The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

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

MS. FARNSWORTH: And I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth in New York. After our summary of the day's news, we go to another target on the Republican hit list, the Legal Services Corporation, we have a background report from Jeffrey Kaye and a debate between two members of Congress, then Shields and Gigot discuss the week in politics, Fred De Sam Lazaro gives us a progress report on the battle against cancer, and we close with a Jim Fisheressay on a place called Cuba, Kansas. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton had harsh words today for the Republican budget compromise announced last night. He said it was extreme and could hurt the economy. The proposal makes nearly $900 billion in spending cuts to balance the budget by the year 2002. Some of the savings come from reducing the growth of Medicare and Medicaid. It also has a $245 billion tax cut. Mr. Clinton said he believed his proposal to balance the budget in 10 years was a better way to go. He spoke at a political fund-raiser in Little Rock, Arkansas.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I think we should balance the budget but increase our investment in education. I think we have to cut the rate at which we're increasing health expenditures but not so much that we're going to close down rural hospitals or urban hospitals and not so much that we're going to burden elderly people who don't have enough to live on as it is and can't afford to pay a whole lot more for their health care and shouldn't be asked to give up health care. I believe any tax cut we have should be so small it doesn't require us to cut these other things and should be focused on the people who need it to help them raise their kids and educate them.

MR. LEHRER: The Senate last night passed a $13 billion highway bill. It gives the states authority to set their own speed limits for cars but keeps the current ones on large trucks and buses. It also drops the federal motorcycle helmet requirement and imposes strict new measures for teenagers who drive and drink. The House is expected to consider the bill later this summer. Elizabeth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: In economic news today, orders for durable goods rose 2.5 percent last month, the first gain in four months. The Commerce Department said the increase was due mostly to higher transportation orders. Durable goods are expensive items designed to last at least three years. U.S. and Japanese trade officials continued negotiations in Geneva today. The U.S. has threatened sanctions against Japanese luxury cars by next Wednesday unless an agreement on opening Japan's auto market is reached. The talks are expected to continue until tomorrow at least.

MR. LEHRER: There was another resignation in Britain today. Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd said he planned to retire. Yesterday, Prime Minister John Major announced he was stepping down as leader of his conservative party and then running for it again as a way of silencing his own critics. Hurd pledged his support for Major in the leadership battle which will take place next month.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Lightning and heavy rains at Cape Canaveral today postponed the launch of the shuttle Atlantis. A second attempt will be made tomorrow. Five Americans and two Russians plan to dock with the orbiting Russian space station Mir. Atlantis will bring home American astronaut Norman Thagard and his two Russian crew mates who have been working aboard Mir for three months. Six more joint missions are scheduled as the U.S. and Russia prepare to build a multi-billion dollar space station.

MR. LEHRER: The Federal Base Closing Commission voted today to shut down the Naval shipyard at Long Beach, California. The Defense Department has estimated it will mean the loss of at least 4,000 jobs but a savings of more than $1 billion over twenty years. Commission Chairman Alan Dixon said it was the most crucial money saving decision his panel has made. The Commission also voted today to close Navy facilities in Massachusetts, Alaska, and Guam. There was news today about cancer. An international team of medical researchers said they have isolated a gene that when defective may cause many types of cancer. The 30 scientists co-authored a study published today in the journal "Science." They said the same gene, known as ATM, is also the source of a fatal genetic disease. As many as 2 million Americans may be carriers of the gene. They face increased risk of breast, lung, skin, and stomach cancers. One researcher said the findings offered the first real hope for treatment of the disease. We'll have more about the war against cancer later in the program.

MS. FARNSWORTH: That's our summary of the news this Friday. Now it's on to legal services on the hit list, the weekend politics, fighting cancer, and a Jim Fisher essay. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

MR. LEHRER: Now, our Friday night Shields and Gigot view of the political world. Mark Shields is a syndicated columnist. Paul Gigot is a Wall Street Journal columnist. Mark, the big stories of the last -- there were two big stories of the last two days. First, the House-Senate budget agreement; who got most of what they wanted in that deal announced last night?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: House Republicans. I think it was a victory for the House Republicans. I thought that Speaker Gingrich very deftly and adroitly gave credit for validating the Republicans' original position to the President, who had last week, of course, in his public address to the nation endorsed, according to Mr. Gingrich, the Republicans' stated objectives of a balanced budget in a time certain, trimming the growth in the expenditure of the Medicare, and, third, including a tax cut, so I think it's hard to argue. The other thing, Jim, that they did very adroitly, the Republicans -- I give 'em credit for it -- the thing is it's a general statement. There's no way you can get in and analyze the numbers so they're getting a good ride today in the news because they came to an agreement. They're going to get a good ride over the weekend. And it's Monday or Tuesday before we see the numbers, say, hey, wait a minute, who's the beneficiary, who's getting the money, how are they cutting, so I think, I think they've got, for the next four or five days you've got to give 'em credit.

MR. LEHRER: Do you want to join the good ride?

PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: Well, a budget resolution is, by its very nature, a very general statement, I mean, the fine print and the knifing behind the scenes as has to go on later. Newt Gingrich had a secret ally inside the negotiations between the Senate and the House. His name is Bob Dole, the Senate Republican leader. He wanted a tax cut.

MR. LEHRER: He wanted a deal.

MR. GIGOT: He wanted a tax cut. He wanted a big tax cut. He wanted a bigger tax cut than the Senate had voted for, than the $170 billion. And so he was in there essentially arguing against some of his Senate conferees, saying, we've got to deliver this tax cut. Now, the hard part for Dole comes in actually passing it. And he's got to get those 51 votes in the Senate, but so far, so good for him.

MR. LEHRER: Is that going to be a problem? Is he going to have trouble selling that to his own Republican Senators?

MR. GIGOT: Well, remember, 23 of them voted against Phil Gramm's tax cut, 23 of the Republicans.

