penalties and go on from here. And you'd sleep at night. You've done everything you should do, and it's too bad you didn't do it when you were supposed to.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Mr. Leiden, now, let's go to the illegal immigrant's side of this. First of all, how does the person that - - going back to the example that Ms. Walker just used. You're about to hire somebody. How does the employer determine -- whether you're a huge employer or whether you're just hiring somebody to baby sit a child -- how do you determine whether or not that person is, in fact, a legal or an illegal immigrant?

MR. LEIDEN: Well, you don't have to determine that. What you need to provide -- receive from the employee is certain documents that evidence their identity and whether they have employment authorization. If they can provide those documents and there's a Chinese menu list of column A, column B and column C of the right documents, if they provide that document, that's the only inquiry you can make as an employer without committing an act of discrimination against a person.

MR. LEHRER: Give me -- run through that. I don't -- I'm not sure --

MR. LEIDEN: Let me explain it from the top. At the same time you are hiring someone, and only at the time of hiring, you must complete an employment eligibility verification form. The Justice Department provides a 36-page booklet explaining how to complete this form. It begins with the employee stating their name and their address.

MR. LEHRER: This is for every employee or one that you suspect may not be a legal immigrant?

MR. LEIDEN: This is for everybody, every employee.

MR. LEHRER: All right.

MR. LEIDEN: And the reason it's for every employee is because if you only filled this out --

MR. LEHRER: It would be discriminatory.

MR. LEIDEN: It would be discriminatory. So you must fill it out, all employers for all employees.

MR. LEHRER: All the people that we were just talking about with Ms. Walker, everybody who you hire in any kind of capacity should fill out one of these 36-page --

MR. LEIDEN: Everyone who qualifies an employee for Social Security purposes must have a --

MR. LEHRER: I'm going to quit interrupting you in a minute, I promise.

MR. LEIDEN: -- verification form completed.

MR. LEHRER: Okay.

MR. LEIDEN: The employee does the first part. They give you their name, address, and a statement under the penalty of perjury that they're a citizen, a lawful permanent resident, or that they have employment authorization from the Justice Department. The employer then completes the rest of the form, which is the statement that they've examined the documents, listing the documents that they have examined, and then signing the form. That form then must be kept, not sent anywhere, but kept at the place of employment for at least three years, or one year after the termination of the employee. Failure to complete the document, to keep it on the premise, or obviously the hiring of an unauthorized immigrant worker would all subject the employer to a fine.

MR. LEHRER: Let's say that the employee says, well, we'll get two scenarios here -- the employee says, yes, I'm legal, and the fact is it turns out the employee is not. Is the -- where does the obligation of the employer to establish the legality end, just with this form?

MR. LEIDEN: No. Initially, if the employee says I'm not on lawful status, then the employer knows that they would be hiring someone who, regardless of the document, they would know, and a knowing hire is a violation. So a person would be subject, the employer would be subject to a fine. But, frankly, not many people come forward and say that. The employee is much more likely to say, here's my driver's license, here's my Social Security card, I'll sign your form.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. And if you look at it and they look reasonable to you, you're clean as far as the employer?

MR. LEIDEN: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let's say the employee says as a matter of fact, I'm not legal right now, I'm trying very hard to become legal, and if you fill out a form and if you send in Social Security, you do anything, you're going to jeopardize my whole life, please don't do that, I need money and I want to get started, I love this country, I want to be an American. Then what do you do?

MR. LEIDEN: There are thousands of employees in exactly that situation today. And many of their employers, even knowing, they're admitting that they're breaking the civil law, even so, they will petition for people, they'll seek labor certification, they pay taxes, they pay Social Security, and they take their chances essentially.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Mr. Leiden, thank you. Now, how is the Clinton White House applying the new awareness of these laws to the process of finding an attorney general and other top appointments? Well, Stuart Taylor has been covering this part of the story for the publications "The American Lawyer" and "Legal Times." And the question, Stuart, is, taking what we have heard, of these laws that these two folks have just explained, what must a potential high level employee of the Clinton administration must have done or not done? Bad question but I'm sure you followed me.

MR. TAYLOR: Right. Well, what the White House said yesterday through George Stephanopoulos, the communications director, is that it would probably be disqualifying if anybody had hired an illegal alien.

MR. LEHRER: Under any circumstances?

