Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 20, 1990 TAG: 9006200416
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The White House went on the offensive Tuesday, daring Democrats to try to turn the crisis into a campaign issue.
"There are a lot of battles that can be fought on this turf, and we're ready," White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater warned. "The Democrats have a big role" in the collapse of the savings and loan industry, he said.
Returning the fire, Democrats accused the White House of moving sluggishly against those who looted thrift institutions.
Pointing to 10 years of Republican rule in the White House, Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., questioned, "Who ran the government during this decade of mismanagement and negligence?"
Sen. Robert Kerrey, D-Neb., who was singled out for attack by the White House, called Fitzwater "the mean-spirited little spokesman" and accused him of trying to intimidate Democrats into silence.
Referring to another sensitive political issue, Sen. David Pryor, D-Ark., said, "Maybe Mr. Fitzwater has been so busy the last two or three weeks protecting us from the flag burners that he forgot to do his homework on the history of the last decade."
The charges and counter-charges did not shed any new light on the S&L scandal but put it into sharp focus as a key issue for the fall elections.
Estimates of how much it will cost taxpayers to clean up the industry range anywhere from $130 billion to $500 billion and more.
There were these other S&L developments Tuesday:
Rep. Frank Annunzio, D-Ill., demanded that federal regulators spell out their charges against President Bush's son, Neil, in the $1 billion collapse of the Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association of Denver.
The Office of Thrift Supervision has brought administrative charges against Neil Bush, a former director of Silverado, but has not publicly outlined its case. "No law or regulation prevents the agency from revealing the charges," Annunzio said at a hearing by the House Banking Committee. Neil Bush has denied any wrongdoing.
Charles Keating Jr. predicted that a federal judge will give him back his Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, seized by the government in April 1989 in perhaps the nation's costliest S&L collapse. Lawyers for Keating and the government summarized final arguments in the case Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin.
Fitzwater's attack against Democrats was notable both for the sharpness of his words and his willingness to point fingers.
"Take a look at Jim Wright and Tony Coelho and Mr. Kerrey and some of his Nebraska accounts and [Sen.] Don Riegle and [Sen. Dennis] DeConcini; take a look at all of them," Fitzwater said. "I don't think you hear any serious analysis of this problem that doesn't point to Freddy St Germain and the changes that were made in the banking laws back at that point."
Wright, the former House speaker, and Coelho, the former House assistant Democratic leader and a principal Democratic fund-raiser, resigned last year amid questions of ethical impropriety.
Riegle, D-Mich., and DeConcini, D-Ariz., are among five legislators being investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee for allegedly intervening with federal regulators after accepting political contributions from Keating.
Fernand St Germain was chairman of the House Banking Committee during the adoption of a bill - cosponsored by Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah - to overhaul the S&L industry. Fitzwater did not elaborate on his remarks about Kerrey.
Asked if he would say if Republicans were at fault for the crisis, Fitzwater replied, "No." He said Neil Bush was not involved in any S&L scandal.
On Capitol Hill, Pryor said Congress' fault was one of negligence in not requiring regulators in the last years of the Reagan administration to take lie-detector tests. "They simply were not telling us the truth. The truth was that the S&L crisis was here, it was happening and we were not being told the truth," he said.
by CNB