The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. In the headlines this Monday, President Reagan and the governors exchanged differences over budget cutting. Edwin Meese became the 75th attorney general of the United States. Farm representatives stepped up their fight for help from Washington. And an American diplomat was expelled from Poland for taking photographs in a military zone. Robert MacNeil is away; Judy Woodruff is in Washington. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: After the news summary tonight we have three focus segments and an essay. First, on the governors' clash with the President over his budget, a Democratic governor, Mario Cuomo of New York, and a Republican, Richard Thornburgh of Pennsylvania, join us to give their sides. On the push by some farmers for urgent credit assistance, the number-two Republican in the U.S. Senate and a Democratic state legislator from Nebraska air their disagreements. And we have a documentary report on the growing concerns about premature babies. We close with essayist Roger Rosenblatt's look at how we look at the poor.News Summary

LEHRER: The governors of the 50 states went to the White House today to talk budgets with President Reagan. Mr. Reagan made his pitch for support in his effort to cut back on domestic federal spending, including money that goes to the states. Some of the governors responded with a suggestion the defense budget should share the freezes and the cuts. Here's a bit of what Mr. Reagan said, followed by some governors' reactions.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: It's true that many of your states are in better fiscal shape today because of the courage that you showed and the hard decisions you made during the recent recession. I hope you can understand that these tough calls have to be made now at the federal level, and it's up to us to show the same kind of fortitude many of you have shown in the past. And this I intend to do, and I need your help in making the Congress and the public understand that the time has come for budgetary restraint and deficit reduction. Lots of people told you a few years ago that passing our budget cuts or tax cut bills would mean less revenue for you in the states, and some were even saying the states would go bankrupt. Well, all of you know how much truth there was to that. Growth begets growth. Hope begets hope. If we can get on with phase two, those budget cuts, so we can steadily shrink the deficit and the line-item veto and constitutional amendment on balancing the budget and that tax simplification plan, we will be sending out a message of hope and growth whose potential for good is incalculable.

Gov. JOHN CARLIN, (D) Kansas: The point was made in here today that really disturbed me that the recovery has brought about the bulk of these resources in the states. We've raised taxes! Yes, there has been a recovery, but we raised taxes to balance our budget. In 43 states we did that.

Gov. LAMAR ALEXANDER, (R) Tennessee: Governors know that surpluses are not pots of money to spend. They are fund balances that we have so that we don't unbalance our budget.

Gov. CARLIN: So we can meet our payroll. Our resolution clearly points out that we'll share the political responsibility, shoulder the responsibility of making cuts. We accept the fact that we're going to get additional cuts. We'd like to have some input in fine-tuning it so it does the least harm.

Gov. ALEXANDER: The point is that the surpluses don't have anything to do with the debate about the budget deficit.

REPORTER: I thought you all sat around and complained about him saying that this was --

Gov. ALEXANDER: All I said, "Mr. President, may I respectfully suggest that the surpluses as you understand don't have anything to do with the budget deficit, and it would be better if the members of the administration didn't use those terms because it will cause people to think that somehow there's a pot of money out in the state that has to do with this great big federal deficit."

REPORTER: What did he say to that?

Gov. ALEXANDER: He smiled and nodded as if he understood exactly what I was saying.

LEHRER: The governors are in Washington for the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association. Two of them, Democrat Cuomo of New York and Republican Thornburgh of Pennsylvania, are in our lead focus segment tonight. Judy?

WOODRUFF: Another group of lobbyists in Washington today were legislators from rural states here to lean on members of Congress and the administration on the day the Senate took up emergency farm credit legislation. Throughout the day hundreds of legislators and farmers joined with governors from farm states to plea for federal help. One session with Agriculture Secretary John Block came this afternoon, after Block had insisted the Reagan administration had already gone the extra mile in helping farmers.

JOHN BLOCK, Secretary of Agriculture: Whenever you look at a market, whether it be a grain market or whatever else, when it gets way high, that's when it goes down and you don't always know why; when something gets way low and you think there's no hope, it always goes up. And agriculture is going to go back up, and we're going to go back up strong. I believe it can be done when, and then we can participate in this economic recovery with the rest of the country.

Gov. TERRY BRANSTAD, (D) Iowa: Don't we need to retain the present level of price supports as opposed to beginning the phase-out next year? It seems to me that if we begin the phase-out now without correcting the fiscal problems in this country -- the over-valued dollar and the high interest rate -- the only thing we're going to do is not turn this thing around or stabilize it in terms of the depreciation in value of farm assets, but we're going to drive it down further and further exacerbate the problem that presently exists.

Sec. BLOCK: Two-thirds of agriculture in this country does not receive direct government support. I would submit that that two-thirds of agriculture that does not receive direct government support is at least as healthy and probably healthier than the third of agriculture that does get government support. And I am deeply concerned that that third that is getting government support is getting more and more hooked on government each day, becoming more dependent on government, and we need to start the withdrawal process, even though it may be slow. And we need to be gentle about it, but it must be done because the alternatives, I think, are very frightening.

WOODRUFF: Later in the program we'll debate the issue of more federal aid for farmers with a state senator from Nebraska and the assistant U.S. Senate Republican leader, Alan Simpson.

Meanwhile, Edwin Meese was finally sworn in today as the new U.S. attorney general. The Senate voted 63 to 31 to confirm Meese on Saturday. The vote came after a filibuster ending agreement was reached on emergency farm credit aid. The private swearing-in came at the White House in the presence of a few top administration officials, including the President.

And one other signal of change in the nation's capital: U.S. Senator Russell Long, a Democrat from Louisiana, announced today that he will not run for re-election after his term expires next year. Long has served in the Senate for 36 years and chaired the important Finance Committee for 15 of those.