MR. TAYLOR: Under any circumstances. I mean, this is not the President talking. This is Stephanopoulos, but he didn't -- it was a fairly categorical suggestion. He was much vaguer on the question of compliance with Social Security, which raises much squishier questions. Well, what about the kid who came in and cut the lawn fifteen or ten years ago, and you paid him 55 bucks but you forgot to file a Social Security three months later because he never came back? Frankly, a lot of people might say, I'll cut the grass myself from now on rather than wade through a 36-page form. But they have said they are going to ask everyone who's under consideration for any important job -- remember, this started at the Justice Department, but it's now sprawling across the whole government. They're going to ask every prospective, high level appointee: Have you ever violated the law against hiring illegal aliens? And they're going to ask all of them: Have you ever violated the Social Security tax requirements that we heard described earlier. They've been a little vague on what the result would be if the answer was, well, I've slipped a little bit on the Social Security tax, as is true of Ron Brown, their Commerce Secretary.

MR. LEHRER: Just for the record, Ron Brown was not a -- this was pre -- his confirmation hearing were pre Zoe Baird, so he was not asked about that, nor was anybody else before Zoe Baird, am I right about that?

MR. TAYLOR: Zoe Baird wasn't asked about it. Zoe Baird volunteered the information, which is more than a lot of other people have done in government through our time. And so -- but now they're going to ask everybody these questions. They haven't made it clear whether they're going to ask everyone the question they didn't ask Judge Kimba Wood, which is not only have you ever violated the law against hiring illegal aliens, but did you ever hire an illegal alien before it was made illegal for the first time, in 1986 I think it was, but they apparently are going to require a very strict dragnet test. They haven't been quite clear on exactly how you pass the test, although they've suggested that you flunk it if the answer to have you ever hired an illegal alien is yes.

MR. LEHRER: All right, now the New York Times reported today that there were at least a dozen high level people, potential high level appointees who have fallen by the way side because they didn't pass these kinds of tests. Does your reporting bear that out, or what can you add or subtract?

MR. TAYLOR: Yes. I think that's probably -- I couldn't name a dozen, but I think that's probably on the low side. There were a couple of people named in the Wall Street Journal today. Obviously this is not something that anybody wants to publicize if they have a problem, so we don't have people calling us up, saying, well, I just got knocked off because I didn't pay Social Security on my housekeeper. But I think it's in -- if you look at the talent pool from which this administration is choosing people, I think you would find that at least on the payment of Social Security taxes for anybody who works in your house, the level of non-compliance is probably very high. The IRS's own estimate is that 75 percent plus of the people who have people work in their house do not comply with the Social Security tax requirements.

MR. LEHRER: 75 percent.

MR. TAYLOR: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: Four members of Congress came out today and voluntarily said that they had violated the Social Security aspect of this, one of them being a U.S. Senator, and so you would expect more of this, I guess.

MR. TAYLOR: That's right. And there's a dragnet out now. I mean, the newspapers are surveying people. Every time a cabinet secretary goes on a talk show, somebody says, you know, have you ever had an illegal alien or a Social Security tax unpaid housekeeper? You might remember --

MR. LEHRER: Now that's the question before they ask about Bosnia or something else.

MR. TAYLOR: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: AP did a survey of every member of the cabinet, and now they're going through the Congress of the United States as well. That's why some of these people did it on their own I think.

MR. TAYLOR: And they have passed over one highly qualified candidate for attorney general named Charles Roth, a Washington lawyer with a firm called Coving & Burling, a former Watergate special prosecutor, because he admitted to them that until this January when it became a big issue, he had failed to pay Social Security taxes for an occasional cleaning lady. He said he didn't realize that she was covered by the law and believed because she was rather elderly and he thought that once you get up to a certain age, you can't accumulate Social Security anymore, but he was knocked off. Now what he did --

MR. LEHRER: And he was knocked off not for an -- she wasn't an illegal immigrant.

MR. TAYLOR: No.

MR. LEHRER: He had just -- she was -- she had just failed to pay the Social Security.

MR. TAYLOR: What he did is very similar to what Ron Brown has now admitted doing but Ron Brown, maybe he's grandfathered, because he's already the Commerce Secretary.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now how fair and right is it to test prospective appointees on these issues? We get two views on this. Mary Cheh, a professor of law at George Washington University here in Washington, Joan Claybrook is president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy lobbying group. Joan Claybrook, is this all right?

MS. CLAYBROOK: No, I don't think so. You have 75 percent non- compliance approximately now. And that does not lead other people to respect the law. And I think the people who run the government and who are in the highest offices, the brightest and the best, should obey the law.

MR. LEHRER: They should be brighter and better and cleaner than the rest of us.

MS. CLAYBROOK: Well, I think that they should leave -- that should be the standard that they set and that this law ought to be obeyed. I agree that it should be adjusted, because there is so little compliance. There obviously are problems beyond just people not wanting to comply. And it is a pain in the neck, but, nevertheless, I think that people ought to comply, and this is certainly a very good way of encouraging people to do so.

MR. LEHRER: Mary Cheh, how do you feel about it?