MR. SHIELDS: Which was the original --

MR. GIGOT: Which was the original House --

MR. LEHRER: The original House version. Right.

MR. GIGOT: The irony is that now Bob Dole and Pete Domenici are going to be emerging from the Senate, trying to sell a tax cut which isn't that much smaller than the one 23 of them voted against when Phil Gramm proposed it. Now, some of that was anti Phil Gramm vote in the Senate. So I think it's going to be difficult. The breakdown on the Finance Committee in the Senate is only eleven Republicans, nine Democrats. John Chafee is one of those Republicans if he would go the other way. And he's never been a fan of tax cuts. It could be -- it's going to be another test of Bob Dole's leadership.

MR. LEHRER: Now, where does this leave the President, Mark? You just said, I mean, he's got his own plan, but today he said this Republican plan that was announced, this compromise plan, was too extreme, would hurt the economy, and he doesn't support it.

MR. SHIELDS: The President -- the argument the President's folks make, Jim, is that he staked out his position last week which now enables him to criticize, that he could stand up to it because he's got his plan in there, and his plan is entirely different, substantially different from that which the Republicans are endorsing. I, I think that obviously we're in for a long run. I mean, we're looking at --

MR. LEHRER: It's going to be long as --

MR. SHIELDS: It is. It is. And what the Republicans are betting on is that they will present the President with a plan at the same time when the legal statutory debt ceiling of the country has to be raised. And they'll present it to him at the same time, and if they do that, the President's options are to reject it and, in effect, close down the borrowing authority of the government, thereby closing down the government's ability to operate or to sign it. So that's what -- it's a little game of "chicken."

MR. LEHRER: But it's a very long game. Lay that out, Paul and Mark, about this, this is a plan, all it is is a plan.

MR. SHIELDS: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: Now it has to go through laborious steps and various committees, and just give us a feel for that, Paul.

MR. GIGOT: Well, there are two things essentially that have to happen. The tax cuts have to go through the tax writing committees, particularly the Senate Finance Committee.

MR. LEHRER: And the Senate Finance Committee, the chairman is opposed to tax cuts.

MR. GIGOT: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: -- Sen. Packwood.

MR. GIGOT: Right. He and Bob Dole are joined at the hip. He's going to do whatever Bob Dole wants at this stage.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. But that could be laborious.

MR. GIGOT: It will be. The, the other thing is that the spending committees, the appropriators, have to go in, and they have to go through and take the instructions that this budget resolution provides them. It says you have to meet this ceiling, no more.

MR. LEHRER: And is that all it says? I mean, it's not any more specific than that, is it?

MR. GIGOT: No, no. There is specific language, but it is guidance, that's all it is. It has not legal force.

MR. SHIELDS: It's not a law, and it's a resolution of the Congress, the two Houses. That's why the President's really not a player in this process constitutionally or legally. The Congress always adopts the budget resolution, and the President doesn't either sign it or veto it.

MR. LEHRER: So just to oversimplify it for a moment so I can understand it --

MR. SHIELDS: That's our specialty.

MR. LEHRER: You bet. That's what we're here for. $245 billion in tax cuts. Okay. That goes to the tax writing committees of the House and the Senate. They're not bound by that. They could come up with 250, they could come up with 230, and they wouldn't have to be capital gains, or how bound are they by this?

MR. SHIELDS: No. It doesn't have to be any particular formula at all. It is guidance. And I think, I think Paul has put his finger on what the presidential dynamic is, but there's another presidential dynamic in this, and that's Phil Gramm. Phil Gramm has to prove that somehow -- I mean, Phil Gramm's had a very tough couple of weeks. He hasn't been able to get traction. He didn't get traction on the Foster nomination, where he wanted to spearhead - - so he's tried to get to the right of Bob Dole, and at every possible turn, Bob Dole has just kind of forced him off the edge into the shoulder, and Phil's wheels are spinning back there, and Dole just kind of camps and then kind of moves back in, and then the poor guy tries to pass him on the right again, and he pushes him off again. And so you can be sure Gramm, who did offer the original House version, will be pushing that committee, the Senate Finance Committee, and saying --

MR. LEHRER: Even more.

MR. SHIELDS: -- we're going to go, because the Senate -- unlimited debate in the Senate -- you know, you can bring in -- unlike the House, you can bring up all the amendments you want, and he'll be trying to make that case. And at that point, you might get some real tension and some real dissatisfaction, the Bob Packwoods of the world and the John Chafees saying, look, Bob Dole's our guy, but this thing is getting ridiculous.

MR. LEHRER: This is enough. Okay. The Foster nomination, the Senate Republicans wouldn't allow it to come to a vote on a simple up or down vote. Who won? Who lost on this one?

MR. GIGOT: Jim, I think that the only real loser was Dr. Foster, himself. I mean, he lost his nomination. The political players on either side otherwise, I think, won, and President Clinton won because I think finally he was trying to demonstrate to his base of support, the liberals, the abortion rights supporters, that finally he could stick to a nominee, support him all the way, right up to the hilt. He did. And I think he gets credit for that. On the Republican side, this was a game principally -- certainly there were a lot of people, the social conservatives in the Senate, who felt strongly that he shouldn't go ahead and oppose it all the way, but essentially this came down to another sumo wrestling match between Phil Gramm and Bob Dole. And Phil Gramm had pledged to filibuster the nomination. Now he's taken credit for that, but Bob Dole came in just as Mark said and cut him right off at the pass, and, and I think in a real tactical tour de force managed to get 43 votes to stop it. Phil Gramm's got to be walking around, saying, what do I have to do to get an issue here, I can't find one.