LEHRER: An American diplomat was ordered out of Poland today. He was accused of taking unauthorized photographs in a military zone 60 miles north of Warsaw. The official was identified as Colonel Frederick Myer, the U.S. military attache at the U.S. Embassy. Polish authorities said he and his wife were observed taking pictures of military installations Thursday. Today's expulsion order gave Myer 48 hours to get out of the country. In Washington, State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb said there was no justification for the action. He would not say, however, whether Myer was engaged in espionage, saying, "We do not comment on intelligence matters."

Meanwhile, Andrei Gromyko went to Rome today. The Soviet foreign minister was to speak to Italian officials about new U.S. missiles in Europe and President Reagan's Star Wars missile defense proposal, among other things. He was also to meet with the Pope. It is Gromyko's first official visit to a West European country since new nuclear missiles were placed in Italy and other countries beginning in 1983.

WOODRUFF: There was a new gesture in the direction of peace in the Middle East today. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak urged the United States to sit down with representatives of Israel and a joint delegation of Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization to begin plans for peace talks. Mubarak told an interviewer with The New York Times that he would even be willing to host such a meeting in Cairo if necessary. Mubarak followed up by saying he will send a top aide to Israel to pursue the idea further. The first reaction from Israel was positive. Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said he had noted Mubarak's statement with great interest and that it deserved careful and positive study.

LEHRER: Vice President Bush today accused the government of Ethiopia of using its devastating famine for political purposes. The Vice President said in a Washington speech the Soviet-backed government is refusing to allow famine relief to the areas of the country controlled by anti-government rebels. He also charged the Soviets with sending a billion dollars of military hardware and 20,000 Cuban troops to Ethiopia, but only one-tenth the famine aid that has come from the United States.

And there was a tragedy in France today. Twenty-two miners died in a coal mine explosion, another 103 were injured. It was the worst mine disaster in France in 10 years. Here is a report from Monica Evans of Visnews.

MONICA EVANS, Visnews [voice-over]: More than 900 men were underground when the explosion rocked the Simon coal mine near Forbach in eastern France. Five rescue teams were mobilized and police supervised the closing of two lanes of a nearby highway to hasten the evacuation of victims. As helicopters and ambulances stood by, anxious relatives waited for news. Working in the underground passages, more than 1,000 meters down, the rescue teams were held up by thick smoke and dust. Initial reports say the blast may have been caused by firedamp, a gas composed largely of methane which is given off by coal. When it explodes it immediately sets fire to coal dust in the area.

WOODRUFF: There was a major report released today on the increasing number of premature infants born in this country. One of the recommendations it made was that it is cheaper for the government to give aid to low-income pregnant women, thereby raising the likelihood that they will have healthy babies, than to pay the much larger costs later to care for tiny infants born premature who need specialized medical treatment. All this came out in a presentation made by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine at Children's Hospital in Washington.

Dr. RICHARD BEHRMAN, Committee to Study the Prevention of Low Birthweight: The high cost of caring for low birthweight infants is paid not just by parents but also by taxpayers through increased Medicaid expenditures and by everyone who buys private health insurance through increased premiums. What's needed is a shift in emphasis from treating the effects of low birthweight to treating the causes, from simple acceptance of the problem to preventive medicine.

WOODRUFF: Later in the program we devote a focus section to a special documentary report on the growing problem of premature babies.

Officials in Mexico said three men have been arrested in connection with the disappearance of an American agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency. One of the men arrested was described as a former police chief of Mexico City. Another is believed to be a former agent of a Mexican security force. Budget: Views from the States

LEHRER: It was tough calls day in Washington today. President Reagan told the governors of the 50 states he needed their help in making the tough calls of domestic spending cuts. Many of the governors said, "Yes, Mr. President, but only if you will make some equally tough calls in reducing defense spending." Also, representatives from various farm states were talking tough to Congress and the administration about the growing crisis in agriculture and getting back word from some that the tough calls of no more help have already been made. It is all the subject of our lead focus segment tonight. Part one involves the governors; two of the governors who were at the White House to hear and respond to Mr. Reagan's call for tough calls are here. They are Governor Mario Cuomo of New York, a leading Democrat, and Governor Richard Thornburgh of Pennsylvania, a leading Republican. He's chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Governor Cuomo, to you first. How do you react to the President's call for tough calls?

Gov. MARIO CUOMO: Well, it seems to me that he decided today that the tough calls should all be from the governors and not from the President himself. I specifically asked the President whether he would be willing to consider the possibility of putting defense on the table and putting some other things on the table, and he said flatly no, that he wasn't interested in any kind of compromise. In effect, what he's saying is that he gave us a $750-billion tax cut and boasted that it was the largest tax cut in history. That helped produce an enormous deficit, and he wants to shift the burden down to the state of New York and the state of Pennsylvania, cut back programs for us, force us into tax increases so that he can keep the credit for a tax cut. I don't think it's going to work. I don't think that if he maintains his present intransigent posture he's going to do anything effectively to reduce this deficit.

LEHRER: What are you going to do?

Gov. CUOMO: What am I going to do in my state? In my state we've done very well. In my state we've managed to take care of people in wheelchairs, to take care of people who are sick, to balance the budget, cut taxes and, at the same time, to put more money into our own mini-defense budget -- which is called corrections -- than at any time in our history. And I think Pennsylvania, the other states are very good evidence that with some rationality, with fairness, with breadth, with hard calls universally, you can balance things. You don't have to have deficits. We don't have them at the state level.

LEHRER: Speaking of Pennsylvania, the man sitting next to you, Governor Thornburgh, the President said he wanted a spirit of partnership with the federal government and the states. I don't think Governor Cuomo is in the mood for that. How about you, sir?