MS. CHEH: Well, one thing you have to do is put this in perspective in terms of the policy, if you can call it a policy, of the White House. This policy, it seems to me, is the product of something near hysteria in the White House as it's reacting day by day to the crisis it has created itself over the appointment of a woman to the post of attorney general. They fumbled all along the way, and they're in this unenviable position of being now charged by women's groups with applying a double standard, because both prospective attorney generals fell on compliance or sort of non- compliance.

MR. LEHRER: Two out of the three, Charles Roth, who also fell on a similar issue.

MS. CHEH: That's right. That's right. But you have to understand what's driving this so-called policy. What's driving the so-called policy are the charges that the Clinton administration is applying a double standard, because the women in particularly were the ones who prominently fell. And so it's not the product of a thoughtful, considered judgment about whether these kinds of behaviors should be disqualified. I agree with Joan that, you know, prospectively maybe we want to have a certain attitude. I also agree that you may want to ask questions about this kind of behavior in the future. But we ought to sort of grab hold of some reasonableness here before we start a witch hunt in the federal government to try to ferret out people who may have violated these laws.

MR. LEHRER: Joan Claybrook, what about that point, that it may be all well and good to say that we don't want people in the government who have violated any laws at all, but that this particular thing is the result almost of a backdoor accident that happened because, as Stuart said, Zoe Baird chose to confess that she had done this? This isn't the result of anybody in the White House or anywhere else deciding we want to have a clean government.

MS. CLAYBROOK: But Clinton has said that he wants a clean government, No. 1.

MR. LEHRER: Okay.

MS. CLAYBROOK: And there are many questions that you could ask when you go into these interviews for these offices. And you ask if there's anything that you've done that might embarrass the President, so there are many, many different things. This isn't the only standard that knocks you out, for example, if you've violated or behaved in some way or another. But I think that this has been a persistent problem. It's an upper class problem. It's something that people have knowingly done in most cases, not every case, and I think that it, it's the kind of standard that ought to be applied.

MR. LEHRER: You say it's an upper class problem but my reading of it is that there are an awful lot of single, working mothers, middle income mothers who are much more impacted by this than the so-called "nanny-gate" type --

MS. CLAYBROOK: I wouldn't be surprised if they more likely obeyed the law too, because I think the other issue here is that you have people who are very highly educated in this instance that we're talking about in going to the government. Many of them are lawyers, and they know better, and they have the money to pay for it. I mean, I think that it's just, it really is very outrageous behavior on their part.

MR. LEHRER: Now, she's right about that, isn't she, Mary Cheh? I mean, we're talking about people who have law degrees, who have access to the very best for financial and educational reasons. Why shouldn't they obey these laws no matter how difficult they are, no matter how many forms there are to be filled out?

MS. CHEH: I think we're misportraying the question. To suggest that the persons who violate the hiring of undocumented workers or who fail to pay Social Security for any worker in their house, as was described, who earns more than $50 in a quarter are people who are arrogantly, the high and mighty, arrogantly going about with knowing disrespect for the law, not complying with the law, is completely off the mark. The fact of the matter is that much of these violations, particularly of the hiring of illegal aliens or undocumented workers, is the product of a good deal of confusion that maybe this kind of discussion we're having here today might clear up. But you have this anomalous situation in the immigration area where you have people who are contacting the government, describing undocumented workers for whom they are then available for sponsorship, and everybody knows that the law was not enforced, that it has not been enforced in that context. We also know --

MR. LEHRER: I'm not sure I followed you there.

MS. CHEH: Well, for example, say you were to pick up the newspaper today. I've seen these ads where people are looking for child care workers and they say, will sponsor. It's practically a statement saying apparently the law is now described, which was confusing to me at any event, that you may be an undocumented worker, but you come and work for me, and I will sponsor you to show that, you know, no citizen will take your job, and thereby in due course you will get a green card. But everybody understands - -

MR. LEHRER: But that's illegal when you do that, is that right, Mr. Leiden?

MS. CHEH: Apparently --

MR. LEIDEN: Well, it is, and the problem is --

MR. LEHRER: In other words, the person who does the hiring is violating the law technically?

MR. LEIDEN: Right. And there is no -- despite this legitimate need -- there's no prompt lawful way to hire -- under current law - - to hire an immigrant when you can't find a qualified U.S. worker to take the job. So people and two career families, our attorney members find that we're talking about a household income of eighty thousand, ninety thousand, a hundred thousand. Many federal government workers, two career families qualify. It's hardly the high and mighty. And as far as the hiring an immigrant goes, there's no prompt, lawful way to do it. They're caught in the trap.