MR. LEHRER: Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: I can't argue with that. I think that, that Dole by scheduling the votes as quickly as he did, back to back, he met with Dr. Foster, he went the extra mile, did it in a place where there are no cameras around, so there's no pictures of him and Dr. Foster. We have his word that he went with Dr. Foster. Nobody --

MR. LEHRER: Nobody else --

MR. SHIELDS: Elvis was there, but nobody else. Then he schedules the votes, Jim, back to back, okay, and he does it, which is truly adroit, because here's Phil Gramm, who's saying, I'm in this fight till the end, he gets about 20 minutes between two games of a double hitter, one day a vote, the next day to make his case, and his case basically turned out let's go till August, okay, which, which, you know, let's postpone this thing till August. Dole, by contrast, says, hey, let's give a vote.

MR. LEHRER: But why did the Democrats fold on this? Why didn't the Democrats make the -- I mean, why didn't the Democrats make Gramm and the Republicans actually filibuster? Why did they agree to this process?

MR. SHIELDS: You know, it's a good question, and they'd been pushing for a vote. They didn't feel -- quite frankly, they thought that they were going to get the number --

MR. LEHRER: They thought they were going to win it?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, at one point they did. The White House -- the White House confided -- people at the White House -- admitted two months ago they did not think they'd get the 60. And so Paul's point about Dr. Foster being the only loser, I think Sen. Gramm was hurt because he is. He's looking for traction. He's looking for -- Jim, he needs a victory. I mean, this is a man who set out his candidacy, and he said, look, watch me, I'm going to raise more money, I'm going to have the best campaign, you just watch me, and he's just, he's stumbled, and he's had missteps and all the rest, so he's dying for a primary victory, and it's all the way from now until next January, February before we get to Iowa and New Hampshire, so he was looking for a victory here. He didn't get it. I think Dr. Foster, quite frankly, came out of it better than anybody else. Dr. Foster came out of it up. He was ebullient. He was positive about public service. I mean, if anybody grew in the whole process, as Dole and Gramm are doing, elbows and knees, and President Clinton is saying, this is my guy and kind of using it as a campaign issue, I thought Dr. Foster did, didn't you?

MR. LEHRER: Well, Paul --

MR. GIGOT: Yeah. I think he emerged very statesmanlike this week, no question about it, in defeat. He looked gracious.

MR. SHIELDS: He did.

MR. GIGOT: And frankly, unlike Bob Dole, who after he had the victory, a wonderful tactical victory, actually gave a very tough, I thought, acerbic, partisan speech on the Senate floor, which he didn't need to do.

MR. SHIELDS: He didn't need to do it.

MR. GIGOT: You should be gracious in victory, and he was not.

MR. LEHRER: Is it, is it -- is the pro-life, anti-abortion force within the Republican Party as strong, this strong a cause? Why is it so strong that it causes the Senate Majority Leader and Phil Gramm to do all of this? I mean, that's what was really driving all of this, why? Why are they so strong?

MR. GIGOT: Abortion was a big issue, Jim, but the social right, the cultural right, if you will, is a lot bigger than abortion. I mean, what started it 20 years ago was Roe V. Wade, no question about it, the Supreme Court abortion decision, but since then, it's grown and grown and grown. And what you saw in the elections of '94 was that these are the people who really became, who really made Republicans the majority in Congress for the first time. The broad breadth of cultural issues, whether it be affirmative action, whether it be welfare, whether it be the fraying cultural fabric, and you see -- and I think that they may almost be the dominant part of the nominating wing of the Republican Party now when it comes to --

MR. LEHRER: So Dole and Gramm really had no choice. If those guys want to be the nominee, either one of them, want to be the nominee of the Republican Party in 1996, they had to do what they did, is that what you're saying?

MR. GIGOT: I really believe that. The one candidate who's saying something different is, is Arlen Specter, who's running on abortion from the other side. That's a very small portion of the Republican electorate.

MR. SHIELDS: The, the conventional wisdom is this -- that a pro- life Democrat cannot be nominated, and a pro-choice Republican cannot be nominated within the parties, that the two -- within the two parties, those are the two -- they have a veto-proof force on the, on the nomination. And I think that Gov. Wilson is also somebody who represents that. He finally this week did the obligatory of genuflecting before Larry King on his show and announcing, mumbling that he was going to run. He, he will test that, but I think that there's no question -- it's not simply the numbers, Jim. It's the action and the activity. And that's -- you know, that's where the passion and the intensity and the people are going to volunteer.

MR. LEHRER: But let's move to November. What kind of issue, if any, does this give President Clinton and the Democrats, not only the pro-choice issue? This was a black-American, black doctor. Somebody could say maybe if it was a white obstetrician from Tennessee, he might not have been treated this way, but then you also have the failure to even allow him an up or down vote, which the Democrats did on Clarence Thomas, and on John Tower and all these others. Is it an issue?

MR. SHIELDS: I think that was a strong case to make, and it was not effectively and persuasively made, that everybody else has got an up or down vote. I think that for the Democrats going in for the White House in nominating Henry Foster, he was really Clarence Thomas with a stethoscope. He was a very clever nominee. He was one that had to disarm the other side. He had been President George Bush's kind of light. He had been the Make a Wish Foundation, combated, devoted his career to combating teenage pregnancy, and just as Clarence Thomas's nomination as a black conservative froze a lot of Democrats, the Thurgood Marshall seat, and there was sort of a "gotcha" attitude among conservatives that did it, there was a "gotcha" attitude when they nominated Dr. Foster, that he was no -- he was not Joycelyn Elders.

MR. LEHRER: And that was a -- that's been the Republican argument too, has it not, Paul, that this was a political choice to begin with, why not play politics in response?

MR. GIGOT: It was, it was thought so right from the start by a lot of Senate Republicans, and then after the initial opposition developed, you saw that both the President and Dr. Foster came out and talked about white extremists and extremists being -- the Senate Republicans being in thrall to these people. That did not go down very well, even with moderate Republicans. It made it easier for Bob Dole to corral a lot of people who otherwise might have been persuaded by the fairness argument to give him an up or down vote.

MR. LEHRER: So the question, of course, which we cannot answer because we have to leave now is whether or not we'll hear about this again, or is it one of these two-day stories and it's over?