Gov. RICHARD THORNBURGH: Oh, I think there is something unique about this trip to Washington by the governors this year. We came not to lobby for the retention of each and every program that the federal government funds for us. We're fully cognizant of the importance that the deficit plays in our national economic picture and that it's an enormous threat to the viability of state and local governments if it's not dealt with swiftly and effectively. What the President said at our meeting today I think bears some further examination. He made it clear that he respected, as most of us do, the mandate of 1984 in that taxes are not an up-front subject for discussion. Secondly, he indicated that he was concerned about the political risks of dealing in any fashion with Social Security until some bipartisan effort was forthcoming, so that it could be taken out of the partisan realm and dealt with as the real problem it is. And, thirdly, with respect to defense, I think what we heard from budget secretary David Stockman was that it was very difficult to deal with the kinds of suggestions that the governors were establishing through the action of the executive committee yesterday, which talked only in dollars and not in terms of programs. I don't think that there is intransigence on the part of the White House. They deal with a Congress that wouldn't tolerate intransigence, and I think insofar as these discussions raise issues and get on the table the concerns that the governors have they can be very constructive in reaching to an overall solution.

LEHRER: Governor Cuomo, it doesn't sound to me like you all were at the same meeting.

Gov. CUOMO: No, we weren't, apparently. Let's face it. If Governor Thornburgh had been asked the question, he would have answered it the way he just did, and it would have been very intelligent and the governors would have left and said, "Well, we understand what Governor Thornburgh is saying. He's saying, "Let's be practical about this.' " That's precisely why I asked the President the question. Stockman did in fact say what Governor Thornburgh is indicating, and that is, "Look, this is political. We have to deal with it. You have to put a little pressure on me and then maybe I'll respond." Having heard that from Mr. Stockman, I asked the President directly. I said, "We're being invited in a bipartisan way to help you to make the hard decisions. I ask you, Mr. President, is it possible that you will look at defense, you will look at these -- you want us to come forward and suggest that you give up the cost-of-living increase in Social Security. Is it possible, Mr. President, that if we do that you will respond?" He said no and he said it twice. What he's saying, in effect, is not what Governor Thornburgh is saying. What he's saying is, "You fellows come, put your heads on the block, and you ladies. You take the blame for all of this. I don't want to have any part of it." He's the leader. He's the President. As far as I'm concerned, if he steps forward and says, "I'll put defense on the table, I'll put COLA on the table," then he can come to me and say, "Governor, will you give me bipartisan support?" and I'll say yes. But until then it doesn't make sense even to ask. Governor Thornburgh's answer is a better one than the President gave today.

LEHRER: What do you say to that, Governor Thornburgh, that what the President's saying just doesn't make sense?

Gov. THORNBURGH: Well, I think I look at the whole meeting that we had today with the President and his staff -- we weren't in a courtroom with witnesses on the chair, and Governor Cuomo asked a very incisive question that would have been hard to answer fully and completely without replowing all that had gone beforehand. I'm not discouraged by the course of the discussions today. I think what we've got to recognize is something the President did mention and something that our executive committee took action on yesterday, and that is there's a simple lack of discipline at the federal level that we must accommodate at the state level. Governor Cuomo and I must balance our budgets every single year. We can't appropriate money that isn't there. And for 50 years in the federal domain that's where the shortfall has come from, the appropriation of funds that were not backed up by revenues, and that discipline, through a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, is what we think ought to be forthcoming.

LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Governor Cuomo?

Gov. CUOMO: There's no question that there's been a lack of discipline at the federal level. Let's get some facts here.

LEHRER: No, but I mean the constitutional amendment idea.

Gov. CUOMO: Well, let me talk to you about a constitutional amendment. I wouldn't ask that we institutionalize a constitutional amendment at the federal level now until you tell me how you're going to balance that budget. Here's a president saying, "I have a $220-billion hole which I created along with Congress with a tax increase [sic] and huge defense budget. I've created a $220-billion deficit. Now it comes time for me to tell you how I'm going to balance the budget. How am I going to do it? Take it from Medicaid. Take it from kids who need a college education. Will I touch those missiles at $2 billion apiece? No, sir. Will I do anything else? Will I consider taxing major corporations? No, sir." If that's the way he intends to balance a budget, I don't want to institutionalize it. Now, in my state I'm for an amendment in my state constitution that will say let's balance the budget in New York state according to GAAP principles all the time because we've done it.

LEHRER: According to what principles?

Gov. CUOMO: Generally accepted accounting principles. That's the way we talk in New York, and you know, if we can joke -- because we've shown you how we will do it. But at the federal level, until they demonstrate that they can balance a budget with fairness and intelligence, I don't want to institutionalize the process.

LEHRER: How does the Pennsylvania principle apply to that, Governor?

Gov. THORNBURGH: Well, I happen to favor a constitutional requirement that the budget be balanced wherever. It works in all of the states. It works in local governments. I think it's far past the time that we ought to give it a chance at the national level. We've tried so many reforms and we've relied on the political process to do what Governor Cuomo suggests, and the backbone and the will and the discipline simply isn't there. It has to be imposed by directive of the United States Constitution, and that's what I think our association is going to recommend.

Gov. CUOMO: But look at what you have happening. We asked the President today, "Mr. President, do you really want to balance this budget? Will you call the hard decisions that's needed?" And he says no, and then turns around and says, "But you can order me to do it with a constitutional amendment." That doesn't make any sense. He didn't need an amendment to the Constitution. He had the chance today to stand and face the governors of the United States and say, "Hey, look. I can take the pressure, not just talk about it. I'll call the hard shots, and I'm going to do it right now." He didn't do that. To suggest that we ought to get him off the hook and everybody else by saying there's a mandate in the Constitution -- which wouldn't be effective, as we all know, for years, if at all -- that's just disingenuous in my opinion.

LEHRER: In your opinion, is it, Governor Thornburgh?

Gov. THORNBURGH: I don't think we're going to get anybody off the hook. I think we're going to get a lot of people on the hook if we require them not to appropriate money that isn't there.

LEHRER: But does that in effect get President Reagan off the hook if this constitutional amendment were enacted?

Gov. THORNBURGH: No, I don't think it will because he will not be in office to enjoy any benefit that may come from it. He's making it in the point of view of structural change in a constitution that's deficient in this regard.

LEHRER: All right, Governor Thornburgh, what about the President's point today that the states are in great financial shape and that they should pick up a bigger share of the government burden?