MS. CHEH: And there's something else to be said here. You know, when the Kimba Wood case came up, there was a lot of discussion about distinguishing between Zoe Baird's problem and Kimba Wood's problem. We've even heard it here tonight. But I want to point out a similarity between Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood and a similarity that runs from the problem that those women had in trying to find child care, an immediate need for child care in the home, that many many women face all the way down the line. The thing that links those two women is the fact that they both needed child care. What separates them, you might say, is the fortuity that Kimba Wood's child was born before Zoe Baird's was, and she was able to hire an undocumented worker without the law applying to her. They have all sorts of situations, women who bring their children to day care that are unlicensed, pay in cash, that have baby sitters coming, bridging the time between when they're home from school and when they come home from work. I think it runs throughout the society, and I think Clinton is making a big mistake, providing the worst answer to the problem by having a rule that may harm mostly women, because many men don't have this problem. They married their child care workers.

MR. LEHRER: Joan Claybrook.

MS. CLAYBROOK: First of all, the average income in America is $30,000. If you have $90,000 income, you're in the upper top percent. And so you do have much greater flexibility and ability to hire. Secondly, no qualified American worker, I think, is often an excuse and may be racist. And I think it's very unfortunate --

MR. LEHRER: In what way would it be racist?

MS. CLAYBROOK: Well, that you don't want to hire a black. Mostly people who would come into your home, who could do child care, who could stay long hours, often are, people who would do that are black. And that issue certainly has been raised. But I don't think that any of those are the real issues. To me the real issue here is, is it appropriate -- the question you've asked -- is it appropriate for the Clinton administration to ask top officials at the government if they have violated the law in this respect? And this has obviously become a very frequent event in our society, and I think that he's right to say this is not acceptable.

MR. LEHRER: What about the point that Mary Cheh made and others have made that this is basically discriminatory against women?

MS. CHEH: Well, I think that it is discriminatory in some sense to focus on one particular aspect where women are more involved. But, on the other hand, there's an easy remedy. All you got to do is pay the tax or file the papers. I mean, most women know how to do this. They are -- you know, they are very competent, these women that we're talking about, and there's no reason that they can't do this. This is not -- this does not mean you don't get child care.

MR. LEHRER: And your point is that if somebody listening here tonight heard something that, oh, my goodness, I'm in violation of the law, you're saying that they could go forward now and probably not pay -- not go to jail, not be hauled off in the middle of the night --

MS. WALKER: Pay their back taxes.

MR. LEHRER: Right.

MS. WALKER: Penalties.

MR. LEHRER: Pay their back taxes, and all will be forgiven?

MS. WALKER: Well, you'd sleep at night.

MR. LEHRER: Well, you'd sleep at night, but maybe not forgiven. Well, Mary Cheh, you can't argue that, can you?

MS. CHEH: No. Maybe there is a consensus forming here. Maybe we've had this national seminar on what it takes to comply with the law.

MR. LEHRER: They call it a teach-in --

MS. CHEH: That's fine. If we go forward, and we're sensible and we show some proportionality here, you know, there are all sorts of laws that people violate, aren't there? I mean, people spit on the sidewalk, none of us here probably, but people do spit on the sidewalk.

MS. CLAYBROOK: Speed, they speed.

MS. CHEH: People speed. I'm sure people violate recycling laws. I mean, have any of you actually mixed up some garbage that should have been just glass and cans?

MR. LEHRER: No comment.

MS. CHEH: You know, a while back smoking marijuana was thought to be disqualifying. Should we return to that? Is any infraction of the law -- what about people in an earlier period, if we want to be so moralistic and certain about where goodness lies, how about the many people for the longest time who were held out of the government because they were -- they dodged the draft? It may sound familiar. Maybe we have people in office now who had, who had a similar problem. Or people who smoked marijuana. Maybe they inhaled or maybe they didn't inhale.

MS. CLAYBROOK: But those are young people. We're talking about people who are in the maturity of their life, who know better, who know the law, who have a reason to ask, and there's another thing that we haven't mentioned, which is we're denying people their retirement. I mean, this is not something where it doesn't harm somebody. This harms somebody.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Explain that, because if they, the worker who doesn't get the Social Security, the Social Security is based on the number of quarters you actually --

MS. WALKER: The amount of money that you make.

MR. LEHRER: The amount of money you make, so they are being penalized.

MS. CLAYBROOK: That's right. Because you have to have a certain number of quarters in order to qualify, and then the amount of your benefit depends on how much you earned. And if some of -- if you're a day worker and some people report for you and some people don't, or baby sitter, then you're going to get a lower benefit, and these are people at the margin of society anyway in terms of their income.

MS. WALKER: Bear in mind that you also get a spousal benefit in some cases. So a lot of times, in fact, those workers would prefer not to pay Social Security because their wages as a survivor, as a spouse, are going to be much higher then.