MR. SHIELDS: Four-day story.

MR. LEHRER: Four-day story?

MR. GIGOT: About six.

MR. LEHRER: Six. Thank you both very much. FOCUS - THE HIT LIST

MS. FARNSWORTH: Next tonight, we look at another program on the budget hit list. The Legal Services Corporation provides legal aid to the poor. It is one of many programs targeted for extinction by the Republican budget put forward in the House of Representatives. Today the Senate held hearings on the fate of Legal Services. We start with a look at how the program works in California. Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET-Los Angeles has this backgrounder.

JEFFREY KAYE: The San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services Office handles more than 10,000 cases a year. Clients seek advice on everyday, non-criminal legal matters. This woman had questions about her rental lease. This agency is one of some twelve hundred neighborhood law offices around the country funded by the Legal Services Corporation, a non-profit organization created by Congress in 1974 to provide legal assistance to the poor. This year's congressional appropriation was $415 million. Legal aid staff handle a range of civil matters, according to Neal Dudovitz, this office's executive director.

NEAL DUDOVITZ, Executive Director, Legal Services Office: Housing would be No. 1. Family matters would be second, and right now, a big -- one of the major problems we have is people who have been subject to domestic violence and helping get restraining orders and child support orders. That would be the second largest, and then we have quite a few consumer-related issues, and people who have difficulty with health care and government benefits programs, Social Security, supplemental security income, Medicare, things like that.

MR. KAYE: Often, clients are disabled, so legal aid staff members make home visits. Seventy-two-year-old Sheila Maxwell is bed- ridden. Lawyers believe she has been defrauded.

YVONNE MARIA JIMENEZ, Legal Aid Lawyer: [talking to Sheila Maxwell in Maxwell's home] Okay, basically what the document says --

MR. KAYE: Maxwell is afraid she may lose her home. That's because she signed over a half interest in the property to a man whom she says in return promised to care for her but didn't. He also moved out many of her belongings.

MR. KAYE: What are the lawyers doing for you?

SHEILA MAXWELL: I think they're trying to allow me to have the privilege of living in my home. This is my home for 30 years.

YVONNE MARIA JIMENEZ: These people have nowhere to turn. If they go to private attorneys, the cases sound so crazy that no one believes it. They entail work, which private attorneys will not take without costly retainers, and this is why our agency does take these cases.

MR. KAYE: But what has upset most critics of Legal Aid are not the routine cases like Maxwell's, but its class action lawsuits which seek to right alleged wrongs on behalf of large groups of people. Although class-action cases comprise less than .1 of 1 percent of Legal Services' caseload, they can have far reaching ramifications because they often challenge government programs. In this recent case, Legal Aid lawyers sued Los Angeles County Government over its health care system.

ROBERT NEWMAN, Legal Aid Lawyer: [in courtroom] So as we said in our opening brief to this court, this is akin to justice delayed is justice denied. If an indigent has an entitlement, and everyone agrees they have that entitlement to receive necessary medical care, but you can postpone the receipt of that care for an unreasonable length of time, then that right becomes meaningless.

MR. KAYE: This case came about because patients at county hospitals complained of long waits for medical services. Legal Aid client Mary Hayes has severe arthritis.

MARY HAYES: I've been waiting for a radiologist's appointment.

BETH OSTHIMER, Legal Aid Lawyer: She's been here twice in the last four months and has waited several times, and she's waited, I know, sixteen hours two of those times to get this medication while she waits for her radiology appointment.

ADA TREIGER, Los Angeles County Attorney: [in courtroom] We have to set priorities, and we have a huge demand on facilities that we have.

MR. KAYE: Lawyers for the county sought to persuade the judge that it was not his job to tell government how to allocate scarce resources. But Legal Aid attorneys countered by asking the court to order the county government to adopt standards. The judge refused, indicating the law gave him no authority to do that.

JUDGE: There's no constitutional right to a specific level of medical benefits. There is no known constitutional right to waiting time standards for publicly paid medical care.

MR. KAYE: The judge suggested Legal Aid attorneys seek a change in the law to accomplish their goals. Legal Aid lawyers said they'll appeal the judge's ruling just as the Legal Services Corporation pleads its case before Congress.

MS. FARNSWORTH: To discuss the future of the Legal Services Corporation, we turn to two guests: Sen. Paul Wellstone, Democrat of Minnesota, is a member of the Labor and Human Resources Committee. He joins us from St. Paul. Rep. Charles Taylor, Republican of North Carolina, serves on the Appropriations Committee. He is in Clemson, South Carolina. Thank you both for being with us. Congressman Taylor, what do you advocate doing with Legal Services and why?

REP. CHARLES TAYLOR, [D] North Carolina: [Clemson, SC] Well, we've got to cut the budget over $100 billion to get the balance we need, and we're looking for lower priority programs. Legal Services performs some good work. Sometimes that can be done through the consumer protection divisions of the Attorney General's office, and many times, the existing Bar has independent organizations. There are almost 900 organizations that aren't connected with Legal Services that work for the poor. What we're saying is the nearly $1/2 billion that we're spending now can be found and can be replaced. Only 13 percent of the Bar now participates; 87 percent's out there that could be called upon. Also, we need to stop some of the very extreme radical decisions. For instance, you showed cases of consumer fraud. You didn't show the case where Legal Services joined a 14-year-old who had raped a young lady and wanted to keep the child. They joined with him to sue to get the child away from the child, to get custody for it, the rapist, that is. You didn't show the case where they sued the Florida State Penitentiary, saying they could not separate HIV criminals from others in order to prevent rapid spread of AIDS, or you didn't show how they take cases of illegal immigrants to keep them in the country or to help drug pushers stay in public housing. They almost never take the side of the poor if it's trying to get rid of drug pushers in their housing developments, or if it's trying to protect themselves in some other way. So we say that we can replace this. There's adequate aid for the poor in other areas. The extreme case is not what the public wants to put their tax dollars in, and we have a good alternative.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay. Sen. Wellstone, let's just start with one of those questions first. Would there be adequate aid for the poor from private lawyers?