Gov. THORNBURGH: I think he has a point in one respect, Jim. I think it's all well and good to talk about revenue sharing, but when you have no revenue to share, it becomes somewhat of an empty concept. What he said was that it really doesn't make much sense for the federal government to go out and borrow to fund programs at the state and local level. I think we can handle our share of the budget cuts. In Pennsylvania since I've been in office we've survived the Carter budget cuts, the Reagan budget cuts, a recession, and this year we have a $200-million surplus and we're cutting taxes. That's because we've tightened management. We've made the economies and raised the revenues when necessary to do the job. And I think that we're ready, willing and able to participate in a national effort to deal in the same way with the federal deficit.

LEHRER: Do you have a surplus in New York, Governor Cuomo?

Gov. CUOMO: No. No, we don't, and we've taken our cuts and we will in the future, and we can handle it, with some pain -- $4.7 billion the last time around. I don't think there's any other place you could --

LEHRER: Four-point-seven billion what?

Gov. CUOMO: '81 to '84 was the total amount of cuts we took from the federal government. But let's understand what the President is saying to us. He said, "I cut your taxes $750 billion." That's what helped cause this deficit. He's now saying to the states, "Now I want you to raise your taxes," because that is inevitably what would happen if you cut back on our programs.

LEHRER: Why? Why is it inevitable?

Gov. CUOMO: Because the result of cutting back on Medicaid, for example, in my state $371 million cut back in Medicaid. Now, unless my state is willing to see all of those people go without the services they need -- and these are poor people -- we'll have to make it up somehow. You take the mass transit cuts that he has in mind, it could devastate our mass transit system -- the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the New York area. So what he is saying is really, "I don't want to raise taxes on those major corporations because I got all the credit for cutting taxes. I'm going to ask the governors to raise the taxes."

LEHRER: Is that what he's doing, Governor Thornburgh?

Gov THORNBURGH: I don't think so. I think really what we're looking at is a much long overdue tightening down on all government expenditures and the size of government. We were able to tolerate the kinds of cuts that Governor Cuomo described as taking place in New York by cutting 11,000 unnecessary jobs out of state government and realizing over a billion dollars in cost savings that enabled us to survive without any precipitous increase in taxes. That's what ought to be done at the federal level. That's what the President wants done. I think that's what the people of United States sent a very clear message they want done in the 1984 elections.

Gov. CUOMO: Yeah, but that's exactly what he's not doing at the federal level. We did the same thing in New York. We bit the bullet. We laid off public workers. We cut back every way we could. Now he has a defense budget that he won't even look at, and you have David Stockman, his own budget director, saying that this is a swamp. There are billions of dollars of waste. Don't take my word for it. I'm a Democratic governor. Listen to David Stockman, who says that it's a swamp with billions of dollars of waste, and this President is saying, "No, we'll cut back from pregnant women in a WIC program and from Medicaid and from children and from kids who need a college education, but we won't cut back defense." It doesn't make any sense.

LEHRER: Governor Thornburgh, what do you say to that argument, that it's not original with Governor Cuomo but he's articulated it that, "if you want to touch the other things, you've got to touch defense first or nothing's going to happen." Senator Dole has, in effect, said the same thing.

Gov. THORNBURGH: Sure, I agree. I think you've got to include defense in any scrutiny that's undertaken of the federal budget, and I don't think anybody's going to get away with that on the Hill. But I think it aids the process very little to talk in inflammatory rhetoric about what the President really has in mind. I have a view of the President's proposals that everybody is going to have to share in the pain, and we at the state and local level have got to take our share of it. And I'm willing to do so.

Gov. CUOMO: Excuse me. That inflammatory rhetoric was the President today. And I repeat it again -- saying, "I'll have nothing to do with --

Gov. THORNBURGH: Well, he wasn't talking about people in wheelchairs.

Gov. CUOMO: -- defense. Well, by saying, "I'll have nothing to do with defense. I won't touch any of those things." I didn't make it up. I'm sure at the White House they have a machine that records these things. All you have to do is play it back.

Gov. THORNBURGH: Stay tuned, Jim.

LEHRER: All right, Governor Thornburgh, is this thing beginning to smell a little partisan to you?

Gov. THORNBURGH: Oh, there are always some partisan odor -- overtones. There are basic philosophical differences between Republicans and Democrats, whether they're in the White House or in the statehouse, and those showed up today by the emphasis the Democrats put on raising taxes and making deep cuts in the defense budget, while I think Republicans were more willing to do our share of taking cuts at the state and local level.

Gov. CUOMO: Oh, no, that has to be corrected. I didn't hear any Democrats talk about raising taxes, and as a matter of fact the governor is a member of an executive committee that adopted a resolution yesterday suggesting we look at cutting Social Security and the possibility of raising taxes.

Gov. THORNBURGH: Not cutting Social Security.

Gov. CUOMO: Well, the cost-of-living increase. I didn't hear any Democrat today --

Gov. THORNBURGH: That's just the kind of thing that the President --

Gov. CUOMO: -- talk about raising taxes.

Gov. THORNBURGH: -- was talking about today that created the reluctance to go ahead with any discussion of Social Security. When that kind of rhetoric is used to make accusations that this President wants to cut Social Security, I don't blame him for coming forward with proposals to deal with the COLA.

LEHRER: Governors, don't go away because I'm going to be back in a few minutes to talk with you about the farm thing, which we're now going to go to. Judy? Farmers: Lobbying for Help

WOODRUFF: The next part of our lead focus section deals with an intensive lobbying effort in Washington this week by a swarm of farm state legislators and governors. Their mission is to impress on Congress and the Reagan administration just how bad the economic plight of American farmers is. They are asking for more access to credit and for a slow-down of the administration's plans to cut back on farm subsidies. Here with us to explain the lobbying effort is one of its organizers, Sandra Scofield, a farmer and a Democratic state senator from Nebraska. And, from the Congress, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, Alan Simpson of Wyoming, who has sided with the administration efforts to control farm spending. Ms. Scofield, let me begin with you. What have you come to Washington to say? What's the message that you've brought with you?

