ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

WASHINGTON HOTLINE

Carol C. Henderson

Deputy Director, ALA Washington Office

(202) 547-4440; (ALA0025)

Bush budget.Weeks of congressional budget analysis and budget hearings still have not elicited much detail on the Bush Administration budget revisions for FY 1990. Of a total of $14.3 billion in proposed new initiatives (none for libraries), only $441 million would go to education. A long list of domestic programs are to be available for cuts to pay for Bush initiatives, including all Education Department discretionary programs (libraries are in this category). According to Office of Management and Budget Director Richard Darman at budget hearings, this category "is by definition a category that, from our perspective, is not as important."

Adding to the congressional disenchantment with a budget well received at first is the varying definition of a "freeze." For defense, it means an increase for inflation. For domestic programs in the pool to be cut, it means not only no inflationary adjustment to maintain current services, but a freeze at FY 1989 "outlay" levels, or the amount actually paid out during the fiscal year. An outlay freeze would require an estimated 22 percent cut in library programs (based on the Congressional Budget Office’s current policy baseline).

Education Department officials, including Library Programs Director Anne Mathews, outlined the Reagan FY90 budget for libraries in hearings on March 8, saying: "Pending the outcome of negotiations with Congress, however, we are treating the Reagan budget proposals as if they are Bush proposals. We hope many of them wind up in the eventual compromise budget solution."

A new legislative proposal to replace LSCA and HEA II programs is still anticipated, but is under review at 0MB. Pressed in questioning as to whether the $137.2 million recommendation was a Bush or a Reagan number, department officials said they were simply "the numbers," but stressed that for FY90 appropriations, library programs were in the Bush budget’s category to be negotiated.

Satanic Verses.The Senate and House have passed measures condemning as statesponsored terrorism the threat of the government of Iran and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to assassinate Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, and the officers of Viking, the U.S. publishers of the book, and declaring the commitment of the U.S. government to protect the right of any person to write, publish, sell, buy, and read books without fear of intimidation and violence. S.Res. 72 was introduced by Sen. Moynihan (D-NY) and passed on February 28; H.Res. 102 was introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and passed on March 14. The Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations held a hearing on March 8 on the implications of the Iranian threats.

ALA President F. William Summers sent a telegram on February 17 to President Bush urging the President to make a public statement condemning the Ayatollah’s death threat of February 14 and bringing world opinion to bear. ALA also joined with several writers’ organizations in a February 17 letter to the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations. At a February 23 press conference at the National Press Club, ALA President-Elect Patricia Berger