SEN. PAUL WELLSTONE, [D] Minnesota: [Minneapolis] No, there would not be. The Bar Association supports this and has contributed, but it would be like to say that carpenters would do pro bono work building housing for low-income people, doctors would do pro bono work for poor people all across the country. The facts are a little different on all of Congressman Taylor's examples, and I won't go into it. Just, I want to make it clear that those facts are disputed. As far as the budget cuts, $400 million, that's not even half of the cost of one B-2 bomber. The Legal Services program is all about, Elizabeth, what I grew up on, and what most people in the country believe in, which is liberty and equal justice for all, equal justice under the law. Some 5 million citizens are served by this every year, poor people last year 5 million. 80 percent of them were children. And we're not talking about statistics. We're talking about an elderly person who's been defrauded, a veteran who wonders what to do about Agent Orange, a woman who's been abused and whose home is unsafe and wants to know where to go, a family that's threatened with eviction, and on and on and on. This represents the goodness in our country. And to talk about eliminating it, cutting it, goes against the goodness in the United States of America. People don't support eliminating Legal Services program, which also, by the way, has support from the Bar Association, the American Legion, if I could --

REP. TAYLOR: We have many programs we're going to have to make the decision on. Small business is being asked to be cut nearly $400 million.

SEN. WELLSTONE: Former U.S. attorneys, Sen. Rudman of New Hampshire today was talking about it, has broad-based support, it's a very extreme proposal, and I think it'll be rejected.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Congressman Taylor, what about the argument that supporters make that to have respect for law, the courts have to be available to everybody, that if there's a law preventing the eviction of somebody just because they're poor, they have to have access to the courts to be able to fight that eviction, what about that argument?

REP. TAYLOR: I, of course, dispute what Sen. Wellstone was saying. First of all, we need to understand this does not affect criminal law at all. It's civil matters. There are criminal provisions already made, that in the case of 900 or more different organizations that now represent the poor, they do it very well. To say that Legal Services is out there, the only organization that makes any effort in that area, is just not true. Also, Legal Services gets almost a quarter of a billion dollars through United Way and other -- through the various organizations and other contributions, legal contributions that come in. With 87 percent of the Bar not participating, what we'd like to see is they could step forth with both money and time and by utilizing the existing Bar on a pro bono basis you would have a better monitoring system than we have today. Sen. Wellstone says that this, of course, is representing people, the poor, with housing and other questions. He doesn't point out Legal Services represents drug pushers and they -- and keeps them in public housing. They have never represented a client trying to get drug pushers out of public housing. They represent prisoners in many cases where their own ombudsman in the prisoners are adequate to make the representation. What we're saying is if we've got to make cuts and in the same committee we don't act on -- in our Appropriations Subcommittee B- 1 bombers -- but we are going to have to cut Small Business Association several hundreds of millions of dollars. How can I justify cutting funds for small business people while I'm keeping funds in for defending a rapist from trying to get custody of the child from the woman he raped? The people in this country do not want this. Now, the only case they have to make is to continue to say this is for the poor. A lot of these dollars are not spent for the poor. There is an adequate alternative there for representing poor people, and I think it would serve both Legal Services and the Bar if pro bono work could be called upon, and medical doctors do a great deal of it now.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Congressman, on the question, just quickly, on the question of an adequate alternative being available, didn't Legal Services come about because there was a gap between the need in the poor community and what the private lawyers were willing to give in pro bono services? I mean, it came about, and it was -- in fact, became an entity, a legal entity during the Nixon administration. Do you think that would change now for some reason? I'm sorry, can you not hear me, Congressman?

REP. TAYLOR: Are you putting the question to me?

MS. FARNSWORTH: Yes.

REP. TAYLOR: I don't think -- you see, it's operated with much less money in the past. It hasn't been authorized by Congress, for instance, since the 70's. It's eked through with sometimes $200 million, and now it's up to about $430 million. The funds that could come in from the Bar, for instance, we've developed since '74, when Legal Services were created, we have attorney generals offices that have consumer fraud areas now that didn't have them in that time. We have many other organizations that are in existence. I mentioned a moment ago there are over 900 organizations that weren't in existence in 1974 now to help the poor with legal questions. I think there's more understanding by the Bar -- the Bar is much larger than it was in 1974, and there's more of a pro bono attitude I think in the Bar. Many organizations like doctors are requiring for recertification in their continuing education, they're requiring pro bono work on a part of the medical profession. We could do the same thing, if necessary, with the Bar. But I think you'll find lawyers willing to come forth in community for those cases that are legitimately for the poor. You would not have them suing the Florida State Penitentiary to keep HIV patients unsegregated. I think you would have them representing legitimate poor cases, and I think that's going to be needed. And you asked the question: How many other needed things that are going to be cut are we going to have to leave, cut even lower in order to keep the Legal Services Corporation -- things for elderly and education and so forth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Sen. Wellstone, what about that? First of all, some of the abuses that seemed to come up in all discussions of this, could you just respond to that, and then secondly, what about the private lawyers taking up the slack if it is not authorized?