State Sen. SANDRA SCOFIELD: Our message to Washington is, number one, we have troubled times in rural America and we need help that only the federal government can get us, and specifically only the President can react to quickly enough to help out. We have an immediate message and we have also a long-term message. We need some immediate help right now, and more importantly we need a clearly articulated long-range farm program that lets us know where we're going to be down the road a ways.

WOODRUFF: But I'm sure, as you know, the President said over the weekend he has no plans to do anything more for the farmers other than what they're already proposing. Secretary Block said today that they'd already gone the extra mile. Does that make you feel like your trip here was wasted?

State Sen. SCOFIELD: No, it does not. As I talk to urban representatives, I nd that there is not a great awareness yet across this nation of the seriousness of the farm situation. There is not a great awareness of how closely tied the rest of the national economy is to the farm and ranch economy, and if we accomplish nothing else, we have to get the word out to the American people that they're in this with us and if we don't solve this problem it's going to be around in the future and it's eventually going to affect our major urban areas as well the rural areas. I hope we accomplish more than that. I think we already have. But we did need to send that message.

WOODRUFF: Senator Simpson, do you agree that that message hasn't gotten out and that it is as serious as Miss Scofield says?

Sen. ALAN SIMPSON: I don't think there is any legislator of any party here or in the states that isn't aware that we have a serious farm problem. But the point is is that this administration is saying that with direct loans and loan guarantees we are going to give adequate support. Now, that's what we're going to do. That's what we said we would do, and now we're going through an exercise on the floor of the Senate where we're going to be examining some other support systems. But at some point, how far do you go? You cannot go to the point where you make everyone whole. that is beyond my abilities as a legislator and indeed I think we ought to get completely into the market-oriented, the three-year market average is something I think we should pursue, a 75 support level. But all you know is that whatever we've been doing is pretty sick because we've spent 50 billion bucks in the last four years on a lot of farmers who've gone out of existence when they had all sorts of things to use not to do that.

WOODRUFF: Ms. Scofield, what about the senator's suggestion that what we need to do for farmers is move to a market-oriented economy like the rest of the economy in this country?

State Sen. SCOFIELD: Well, on first reaction, I think my constituents in the state of Nebraska would say, "Hurray, that's what we've been asking for for years." I grew up on a farm and a ranch and I remember my dad saying the best thing the government could do for me is to get out. And yet I think that is not totally realistic today. The government has been in the business of farming since the 1920s and the 1930s. We've had 50 years of partnership with the government, whether we have wanted it or not. Furthermore, the world economy is such and the U.S. economy is such that it is so complex and there are so many other factors involved here that to talk about going to a totally free market system, I think, is totally unrealistic.

WOODRUFF: Senator Simpson?

Sen. SIMPSON: Well, it's unrealistic to say we're going to do that this week, you betcha. I'll believe that. But it's not unrealistic when we have a transition period to get into it. Now we're going to deal tomorrow with an advance on commodity credit loans. We've never done that before. An advance. It says it doesn't cost the government anything. Now we're going to be talking about cash flow at 100 and loans being made. If that sounds like an advantage to the farmer, it's not. It's an advantage to the banker. And people are missing that, and I think this delightful state senator will back me on that. We are now switching in this debate from a help-the-farmer situation to an assist-the-banker situation. I don't have any qualm about that, but let's call it what let's call it what it is. And that's where we're headed in this national debate right now.

WOODRUFF: Do you see it that way, Ms. Scofield?

State Sen. SCOFIELD: I would tend to agree to that, and beyond that I think there is a need to talk further about agricultural policy and separate these issues out. We do need immediate help in the agricultural sector. We do need to realize whowe are in fact helping, and what we're doing right now. Without a more clearly articulated long-range farm policy, we're simply prolonging the agony of the patient. It's like treating cancer with aspirin and hoping it'll go away.

WOODRUFF: Well, what are you saying should be done, then?

State Sen. SCOFIELD: There are no easy, pat answers to this situation. The first thing we need to do is take immediate steps to address the credit crunch, but I'm more concerned about where are we going on the long term? What are the goals of this administration for agriculture? In the kind of society we live in today you don't have a single goal. Nobody's arguing with the President that we must balance the budget, but what I would suggest is we have a multiple-goal agenda. Almost any large organization does, and the only goal that I've heard addressed so far is balance the budget. We have to do that and be sensitive to the fact that we're working in a very complex international system, and we have to articulate some goals. We've had goals in the past for agricultural policy. By and large a good share of them have worked -- not to the farmers' advantage, but for some of the other things we've wanted to accomplish.

WOODRUFF: Senator Simpson, are you saying, is the administration saying, that balancing the budget has got to take precedence over all the rest of this?

Sen. SIMPSON: No, I don't hear that. I do hear the administration saying that there is a $220-billion deficit. I hear that very clearly. And then I hear them saying that we put this many bucks, billions of bucks, into agriculture and it hasn't paid off so that something is very wrong, and why don't we get on to a new approach? I hear them saying that very clearly. But I'll tell you where we're going to have to show 'em who ate the cabbage, as they say, and that is be sure that the money doesn't go to the largest corporate farms in America. And I've said this and I'll say it again. And I think that the senator will agree, when you have a wheat program where 9 of the wheat people are getting 42 of the wheat money, something wrong with that. That isn't right. So we get into the aura of talking about the farmer as if it were the family farmer, the guy we imagine out there in the sunrise with his machinery doing his work. That isn't. We don't get to those kind of people. Those kind of people don't get the help. We pour this money down this insatiable maw, and that insatiable maw is some of the largest corporate farms in America -- cotton, feed grains, wheat, rice. You name it, but that's where it is.

WOODRUFF: In a few words, Senator Scofield, how do you answer that sort of frustration on the part of the Congress?