MS. CLAYBROOK: Many of these people though are single. Many of them are there --

MS. WALKER: And to the extent --

MS. CLAYBROOK: But it doesn't matter whether they are or not, because that's the way the Social Security law is set up.

MR. LEHRER: I'll tell you what does matter. Our teach-in is over tonight. Thank you, all five of you, for being with us.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Still ahead, a black power forum and an essay on California weather. FOCUS - POWER TO THE PEOPLE?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next tonight, a special Black History month focus. Last week, seven African-American writers came together at a forum sponsored by the Ganaugh Publishing Group. They were Derrick Bell, author of "Faces at the Bottom of the Well, The Permanence of Racism;" Elaine Brown, author of "A Taste of Power, A Black Woman's Story;" Stanley Crouch, author of "Notes of a Hanging Judge, Essays and Reviews 1979-1989;" Ralph Ellison, author of "Invisible Man;" John Edgar Wideman, author of "Philadelphia Fire;" Patricia Williams, author of "The Alchemy of Race and Rights;" and Kwame Ture, who co-authored "Black Power, The Politics of Liberation." In the late '60s, Ture was a leading civil rights activist known as Stokely Carmichael. And his call for black power back then was a turning point in the civil rights movement. As moderator of the panel, I put the first question to him.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I read a quote recently by the activist Angela Davis who said that "The predicament of black people today is as bad as I have ever seen it in my lifetime." Starting with you, Kwame, do you agree with that statement, and, if so, what happened to the highly energizing, galvanizing force of black power, which you first articulated in our generation back in 1968?

KWAME TURE: Well, I would say with Comrade Angela Davis that is the best of times and is the worst of times. And I think that in this case it must make clear analysis. There is no question that the traditions of Africans in this country are worse than ever before. But there's also no question that the consciousness of Africans in this country are higher than ever before. If you will look more and more, you will see that the African masses, especially since April of last year in Los Angeles, their instincts for struggle are clear. They have no intention of submitting to any force of capitalism. What is lacking, however, between the '60s and the '90s, and here a lot of confusion arises, is the difference between mobilization and organization. When we become organized, we will make proper revolution in the United States of America.

STANLEY CROUCH: Well, there we are. I think the idea that Afro Americans are in the worst condition they've ever been in is absolutely ridiculous. The problem often that we have is that we attempt to separate what happens to people of color, as we used to be called, in this country from the great waves of the society at large, i.e., the decline of public schools, the nature of political corruption, a number of things that affect everybody in the United States have affected us. And we can't -- we're not in some side pocket of reality that has nothing to do with the sweep of the society.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, let me ask you --

STANLEY CROUCH: Further, with over 3,000 black officials of various positions of power presently active who were not there 30 years ago, with almost every major city governed by a black mayor, with the whole visual vision of what constitutes America being changed by the presence of many different black people, from athletes like Michael Jordan all the way over to people like Tom Bradley, from Bill Cosby, et cetera, I don't think we can really, I don't think we can be, we can be so reductive and defeatist about what has happened, to just lump it over into, into another Marxist simplification of things. It falls down into haves and have nots, when Duke Ellington said quite correctly the problem in the United States is probably really the problem of the haves and the want mores.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I want to pursue some of the points you raised, but let me ask you this, because you said at a certain point that black power was the worst thing that ever happened to the black movement.

STANLEY CROUCH: I think that black power, as Mr. Carmichael -- excuse me, sir, Mr. Ture, and --

KWAME TURE: A rose by any name still smells the same.

STANLEY CROUCH: Yeah. That's true.

KWAME TURE: This is revolutionary.

STANLEY CROUCH: I understand, as we all do. Well, what happened was that it splintered the movement. We had a multi-racial movement that was splintered by black power, that what was engendered by black power was a lot of race baiting. We have -- Mr. Carmichael - - popularized the term --

DERRICK BELL: You said that in '67. You can't believe that today. I mean, you said that back 20 years ago, 15 years ago. You can't believe that today.

STANLEY CROUCH: Well, wait a minute. Are we going to deal with what actually happened then, or are we not?

DERRICK BELL: Well, I'm just saying -- clarification --

STANLEY CROUCH: Are we, are we not, Derrick? Now, I mean, did - -

DERRICK BELL: Do you still believe that?

STANLEY CROUCH: That honkey baiting and all that was very bad for politics, yes, I think so. And I think that we're still suffering from the leftover residue that has created a lot of resentment in many different pockets of the United States, many which you probably had to deal with yourself.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, let's let Elaine Brown in on this.