SEN. WELLSTONE: Well, if Legal Services was as Congressman Taylor described it, it wouldn't have broad bipartisan support, it wouldn't have the support of organizations all across the country, chief justice of state supreme courts, the American Legion, you name it. The examples she gives have all been disputed. I could go through them one by one. It would take me an hour, but frankly, it's all documented evidence, essentially with a whole other set of facts. He picks out a few things he talks about. Legal Services -- every year, it's about one million, seven hundred thousand cases -- five million people helped. This is all about making sure that there's equal justice under the law. To cut this out would be extreme. As to whether or not if you eliminate Legal Services there would be representation for poor people, no, there would not be. That's why we established it in 1974. That's why President Nixon took the lead. That's why, in fact, you have in communities all across Minnesota such broad based support for it. As it is, right now, Legal Services lawyers who get paid maybe twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars a year, they could make hundreds of thousands of dollars, but they try and serve low income people, vulnerable people, elderly people, people with disabilities and children. That representation wouldn't be there. Congressman Taylor's proposal is an effort to shut a whole group of citizens -- there are over 40 million poor people in our country -- out of the legal system, out of representation. It's too extreme; it goes beyond the goodness of people in the United States of America, and I think his proposal will not be acceptable, and I think it will be defeated.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Sen. Wellstone, why do you think this is such a hot button issue? I mean, this has been an issue for many years in Congress, this whole issue of Legal Services. Why do you think that's the case?

SEN. WELLSTONE: Well, I think it's in part the case because we're talking about power and powerlessness in America. Remember, the Edward R. Murrow "Harvest of Shame?" I mean, some people don't like the fact that migrant workers can take on inadequate housing and could have legal representation. Some people don't like the fact that an elderly person or a disabled person who isn't getting good health care can say, look, I can go to a lawyer that can defend me even though I don't have the money. Some people don't like the fact that a low-income family, when not treated fairly by a landlord, when living in slum housing, can say to that landlord, this is unsafe for my children without being evicted because of Legal Services representation. Some people don't think that's good. Most people in the United States of America think it is good because it means that we do have equal protection under the law, and by the way, this is a good lesson for our children, because it makes people have more respect for the law when we make sure everybody has good representation.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Congressman Taylor, there are various proposals for what to do with legal services in the House and in the Senate and in the House apparently there's a proposal which would combine some of these proposals, cutting the funding and reforming. Are you determined that it be completely knocked out, or would you be willing to accept some kind of compromise proposal?

REP. TAYLOR: Well, I think the majority of the proposals do call for its discontinuation either through -- immediately or over a period of two to three years. I would remind Sen. Wellstone that at a hearing I chaired the committee that heard -- the cases we heard were never disputed by Legal Services. The head of Legal Services, by the way, makes about a hundred and thirty some thousand dollars, not thirty-five thousand, and the -- the numerous cases --

SEN. WELLSTONE: Excuse me. I'm talking about Legal Services lawyers and today in committee, I had documented --

REP. TAYLOR: -- coming down through the Legal Services --

SEN. WELLSTONE: -- taking on each one of your charges, so don't throw numbers around that.

REP. TAYLOR: If you take secretaries and other people, then you start getting the lower figures, but it's much higher. Also, we had a Democrat in our committee who sat on our committee last Congress, who had been a mayor. He came forth and said that Legal Services had broke his fund that they were using to get rid of drug pushers in his housing developments for the city because Legal Services constantly took the drug pusher's case, and the city had to use city funds to do it. Now, this was a Democrat who -- a mayor who'd been elected to Congress and made this statement in the committee, so Sen. Wellstone likes to forget about those cases and --

SEN. WELLSTONE: Elizabeth, in that particular --

REP. TAYLOR: -- poor people -- and there are no poor people being served.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Senator --

REP. TAYLOR: I would remind you again there are hundreds of organizations.

SEN. WELLSTONE: Can I respond briefly?

MS. FARNSWORTH: Yes, Sen. Wellstone. I'm sorry, Congressman Taylor, we must go. Sen. Wellstone, you have just a few seconds to respond, and then we have to go.

SEN. WELLSTONE: In that particular case, the Legal Services Corporation has made it clear that the law is wrong, and they want to make sure they don't have to represent anybody who is a drug pusher. And as far as the overall issue of this is a budget cut, please remember everybody, 400 million, half of one B-2 bomber, we have 425 billion dollars in huge subsidies for large corporations and financial institutions, tax loophole deductions.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Sen. Wellstone, I have to interrupt you.

SEN. WELLSTONE: They don't talk about cutting that, but they want to cut legal representation for the most vulnerable citizens in this country. That's wrong.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Thank you, gentlemen, very much for being with us. FOCUS - WAR ON CANCER

MR. LEHRER: Next tonight, fighting cancer. Medical researchers announced today they had isolated a gene that when defective could cause many forms of the disease. The war against cancer was officially declared by the Nixon administration. Today, 25 years later, one in three Americans will be diagnosed with cancer, and one in five will die from it. Our medical correspondent, Fred De Sam Lazaro of public station KCTA-St. Paul-Minneapolis reports.

SPOKESPERSON: We want to get the message to members of Congress.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The message from 7,000 scientists at this year's gathering of the American Association for Cancer Research was that research cures cancer. Becky Thomson, a volunteer at the Toronto conference, is an apt poster patient for the challenge to develop more effective, less punishing cancer treatments. In the 1980's, Thomson lost her nose and right cheek to skin cancer. It took 14 surgeries to reconstruct her face. Thomson actually dealt with cancer first in her breast back in 1962, a time when the knife was a more effective tool than chemotherapy or radiation, and the choices with surgeons ranged from radical to more radical.

BECKY THOMSON, Cancer Survivor: If I would have my mastectomy surgery today, I'm sure I wouldn't have lost six ribs and the pectoral muscle. I wouldn't have the misshapen upper body that I had for years and years and years. I'm the product of too much -- I call it overkill.

MR. LAZARO: Today radical mastectomies are relatively rare. Instead, limited surgery to remove just the cancer called lumpectomies, along with improved chemotherapy and radiation, have proved just as efficacious. One reason is medicine's ability to diagnose tumors much earlier. Biopsies have become less invasive. This procedure, called a stereotactic core needle biopsy, is a 20- minute outpatient procedure.

DR. WENDIE BERG, Johns Hopkins University: One of the things that we do to test our equipment is to use a phantom which has dense "masses" within it, and we can it in place of the breast. We can then put the needle into the phantom, aiming for the center of the lesion. We would fire, we remove the gun, we would open the needle and find our lesion in the center of the pass.