State Sen. SCOFIELD: I appreciate what they're up against, and yet I don't -- we need a program that addresses how to help that essential -- what I consider middle sector of agriculture. And I don't think the current program is going to do that. It's true that the programs so far have benefited the large producers, in a lot of cases large corporations. For very small producers, on the other hand, the amount of money has not been enough to really impact agricultural decisions, and in fact the trend we see towards small operations, with people moving onto small places across the United States, I think is a significant trend. But they don't need the help, either. We have to concentrate on that middle level of agriculture. Those are the people that are in trouble, and they don't need right now a free market system. They need to know clearly what the federal government's agenda is and where they fit into that. Because I think if where we're truly going right now is a free market system, there isn't a place for that middle-sized operator either.

WOODRUFF: Senator?

Sen. SIMPSON: We're going to head to some real tough stuff with this legislation, though, because we're going to take some of the classified loans and we're going to guarantee them. Those are the marginal loans anyway, and this government is going to guarantee them and we're going to go to the 100 cash flow and, come September, the bank's going to say to the federal government, "There you are, chum. I like to have these loans when things were going good and the land values were high, but it's all your baby now."

WOODRUFF: Senator Simpson, Senator Scofield, stay right there. Jim?

LEHRER: Yes, Governors Cuomo and Thornburgh, both of you have farmers in your states. Governor Cuomo, what do you say? You've been listening to this argument between the two. What's your reaction to it?

Gov. CUOMO: We are a major agricultural state, as a matter of fact, although most of our agriculture, I guess, is dairy. We don't have precisely the same problems but we sympathize. I think the program doesn't work well. I think it's right to take this opportunity to redesign our agricultural program. I think it has to be done gradually and sensitively. I think if this whole notion is being driven by the federal deficit and if whatever pain farmers are going to be asked to bear now is justified theoretically by the fact that we need to do this to deal with our overall $220-billion deficit, then the President must take the leadership and say, "I'm not going to ask just the farmers to do it. I am going to ask defense, I am going to go to the rest of the budget and ask everybody to contribute." The agricultural budget is only a sliver of the overall problem, and to impact them, to do the right thing with them but not the right thing with the rest of the budget would be unfair.

LEHRER: Governor Thornburgh?

Gov. THORNBURGH: What I hear from the governors of the farm states where the trouble is the most serious during our meetings here in Washington is the overwhelming need for a definitive farm policy at the federal level. I think Senator Scofield is absolutely right, that that would be a giant step forward in aiding the problems of the agricultural community. We don't have those serious problems in Pennsylvania because we have a more diversified agricultural economy. But we have a big farm population, one that we value, one that we have established a $10-million aid program to help family farmers that are in trouble, and I think it's vitally important not only for the economy but for the values and traditions that are transmitted by the family farmer and the rural life, that we sometimes tend to romanticize but which really does contribute to the fiber of this country, that we pay attention to this. I look for some relief from Washington primarily in the short run, as Al Simpson discussed, but in the long pull a definitive farm policy that can let the farmer, large or small, East, West, North or South, know where he or she stands as they have to face the future.

LEHRER: Is that going to come, Senator Simpson?

Sen. SIMPSON: Yes, it is, and both of those fine governors, and I know them both, are right on track. I'm not going to ask, you know, something out of the farm community that I'm not going to ask out of defense and the cost-of-living allowances on Social Security. I'm going to go for those, so those are important.

LEHRER: Senator Scofield of Nebraska, do you feel better now?

State Sen. SCOFIELD: I want to wait and hear the policy articulated. I'd feel a lot better if I heard that from the President.

Sen. SIMPSON: Trust us.

Gov. CUOMO: Me too.

LEHRER: Well, senators both and governors both, thank you all four very much. Judy?

WOODRUFF: We leave the budget, farm credit and the federal deficit behind now and turn our attention first to a medical story, a report on the growing problems of premature babies, then to an essay -- Roger Rosenblatt's look at poverty in America. The Price of Prematurity

WOODRUFF: We focus now on the growing concern over premature babies and what can be done about them. Long before today's report by the National Academy of Sciences on the subject, it's been known that premature infants run a much higher risk than usual of dying before their first birthday and that prenatal care often can prevent premature births. But it's estimated that three out of 10 pregnant American women get little or no care before the baby is born. We take a closer look at the situation in this documentary excerpt from public station KTCA in Minneapolis-St. Paul. The narrator is John Merrow.

JOHN MERROW, KTCA [voice-over]: One October morning a baby weighing less than 1 pounds was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit at Oschsner Hospital in New Orleans, one of the finest medical facilities in the region. Babies with problems are brought here from Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, an area with one of the nation's highest infant death rates. Baby Dana had been born the day before, nearly four months prematurely, in a rural Louisiana hospital 40 miles away. It would take 114 days and almost $100,000 to save her life.

DARYL SCHMALZ, Dana's mother: I was scared, you know, and besides, she had tubes all up in her head and stuff, and she just didn't look good. She looked like a little miniature barbie doll. That's what she looked like.

Dr. JAY GOLDSMITH, neonatologist: This is a little baby who is very similar to Dana Schmalz in that Dana was a very premature baby, a little less than 1 pounds, who was born across the lake and the baby was transported here and had severe problems. Daryl was single, had no prenatal care and had a baby about a year previously. And she wasn't prepared for this baby. She certainly wasn't prepared for a premature baby.

Ms. SCHMALZ: I was scared to death to bring her home. I just didn't think I could take care of her. You know, I didn't have any transportation or whatever in case she got sick. I was thinking a lot about that. And the fact that there is no one here around to take me, you know, even when I don't have a car, you know. So everybody's working so I didn't know how I'd get her to the doctor's and stuff. That's what I was worried about, really. In case she got sick on me or something, I couldn't take her to the doctor. And I was scared to bring her home.

