Sunday, August 23, 1998

Fast Track, U.N. deserve opposition

By Rudy Izzard

Last Sunday, Mr. Dick Tarpley, retired editor of the Abilene Reporter-News, wrote a guest column in which he was highly critical of my position on two issues. He further used his column to insinuate that I am an out-of-touch extremist.

Mr. Tarpley is a fine man, a respected member of the community, and I will not disparage him. And while I appreciate his attempt to retract the false and unfounded statements he made about me, I am discouraged by the lack of journalistic standards that the former editor incorporated into his guest column.

Contrary to Mr. Tarpley's column, I did not hold a press conference to oppose NAFTA. In fact, I support NAFTA, although there are serious problems with the agreement that we must resolve.

I held a press conference to oppose granting Fast Track authority to Bill Clinton. Fast Track and NAFTA are very different issues. While I support the basic premise of Fast Track, I opposed granting it to Bill Clinton, specifically because of his suspect relationships with key trading partners -- namely, China.

As it is becoming not just apparent but authenticated that Bill Clinton traded U.S. national security secrets to China for campaign contributions, I feel I am justified in my opposition.

I am not an isolationist. I know how important free and fair global trade is to industries such as agriculture. I just feel that under Bill Clinton our trade policies have been long on the free but short on the fair.

Mr. Tarpley also criticized my position on the United Nations. The United Nations was formed as an instrument to promote peace and security around the globe.

Do I support U.S. involvement in such noble efforts? Yes. The United States should and does lead in these efforts already. But, like most Americans, I want the organization that manages those efforts to be effective and efficient. The U.N. is neither.

With more than 53,000 employees on its payroll and a $1.3 billion budget, the U.N. cannot accurately account for how it spends its money. A listing of the waste, fraud, abuse and fiscal mismanagement at the U.N. would fill up half of today's paper.

Even Secretary of State Madeline Albright -- a Clinton appointee who has served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. -- warned of the U.N.'s poor management when she said, "I cannot justify to the taxpayers of my country some of the personnel arrangements, the sweetheart pension deals, the lack of accountability, the waste of resources and the lack of attention to the bottom line we often see at the U.N."

As a candidate for Congress, I cannot justify these excesses to the people of West Texas either.

Finally, Mr. Tarpley's uninformed efforts to label me as an extremist are off the mark. I have earned the endorsement of numerous Republican leaders, including Gov. George Bush, Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Phil Gramm and congressmen from all over the nation, including J.C. Watts and Bill Archer, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

Additionally, I have had good working relationships with a broad spectrum of conservative Republicans, including Gov. Bill Clements, state Sen. Bill Sims and Congressman Lamar Smith.

Through numerous town hall meetings and press conferences, I have discussed my common-sense conservative ideas for dealing with issues ranging from agriculture to Social Security to veterans' health care.

My political service will always be based on three core beliefs, which I think are shared by an overwhelming majority of the people in the 17th Congressional District.

I believe in limited but effective government, in returning money and power to the private sector, and in a future based on self-reliance instead of government dependence. These core beliefs are not extremist, but they are right.

Rudy Izzard, formerly of San Angelo but now a resident of Abilene, is a Republican candidate for the District 17 seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.