MR. LAZARO: Fran Visco would seem a beneficiary of this improved diagnostic prowess and less radical treatment. Her breast cancer was treated far less invasively than Becky Thomson's, a lumpectomy followed by radiation and chemotherapy. But Visco says this is still a technologically crude approach.

FRAN VISCO, National Breast Cancer Coalition: What we do is once we find the disease in a woman, we give her radiation, we give her poison, which is chemotherapy. I mean, we do slash, burn, and poison, as they say. We have no way of treating women appropriately, but even the women that we treat with these harsh methods, we have no guarantee that they will survive, regardless of how early we've caught the breast cancer.

MR. LAZARO: In fact, this year, the number of breast cancers diagnosed is expected to rise 32 percent, arguably in part because medicine is increasingly adept at diagnosis, but Visco, who's president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, and a member of a presidential cancer panel, says that deaths from the disease will also climb this year by 18 percent.

FRAN VISCO: So I wish I could say that we have the technology to save every woman's life who is diagnosed with the disease, but we don't. We really have no way to find breast cancer truly early, and there is no cure for this disease.

MR. LAZARO: A quarter century and $30 billion into the war on cancer, the picture would seem generally grim. One in three Americans can expect to get cancer during their lifetime. One in five can expect to die from the disease, and its incidence in the prostate, colon, lung, and of course, breast continues on the rise. However, this picture does mask considerable progress that's been made in understanding cancer in general and in actually treating some cancers, according to Dr. Marc Lippman. He heads the Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C..

DR. MARC LIPPMAN, Vince Lombardi Cancer Center: The most important progress, though, I think has been unfortunately somewhat less common tumors, the leukemias, the lymphomas, the pediatric malignancies, and the major cancers of grown-ups, colo-rectal cancer, gastric cancer, esophagus, pancreas, breast, and prostate, have not made so much progress once those cancers are widespread or metastatic as we say.

MR. LAZARO: Sharon Cheatham is hoping that report card can be improved. The 45-year old colon cancer patient is among the first in the nation to undergo an experimental treatment here at Johns Hopkins University, a four-hour drive from Roanoake, Virginia, for Cheatham and her husband, David. After a brief examination by oncologist Louise Grochow, Cheatham is prepped for a six-hour infusion.

DR. LOUISE GROCHOW, Johns Hopkins University: The patient is receiving the medicine directly into a vein. A small catheter was placed under the collar bone and then attached to a small disc that stays under the skin. It can go then anywhere that the cancer cells have lodged, both the spots that we can see on her CAT scan and any other spot that we can't see yet.

SHARON CHEATHAM, Cancer Patient: This is just another completely different drug that they're testing, and hopefully, this will work for me. We don't know. We don't know.

MR. LAZARO: Cheatham's cancer has, in fact, spread to both her liver and ovaries, making her prognosis a guarded one, however, new developments in the genetics field elsewhere at Johns Hopkins will help potential colon cancer patients in the future. Colon cancer often runs in families. Three of Cheatham's siblings have shown early signs of it.

DR. LOUISE GROCHOW: The fact that three of those seven siblings also have polyps says that at some point that gene is now in that family.

MR. LAZARO: That gene, one responsible for certain types of colon cancer, was discovered last year at this Johns Hopkins Lab. Increasingly, through a technique called PCR, Polymerized Chain Reaction, scientists are able to discern very subtle alterations or mutations in the human genetic code. These can eventually lead to various cancers according to Dr. Kenneth Kinzler.

DR. KENNETH KINZLER, Johns Hopkins University: We're looking at a small portion of the 3 billion letters that compose our genetic code, and we can actually read this here from three patients, and we can see that it goes TACTCATGTG [on screen: TACTCAGTG - TACTAAGTG]. One of these patients, though, instead of having a C at this position has an A, so the single one base -- one letter change in their genetic code predisposes them to the development of colorectal cancer.

MR. LAZARO: It's these new genetic insights into the basis of cancer that experts say is the biggest victory in the war on cancer.

DR. MARC LIPPMAN: You have to say, what is the most obvious question that someone would ask about the disease, and they'd say, what causes cancer, and in fact, 20 years ago, I think that one could easily say, I don't have the slightest idea. Today, specific genes that are damaged that cause or contribute to colon and breast and pancreas and lung and leukemia are known.

MR. LAZARO: Identifying genes responsible for cancers will also allow scientists to develop new therapies, pharmacological approaches like the one Dr. Grochow is testing with Sharon Cheatham.

DR. LOUISE GROCHOW: [in lab] Is this patient plasma or is this blood bank plasma?

TECHNICIAN: Blood bank.

DR. LOUISE GROCHOW: This is blood bank plasma.

MR. LAZARO: Later on, doctors expect to be able to directly repair mutations and restore normal function in genes involved in cell growth in the body. Dr. Vincent DeVita calls them checkpoint genes. He's now at Yale University but headed the National Cancer Institute in the 70's and 80's, one of the cancer war's first generals.

DR. VINCE DEVITA, Yale University: Keep in mind, by the way, that people die of cancer, not -- when they get a breast cancer, they don't die from the cancer in the breast; they die because with the cell cycle not controlled, those cells travel all over the body, when they get in the liver, they get in the brain, or they get in the lung, they keep growing, growing, growing, until they crowd out the normal organ. So if you can get those checkpoints back in control, you can treat cancer. Well, we now know all this. We didn't -- we were guessing at it. To me, it's one of the most exciting observations, and we'll win Nobel Prizes, I'm sure, in a short period of time. FRAN VISCO: You can clone a gene, and that may be a significant advance in the laboratory in the war on cancer, but it has little meaning to me in my day-to-day life. I want to know that the science that you're doing is going to have a significant impact on me, not just get you a Nobel Prize.