Dr. GOLDSMITH: We consider about 24 weeks of pregnancy, of gestation, as the cutoff. Below that the lungs are not developed enough where oxygen can come into the lungs and be exchanged into the blood. The lungs just haven't developed. What we have found is that the babies under two pounds is where we get into some ethical and moral considerations, should we resuscitate, how aggressive should we be? And, if the baby does survive, what will be the quality of life for that baby? The highest rate of problems in terms of mental retardation, cerebral palsy and other kinds of problems come with babies under two pounds.

Ms. SCHMALZ: I give her her medicine this time.

FRIEND: Give her that, what, every six bottles?

Ms. SCHMALZ: Yeah.

FRIEND: That's the breathing medicine?

Ms. SCHMALZ: Yeah, that theophiline.

They can't tell yet whether or not she's going to have any permanent brain damage. She had a brain hemorrhage which caused some clotting behind the eyes, and they don't know how extensive it's been, you know, that they're almost -- they're not positive. So I've got a lot of hope, you know, with the right care and the right attention that, you know, she's going to going to be perfectly fine.

MERROW: What if Baby Dana doesn't get the kind of care she should have?

WILLIE HAIGHT, hospital social worker: She may easily die. She may not develop. She may be very, very retarded. She may need continuous care all of her life. She may need institutionalization at some point. I hate to paint a very black picture because you can never tell what's going to happen down the line, but that's a likely possibility.

MERROW [voice-over]: She needed a brain scan, a pneumogram and other tests when she was six months old. She's almost a year now and she still hasn't had them. Her mother can't afford the tests. The system won't pay until Dana is labeled handicapped. The longer they wait the more certain it is that she will be. Ironically, if Dana's mother had happened to live in the next county, Dana might have been born on time and healthy. A model program here has reduced the number of premature births and cut the infant death rate in half. Success doesn't depend on neonatal intensive care. The key is prevention, getting pregnant women into health care early and educating them. That's the job of health worker Rachel Stewart.

RACHEL STEWART, health care worker: I know the community -- whites, blacks, anybody from the courthouse on back to the jailhouse. And I know about raising kids. I know about it. I've been a housekeeper 40-some years, and I can tell if they're healthy like they're supposed to [be].[to client] Been to the health clinic for your visit?

PREGNANT WOMAN: Not yet.

Ms. STEWART: When are you supposed to go back?

The purpose of the program is for the health and well being of the kids, and the purpose of the program is for the mothers that need and want you to support them with their children.

The first part or the last part of the week?

PREGNANT WOMAN: The last.

Ms. STEWART: Well, I'll be by the first part.

MERROW: Rachel, you're sort of like an extra mother?

Ms. STEWART: That's what I'm supposed to be. That's what the job is supposed to be about. That's what the program is all about.

PREGNANT WOMAN: Rachel, I've asked you something about a premature baby? What makes you have a premature baby?

Ms. STEWART: What makes you have it? You. You making your own choice. Sometimes your body is weak because you didn't get your right vitamins and nourishment for your body, the things that's eaten. You feed yours on cigarettes.

PREGNANT WOMAN: Oh, Ms. Rachel!

57s. STEWART: Yeah, I'm telling you the truth. You know, you see you're an cigarettes and yours might come here on the way.

PREGNANT WOMAN: A pack of cigarettes last me two days and a half.

Ms. STEWART: I don't care how many days it last, you still smoking. Cigarettes? might be harming that baby by smoking that cigarette. Lot of times that baby can be born with birth defects. See the risk? Drinking? That has a lot to do with it.

PREGNANT WOMAN: Ms. Rachel, I don't drink.

Ms. STEWART: Six on one hand, a half a dozen in the other. Whatever you feed in your mouth is going in that baby's bloodstream. It don't get nothing but what you put in your mouth. You feed that baby through you. You putting that cigarette in your mouth, ain't you? So you try to lay off the cigarettes. It's getting late and it's getting cold and it's getting my eating time. And I say this is my time of day to eat. 'Cause you all been eating and smoking all day and I haven't.

MERROW [voice-over]: Rachel Stewart is paid $4,000 a year for helping insure that 25 women have healthy babies. Four thousand dollars. That's the cost of four days in the neonatal intensive care unit. The model program she's a part of provides continuous care throughout pregnancy and the child's first year. In this program the different pieces of the medical system -- this public hospital, eight public health units and two medical schools -- are required to work together, something they've never done before. Just a few years ago, any woman who couldn't afford private care had to come to Lally Kempe Charity Hospital for all her prenatal care, for some a 120-mile round trip. Then this waiting room was three times as crowded, and a woman might wait eight hours to see a doctor. All these women will be seen by noon.

NURSE PRACTITIONER: And we have to do a pelvic exam, and I'll do a Pap smear and I'll also do a culture to be sure that you don't have an infection that may hurt the baby when you do it. Okay?

PREGNANT WOMAN: Okay.

MERROW [voice-over]: Many of them will be seen by a nurse practitioner.

NURSE PRACTITIONER: I just want you to relax as much as you can.

MERROW [voice-over]: That's a big change. In most places, everyone waits to see the doctor, even for routine procedures. The medical profession resists the use of nurse practitioners, but program director Dr. Hiram Batson fought for the change. As a result, the program is more efficient.

NURSE: And she's thirty-nine weeks, that's the gestational age now and this is her first visit.

MERROW [voice-over]: There are other obstacles, though, to seeing every woman as early as possible in her pregnancy.

DOCTOR: This is your first visit to the doctor?

PREGNANT WOMAN: Yes, it is.

DOCTOR: Why?

PREGNANT WOMAN: Well, I didn't know about the place and we didn't have any insurance and didn't know who to go to.

DOCTOR: You have not seen a doctor at all.

PREGNANT WOMAN: Not at all.

Dr. BATSON: Fifty years ago prenatal care consisted of an infrequent visit, of taking the blood pressure, a urinalysis and the weight. The death rate from childbirth was tremendous. Little has changed. The only thing that's lowered the mortality rate is antibiotics and blood transfusions. It's a matter of custom, it's a matter of faulty beliefs through lack of proper education or through traditional means. They don't go to a doctor until they need one.