ELAINE BROWN: I was one of those '60s people that looked at Stokely Carmichael on television and was mesmerized by the notion of power and by empowerment. I think that Kwame is absolutely correct in his analysis of the conditions today, the conditions - - we are not talking about three baseball players. I'm not impressed by Michael Jordan getting a Nike contract. I don't think that has anything to do with the masses of our people today or yesterday. And the fact that he has that is because Watts blew up, is because there was mobilization, was because there were organizations. That is why he has a Nike contract, not because he plays basketball so well, though he does, and this is not to isolate him, but to talk about we can't deal with stars and movie stars or events. But I would like to get back just to the question of the reference back to this issue of black power. I think that the consciousness is high. I have seen that consciousness, but the poverty and the isolation and the racism is more imbedded in this country because it's in the fabric of this country. This culture of racism has passed down through to this day. It has never been addressed seriously other than by black people. And now we have Aretha Franklin singing at the inaugural and all is okay. No, it is not okay. So I don't care how many black mayors there are in America, notwithstanding Tom Bradley. I do not care because the fact is that the economic power and that the main power in this country is, there is still a divided country. We are still Africans lost in America as far as I'm concerned, and that we do have to address our issues on our own because I don't believe that there's an agenda for assimilation and as for me, I don't want to be assimilated into an environment that has committed genocide on other peoples, that has endorsed chattel slavery and institutional oppression.

KWAME TURE: Comrade Stanley says that now we have all these mayors. In 1965, the Africans rebelled in Watts. Yorty was mayor, a white man. You can call him a racist. In 1992, they rebelled. Bradley is mayor. He is an African. What is the objective difference here. The only difference is that American capitalism in order to try and deceive the people tries to give us visibility without any power at all.

ELAINE BROWN: Right.

KWAME TURE: As you, yourself, point out, Comrade Stanley, Africans in this country have more elected officials than any other group in the country. We have no power at all.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you agree with that, Derrick Bell?

DERRICK BELL: First of all, most of the mayors are in very small areas. We talk about 3,000 elected officials. Most of them are in very small areas, and usually --

STANLEY CROUCH: There are seven thousand actually, I'm sorry.

DERRICK BELL: Seven thousand. And usually without -- they're not politically potent positions. But if you ask me would I rather have them in or not, I'd rather have them in. But we have to look realistically to what being in office really means. It means more than nothing, but nothing like what we had hoped political power would bring.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Ralph Ellison, your vision spans a longer period than many of the people on this panel, longer than Angela Davis in the original quote. How do you respond to her analysis and what you've heard here? I mean, is the predicament of black people as bad as all that?

RALPH ELLISON: Well, in the first place, I have difficulty in separating Americans into utterly opposed groups. What we don't want to recognize is that this country is being created. It's in a process of improvisation and we all take part. There has to be some reason for protest groups. I've been a protester, and but there are many ways of protesting. The other thing to say is that the country won't change just because it becomes more integrated. It has to be a continuous process, a conscious process, and one where we all accept a diversity and yet the unity within that diversity. Does that sound Marxist enough, Derrick?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Professor Williams, let's get your take on this in terms of best of times, worst of times, progress, no progress. What's your analysis?

PATRICIA WILLIAMS: Well, I'm probably on the pessimistic side of things, but I would express it very differently. Yes, there are blacks in power who are used as the exception to prove the rule, but there are also blacks in power who literally want to jump out of their skins like Michael Jackson, who wants a young white boy to play his part. This level --

KWAME TURE: In what?

PATRICIA WILLIAMS: Of him as a youth in his movie. And it seems to me this level of what the civil rights legacy and the black power legacy has devolved to, which is almost an assimilation into -- it has always been present in the black community, but now goes completely uncritiqued, completely unseen as a kind of psychosis that is very much part of the interdependence of white and black relations in this country, and of all immigrants sort of an ideal that -- I don't know how we address that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Patricia Williams, you said a lot of things on the table, but the one that I want to pick up on, is there a single agenda for black people? Is there a single black community, and how do you deal with the nuance nature of African-Americans in terms of developing solutions to the problem? I think John Edgar Wideman wants to get in on this.

JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN: Well, I would hope there is no single agenda, because nobody's smart enough to put together an agenda that doesn't have just as much chance of taking us to heaven or to hell as to heaven. Why would we want a single agenda? Who do you want to speak for you? I don't want anybody to speak for me. I think some people I can agree with. Some people I certainly would support with my life, but I'm not going to put my faith into someone else's hands.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, are you as pessimistic as most of the other panel is about the achievements that African-Americans have won since say the late '60s?

JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN: Well, I'm very pessimistic, very, very pessimistic, simply because in many ways I agree with Mr. Ellison, and that is our fate is tied up with the fate of America, at least until we do something very drastically differentas a group. And it's -- America's fate, of course, is tied up with the world's fate.