MR. LAZARO: Dr. Harold Varmus won a Nobel Prize in 1979 for pioneering work in cancer genetics. Now head of the National Institutes of Health, Varmus admits researchers often tout lab breakthroughs in the media, even though the clinical payoff is still distant.

DR. HAROLD VARMUS, Director, National Institutes of Health: Bringing a discovery in the genetic arena into a, a practical mode where it can be used to improve diagnosis or to prevent cancer or to, to devise new therapies, that's really quite far away. I try, as best I can, to avoid delivering what we call promissory notes, to say that there will be some clear reward at sometime in the relatively near future, because I think we just can't predict, as yet, but that will be the case.

DR. LOUISE GROCHOW: It takes a very long time to turn a concept into a chemical and to turn a chemical into a treatment and to turn treatment into medication that you can really use in people.

MR. LAZARO: And Grochow says the speed of progress is directly proportional to the amount of money invested in research. The $30 billion spent on the war on cancer, she argues, is minuscule in proportion to the challenge.

DR. LOUISE GROCHOW: This has been a skirmish on cancer. The amount of money that's been spent since 1972 compared to one day in the Gulf War is ridiculously small, and if it was funded as a war, since so many more Americans and people all over the world die of this disease, it would make a difference. I think that there's a lot of good work that's not being funded.

MR. LAZARO: The funding outlook isn't expected to get much brighter. Financing for most biomedical research, including cancer, comes from the National Institutes of Health through grants to universities and in-house efforts at the National Cancer Institute. In recent months, a number of high-level scientists and administrators have left this venerable institution. Whether this has to do with funding, politics, or normal turnover is the subject of debate. However, many scientists like Dr. Thomas Waldman say budget constraints and a hiring freeze have hurt productivity.

DR. THOMAS WALDMAN, National Institutes of Health: It has had a very demoralizing effect on the scientist who has been unable to replace the only technician they have, when they left three or four years ago, or even a secretary cannot be replaced, thus, it has been one of the features that has led to the kind of exodus of important scientists from the NIH.

MR. LAZARO: National Institutes of Health Director Varmus says researchers will have to reconcile with an era of limits after decades of steady expansion in public spending on medical research.

DR. HAROLD VARMUS: I would simply say that we're keeping pace with inflation, have been for several years, whereas, for the previous 40 years, we were in a growth phase, just after World War II, a very rapid growth phase, with gradual reductions in the rate of growth until the last few years, when we've been basically at an inflationary rate.

MR. LAZARO: Just how the new funding realities will affect the force of medical research remains unclear, so does the report card so far on the war on cancer. Scientists feel excitement over breakthroughs in understanding cancer, and recently, there's been some evidence that prevention campaigns, notably in smoking cessation, have begun to pay dividends in lower cancer rates. Yet, by the turn of the century, cancer will have overtaken heart disease as the No. 1 cause of death in the United States. ESSAY - KOLACHES IN KANSAS

MS. FARNSWORTH: Finally tonight, essayist Jim Fisher of the "Kansas City Star" considers the people of Cuba, Kansas.

JIM FISHER: Talking is still okay in the middle of Main Street in Cuba, Kansas, so is bike riding down that wide thoroughfare in late afternoon, a pooch taking up most of the front seat of a pickup, a mother and daughter putting a 4-H calf through its paces for an upcoming county fair, and folks cheering their kids at the local ball field. One thing, catch the names on the jerseys -- Trecek, Havel, Baxa, Skucius -- Cuba is an old Czechoslovakian town -- wheat and corn farmers, a place for the stayers in this nation where nobody resides long in one place anymore. Twenty years ago, a photojournalist named Jim Richardson started making black and white pictures of Cuba, a town some thought was only an eye blink from oblivion. Richardson's photos, often stark, caught the essence of what's still out here: sincerity, honesty, and a straightforward notion of what life is about. Cuba has survived, although smaller, quieter, emptier, but much is still the same. The high point is still the morning avocation down at the Cuba Cafe, plus grousing, some of it in Bohemian. [men playing cards] Or listen, down the street, it's not every day the U.S. mail gets sorted in a Slavic tongue -- [mail being sorted] -- now four generations old. Sadly, despite drought and floods, hard times and plenty, the language is dying, disuse -- one parent who knew it, another who didn't, American words creeping in. There's no answer. In another generation, Bohemian will fade and disappear, as the old-timers die. Still, there's hope. Down from the post office is the J&J Bakery and Wallpaper Shop -- yes -- Wallpaper Shop. You do what you have to do to make a living in small town Kansas. Inside, amid aromas that bring back childhood memories of a country kitchen, a mother and daughter are reclaiming a culinary legacy from the old country, the making of delicate Czech pastries, mainly kolaches and buchtis. They mix and knead, fill and bake. What emerges is evident, and folks come. A couple of weekends ago, 500 pastries went out the door before noon. The owners are Jackie Jeardoe, 37, and her mother, Alma Stocny, 65. And Jackie's got plans. Maybe, some day there might be a bigger market for buchtis and kolaches than just Cuba and surrounding Republic County, some day. In the larger scheme of things, the cacophony from Washington, the sirens in the night, the crowding of the cities, a combination wallpaper store and bakery may not seem a whole lot, except to say that two women, both former factory workers, are seeking their share of the economic pie, that the predicted demise of the great plains may depend on just such individuals using their own money and innovation, and that above all, dreams can spring from anywhere, even in a bakery, one that also sells wallpaper, where youngsters play cards, a game known to their fathers and their fathers before them, a ritual, it seems, in Little Cuba, Kansas. I'm Jim Fisher. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, President Clinton said the House-Senate Republican budget compromise was too extreme. And it was announced this evening that Dr. Jonas Salk has died. In 1953, he developed the first polio vaccine. It led to the virtual elimination of the disease in this country. He was currently doing research on a vaccine for AIDS. He died in La Jolla, California, from congestive heart failure. He was 80 years old. Good night, Elizabeth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll back Monday. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Have a nice weekend.