Nevada delegates give speech high marks

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2002 | 8:39 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The question for Nevada's delegation is whether Congress can respond this year to President Bush's specific call Tuesday night to help the nation's laid-off workers, who now number 69,000 in the Silver State.

Bush said he supported extending the amount of time workers could collect unemployment benefits to help those laid off in recent months, as well as extending health care coverage benefits.

But Democrats and Republicans have not been able to agree on a detailed framework for either issue as part of a larger debate on an economic stimulus bill.

"We'll have to wait and see," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate Majority Whip who often controls legislative action on the floor. "The thing we have to do now is wait for (Bush's) budget."

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., added, "We're making a very serious effort to get it done."

Nevada's four members of Congress gave Bush's speech high marks. Gibbons said Bush is noticeably more confident and poised than a year ago.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who was close enough to the aisle to tell Bush "good job" as he left the House chamber, called the address "solid." Berkley said the "spirit of bipartisanship is still alive" in Congress following the Sept. 11 attacks, predicting that lawmakers would provide relief to unemployed workers.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., called Bush' speech "very commanding." He said Bush's plans to rebuild the nation's economy would inherently strengthen the tourism-based Las Vegas economy.

All four members, two Democrats and two Republicans, said they generally support Bush's call for massive new spending on the war abroad and homeland security. They also support the concept of Bush's initiative to encourage Americans to commit two years to national service.

But like Congress itself, the state's small but vocal delegation likely will split along partisan lines on Bush's domestic agenda. This election year promises contentious debates as Republicans and Democrats battle for control of the House and Senate.

For example Republicans blame Democrats for not being more flexible when it comes to helping the unemployed as they cobble together an economic stimulus package.

"It's a question of whether (Senate Majority Leader Tom) Daschle will let it go through," Ensign said.

Democrats blame Republicans for pushing corporate tax cuts they say America can't afford.

To be sure, a year-long showdown looms in Congress over the details of Bush's budget, due out next week. Bush's plan to create jobs relies in part on deficit spending, tax cut proposals, "expanded trade" and "reliable energy" projects.

When asked if it is realistic that lawmakers would pass two other Bush priorities -- a patients' bill of rights and welfare reform -- Ensign said, "This president continues to be underestimated. People have said, 'Oh, he can't do all these things.' They said that last year -- they said he couldn't get a tax cut through, they said he couldn't get an education plan done. I think he will continue to surprise people."

Reid agreed the patients' bill of rights was something Congress could well manage passing this year.

It is less certain whether lawmakers could negotiate the complex details of Bush's call to make prescription drugs covered under Medicare, Reid said.

"It's going to cost a lot of money," Reid said.

Reid was disappointed Bush did not specifically call for spending federal money on school construction, something Congress has been reluctant to approve. Reid also thought Bush should have laid out detailed plans to avoid another Enron scandal.

And Reid is already critical of Bush's energy policy for not focusing more on renewable energy.

"The Administration's energy policy seems to depend on drilling for oil in Alaska and burying nuclear waste in Nevada," Reid said in written remarks released even before the president's speech.

President Bush's energy strategy released last year called for new generation of nuclear power plants to be constructed in America, with nuclear waste to be buried in a permanent repository, ostensibly at Yucca Mountain.

But Reid in an interview said there was "not a chance" new power plants would be built until the United States finds a better solution to the waste problem.

Lawmakers soon will begin debating whether Congress can afford Bush's proposals, including more tax cuts and the largest Defense Department increase in years. Gibbons, long a Bush ally, backed the president.

"It's a question of whether the American public can afford to not have tax cuts," Gibbons said. "And we have to bear the burden of our military challenges. Deficits are going to be short-termed. We must keep our fiscal responsibility at a maximum."