STANLEY CROUCH: We are not going to change anything that happens to us if you do not -- if we do not make the condition of the problem an American problem. As long as the problem exists as a problem for some splinter group, you know, that group is not going to be able to affect, it's not going to be able to affect enough people to begin to change policy.

DERRICK BELL: The fact is that this country's policy doesn't measure it as good or bad the same way we do. It measures what is in the country's interest, or at least those who are able to make a policy, and, therefore, blacks can be pleading, praying, petitioning, revolting, whatever we do, it won't make any difference until there is a perception that what we want will move the society in the way that they want it to go.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Isn't that -- but isn't that what was said earlier, that the fate of African-Americans is tied to America?

KWAME TURE: No, it's a different thing.

ELAINE BROWN: That's a different perception.

KWAME TURE: It's a very different thing.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, I'm just asking you to clarify it. What is the difference?

DERRICK BELL: Whenever this country sees that there is a benefit to it, albeit a sacrifice to us, we'd better get ready for that sacrifice. On the other hand, when that which we want corresponds with, with that that seems in the country's interest, such as getting rid of official segregation, which had outlived its usefulness by the end of World War II, then, then we with great struggle and sacrifice are able to do that which the country wants. Now what happened, and the thing that causes me so much pain, having worked on all this stuff, is to see that notwithstanding the advances and the changes, the fact is that equal opportunity has rendered us in many ways worse off than we were under separate but equal.

STANLEY CROUCH: Powerless, exactly.

DERRICK BELL: And how could have ever imagined that that would happen?

ELAINE BROWN: Exactly.

DERRICK BELL: You see. But we did exactly what we thought what was in our interest that was in the country's interest more than it was in our interest, and has rendered us worse off, worse able to help those of us, which is a substantial percentage, down on the bottom.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Can you be specific about how, Derrick, give me a couple of examples?

DERRICK BELL: When I grew up in the '30s and '40s, all black people lived in one area in Pittsburgh. I don't care whether you were a working person or a professional or what have you. My models, the people who caused me to want to go to law school, were people I delivered the paper to and who encouraged me. Those people, including myself, don't live in those communities because equal opportunity has allowed us to move out. My audiences say to me, you keep talking about that racism, Bell, but you're black, you must have faced discrimination, you made it --

ELAINE BROWN: You made it.

DERRICK BELL: -- why can't the rest of them do like you? But my very success becomes an --

ELAINE BROWN: Used against you.

DERRICK BELL: -- excuse to do nothing for the folk. And what I have to do every day is remind myself that I am an evil and the question is whether I'm going to be a necessary evil, you see.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Stanley Crouch, you don't agree with that?

STANLEY CROUCH: I think it's absurd. I think --

DERRICK BELL: Mark that word. When they carry him --

KWAME TURE: What's that -- which way -- absurd -- [laughter in room]

STANLEY CROUCH: I cannot give in to Mr. Bell, to Mr. Carmichael, or to Ms. Brown and Ms. Williams, that in some way that we have no effect on what happens. The only thing that we ever do is, is perform in some pulpit where -- who moves at the behest of the national interest, the national interests are often affected by the vision that we bring into the dialogue, and we are the people who have -- it was because of what happened to us at the end of reconstruction that the whole question of state's rights versus - - and the interpretation of the Constitution and the relationship of the federal government to the Constitution became -- started a 90-year struggle in which we ended up affecting people like Lyndon Johnson finally, who changed all kinds of things.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I guess, Kwame Ture, you want to respond, right?

KWAME TURE: We need to go back to process. I think that's where the confusion is, because some Africans in this country have arrived at certain positions which they didn't dream about when they were five-years-old, forty-two years ago, consequently, if you're speaking about integration, you must speak about the process. Everything that Africans got in this country, just reform, which everybody else gets, we have to shed our blood! As a matter of fact, we're the only people who shed blood for reform, not even for revolution! To sit at a lunch counter, you got to shed your blood. to get on the bus where you want to sit, you got to shed your blood. To go to school where you want to go to school you got to shed your blood. To live in a community where you want to live you got to shed your blood. You cannot name me one advancement that Africans have made in this country without having shed our blood! And when you think that that blood has now been shed, and you come to occupy the position and forget the process which brought you there, it's an act of betrayal.

JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN: I think that the idea in this country, the idea of race, is a fundamental poison, and that as a source of this country it has continued to flourish unchanged from Day One from the time that Europe and Africa first met in the 1400s, 1300s. From that point, racism began to develop as an idea, as a poison. And white identity, European identity, is so closely related and intertwined with this flourishing racism that we cannot attempt any longer to address white interests when we try to resolve problems of race, because the white interest is in racism.