MERROW: When should a pregnant woman go to the doctor?

Dr. BATSON: As soon as she feels like she's pregnant or, more ideally, before she gets pregnant, for a good checkup and be sure she has no contraindications to being pregnant or maybe something, maybe a little better nutrition could be ensued before she gets pregnant.

One week we'll have a report on all you lab stuff, so just keep doing as you've been doing. You're taking your vitamins now?

The problem is an individual who's not quite so poor yet poor, enough not to be able to go to private means. You're not impressed with patients' ignorance, as sometimes stated as being the real barrier to access. They say, "Well, she didn't come to clinic." "Well, she doesn't have the mental capabilities, or she's just plain ignorant. That's why she didn't go to a doctor." That isn't the usual case. The usual case is lack of transportation, lack of somebody to keep the kids.

DOCTOR: They'll be arriving around 5:30. We need elevators ready and they're doing CPR enroute. They feel that they cannot stabilize the baby any further. He's got a venous line in, an umbilicalovenous line in and he's incubated and they'll be doing cardiac massage on the way home. So it's not going to be a good situation. I'm going to try to have Dr. Aransman here to help us get cutdowns in him.

Seventy-five percent of infant mortality is caused by prematurity, and we've shown that we can -- model systems have been done again and again and again, and I'm almost tired of the models that show if we can get to the moms early and we can get them good prenatal care we can cut down significantly on infant mortality. But we have used the last two decades to reduce infant mortality not by improving prenatal care but by taking better care of the premature infant after the baby is born. [in emergency room] He's a week old. The mother had a urinary infection three days prior to delivery. He had a fever of 102, 103 for five days and culture -- CSF culture is level too. Get another one. This don't work. Did anybody give him anything intracardiac? Shall we quit? Give him one more intracardiac. Try once more. I just want to talk about the folks and stuff. Anybody want to -- everybody agree, quit? Just wait until these -- at 5:32.

WOODRUFF: One footnote. This past December the prenatal care program in southeastern Louisiana lost some of its funding and has had to scale back its services. Jim?

LEHRER: Again the major stories of this Monday. President Reagan asked the nation's governors for their help in making the tough choices involved in cutting the federal budget. The governors, mostly Democrats, responded by saying there must be restraint on defense spending as well as domestic programs. Edwin Meese was sworn in as the 75th attorney general of the United States. And an American diplomat was expelled from Poland for allegedly taking unauthorized photographs of military installations. The United States retaliated by expelling the Polish military attache in Washington.

We close tonight with an essay by Roger Rosenblatt, the man from Time magazine who shares his mind with us also on a regular basis. His subject tonight is a subject that is always with us. Essay: Facing Poverty

ROGER ROSENBLATT [voice-over]: All this talk about the poor, how the administration's budget cuts are bound to cripple the poor, how the poor are being driven off their farms and out of redeveloping neighborhoods, how the poor are drug-ridden, school-starved, the helpless targets for crime and disease, can't find shelter, can't find work. Poor poor. Of course it's all very sad and one must say so. But doesn't this concern seem disproportionate to the problem? We are, after all, talking about a pretty thin slice of America, a small, invisible percentage of the population that lacks the requisite number of dollars to live at an acceptable level, whatever that means.

Samuel Johnson said that a decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization. What can that mean? That fifth-century Athens ought to be judged by the condition of the poor? Same for the Chinese, the Romans? Same for us? An odd idea, that a civilization should be evaluated by the prosperity of its lowest orders. Picture the Parthenon. Is that structure not a more reasonable standard by which to measure what the Greeks could do? If you were a civilization, would you not prefer to address posterity by way of the Parthenon than by the wretches who hauled the pillars into place?

The true test of civilization, compared to what? Books, art, laws, statesmen, princes, kings? One assumes that Johnson was referring to a moral test, but even so, how true is that? Is there no moral obligation on the part of a civilization to let the risers rise as high as possible? Renaissance painters celebrated God. Should the RenaissYnce be tested by the Sistine ceiling or by some nameless pauper curled up in the street? The only way Johnson's proposition begins to make sense is if one's view of civilization connects the ceiling and the street. We come to think of civilization as dividing the rich from the poor, luxury from want. The rich enjoy sculpture and the poor are always with us.

But Johnson was suggesting that a civilization consists of rich and poor equally. Not that they are equal in numbers but they have equal claim on the totality of society. That is, since the poor exist, it makes no difference that they are unseen or unheard from. They must be counted in history's final census. And if they are mistreated or neglected by those in power, then the total picture of a civilization is darkened, the way shadows may darken the Parthenon or, closer to home, the monuments in Washington.

If the poor can so diminish the picture of a civilization, then poverty must mean something more than absence of money. We know that it does mean more. On the most superficial level, poverty makes people look ridiculous. The poor wear rags for clothes. They have the layered look. Their shoes don't fit. Poverty makes people sound funny, too. Poor people slur their words, have such terrible diction. What really gets to us, though, is that the poor do not even seem like people, certainly not like Americans. Americans are supposed to have choices. The poor have no choices. So what are they doing here iNthe land of plenty? Test America by its provision for the poor? Why, the poor are an affront to national identity. Which may be why we seem to have difficulty concentrating on the problem of poverty. Americans don't like to believe in poverty, perhaps because we promi?&ed to make poverty disappear and, having failed, dislike acknowledging the failure.

Of course, we can solve that problem by doing what many recommend in refusing to look at the poor in the first place. Ah, but there they are. Unsightly, unkempt, blights on the Republic. If only we had not set so unrealistic a standard for our civilization. If only we had not asked to be tested by such a wild request. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the tempest-tossed, to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

LEHRER: The words of Roger Rosenblatt. Good night, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Good night, Jim. That's our NewsHour for tonight. I'm Judy Woodruff. Good night.