GOP WANTS DRUG SMUGGLING STOPPED

WASHINGTON - House and Senate Republicans accused President
Clinton on Thursday of failing to get tough on drugs by funding
programs to stop smuggling from other nations.

Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., called Clinton's drug policy one of "Just
say maybe" rather than "Just say no."

"The only way we can win this is to just say `no,"' he said at a news
conference. "This is a serious war. This is not a war you just say
`maybe' about. This is a war you win."

Clinton's budget proposal for fiscal 2000 seeks $17.8 billion for
drug-fighting programs, a slight decrease from the $17.9 billion this
year, which includes $844 million in emergency supplemental funding.

About 14 percent of the 2000 funding would go to international and
interdiction programs, compared with nearly 18 percent in 1999.

"As this number goes down, the supply goes up," said Sen. Paul
Coverdell, R- Ga. "As the supply goes up, the price goes down. As the
price goes down, use goes up. That's why interdiction is useful."

Jim McDonough, director of strategy at the White House Drug Control
Office, said the administration had a planned approach that balanced
both sides of the drug equation.

"The theory is, if there's no demand there's no supply. The more you
can lower demand you really can cut supply," he said.

In particular, Republicans were upset they could find no evidence that
Clinton funded a special program that Congress and the White House
agreed to last fall.

That law authorizes more than $2 billion over three years for
equipment, training and other interdiction tools for the Coast Guard
and other agencies.

Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., chairman of the House Judiciary
subcommittee on crime, called the omission a travesty.

"We are not even beginning in the president's plan to wage the kind of
war we said a couple of months ago we should do," McCollum said.

McDonough did not have specifics on those line items, but he said that
the overall cuts Republicans decried compared a regular year's funding
with extra, supplemental funding added at GOP insistence.

Without the supplemental funding, the overall budget would increase in
2000, and the percentage for interdiction would remain roughly the
same.

Last fall's anti-drug law included provisions that mandated the use of
foreign aid as leverage to urge other nations to keep up anti-drug
efforts, upgraded some technology and intelligence tools that American
law enforcement officers use in intercepting illegal drugs and
provided U.S. aircraft and helicopters to Bolivia, Colombia and Peru
to help eradicate drug crops.