ELAINE BROWN: I don't think that race is the sole issue. I think I'm talking about oppression. I'm talking about people who are poor. I'm talking about poor whites. I'm talking about native peoples who are here that everyone has abandoned in their agendas. But as for the black agenda, I suggest that there are two big things that we might address in terms of agenda; one, at the highest level of government to protest to, to push for, for example, Clinton not Bush being President now, to say, listen, let's settle some of these questions, let's acknowledge that there was a crime of chattel slavery, let's acknowledge that there -- don't use code words of inner city, cutting welfare benefits, when you know all along what we're all talking about. Let's acknowledge the racism in this country by acknowledging the crime of chattel slavery, and let's begin to then heal that wound by looking at it. And that healing process may lead to something like reparations. It may lead to something other than a welfare question. The second part of that, if I may, the second part of that, has to do with what we in our communities must do in terms of our own communities, that while we can't criticize and whine and talk all that rhetoric, we do have to develop and first criticize a lot of these people who are unfortunately imprisoned by their own, by their attacks on each other. We have to criticize that. We do have to bring family together. We have to dialogue on that and stop worrying only about what they think or he thinks, but we do have to recognize that it is a "we" and not an American until America has healed its wounds.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Thank you all very much. ESSAY - NATURE'S WRATH

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight an essay by Los Angeles writer Anne Taylor Fleming about the weather in California.

MS. FLEMING: All my life I've heard people say Southern California has no seasons, no flashy fall foliage, no bubbling up of spring after a cold, hard winter. We were deprived, inferior. That was always the implication. In turn, I have been defensive, pointing to the elegy of a deserted winter beach, to spring wild flowers on the hillside, to the often hot, windy breath of our autumn. We have seasons, I say. They're just more subtle than you're used to. That was then, and now is now, and subtlety is out the window. In January, winter held sway, a big splashy, Hollywood non-stop winter, as if someone had forgotten to turn off all the rain machines and all the movie studios all over town. It just wouldn't quit. Day after day it fell, nine inches in two weeks, more than half an entire year's average rainfall. The city went into a wet tailspin. We splashed through the days looking at the sky in our unaccustomed rain gear. We huddled around our TVs and watched nature tearing up our streets and causing mudslides and taking houses down as if they were made of matchsticks and glue. There were even a few mini tornadoes twisting through the suburbs. We held our breath, wondering what would happen next, what damage, what destruction. We became children of winter, a soggy community humbled by weather, like people in the rest of the country. But the odd truth is for all our usually temperate days and subtle seasons, we always live in the grip of weather. There is always something lurking beneath our sunny day, something big and powerful, some cataclysm waiting to happen. It can be fast moving like the snap of an earthquake, the earth trying to shake us and our hillside homes and mini malls right off its back. We are always waiting for that, some part of us always poised for those fault lines to split open and swallow us up. Or the cataclysm can be long and slow and pervasive like the drought of the last decade, a scary, waterless stretch to put everybody's nerves on edge and put the entire state under drought condition. The rains just would not come year after year. Our lakes and rivers shriveled. Our hillsides and lawns turned brown, and we were not allowed to flush our toilets or take showers. It was eery, humbling, de-civilizing to be in the grip of such dryness. We were becoming a desert again. Once again, the land was finding a way to take itself back. That's how you live in the West, even here in Southern California, poised, even here on our usually benign winter days, as people do their sunny thing along the coast and the palm trees lean into a pale sky, we are still the spiritual children of the great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, of the Donner Party of 1846-47, of the Bellaire fire of 1961, and yes, of the downpour of 1993. Great seismic lurches, weather by Hollywood. We might not have sharply etched seasons, but this we do have. We have a memory and an anticipation of disaster. We don't wait for winter per se. We wait for something bigger, darker, more dramatic. And so we got a deluge, appropriately enough after all the years of being so thirsty -- not just rain but a full fledged demonic downpour that tossed cars around and flooded homes and reminded us that, indeed, we live in a tempestuous place, with a sunny, smiling face. Be not fooled, the rain reminded us. This rain, both destructive and life renewing. "Be not fooled," it said. "You are on borrowed land. I will be back." And so we wait for the next downpour in paradise. Or will it be the earthquake next time? I'm Anne Taylor Fleming.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: As it turned out, the rain came first. Southern California's recovering today from the weekend storm that flooded parts of Beverly Hills and forced the closing of beaches at Malibu. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, President Clinton announced a White House reorganization plan cutting the staff by 25 percent. White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said the President will reverse laws preventing foreigners with the AIDS virus from entering the country, and U.N. officials accused Serbs of mounting a new wave of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Good night, Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim. That's our NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Good night.