Across the Nation

Clinton proposes final federal budget

WASHINGTON - To a chorus of Republican ridicule, President Clinton sent Congress his budget finale yesterday, a $1.84 trillion plan to expand health care access, shrink the national debt and shower Democratic constituencies with election-year largesse.

Blessed with a budgetary bonanza that past presidents could only dream about - a projected $2.92 trillion in federal surpluses over the next decade - Clinton used his spending outline to propose something for almost everyone.

He would cut taxes for the sick, elderly, poor and college-bound; spend more for the environment, schools and gun-law enforcement; and erase the $3.7 trillion publicly held portion of the national debt by 2013.

The proposal is sure to be heavily reworked by Congress, where defiant Republicans dismissed it as a gambit to bolster Vice President Al Gore's presidential bid and the Democratic drive to capture Congress. They promised to fatten the plan's tax cuts, trim its spending boosts and ignore its tax increases.

"It has all things for everyone they feel they'll need to get Al Gore elected president,'' said House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R-Ohio) who called it "the president's fantasy budget."

"I look forward to working with the president in putting together a serious spending proposal," Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici said, (R-N.M.) "But this is a document designed to help Al Gore win election."

There was little denying presidential politics at the White House, where officials said at least a dozen Gore proposals were latticed into the outline. But beyond that, Clinton's farewell spending blueprint - for fiscal 2001, beginning Oct. 1 - was an effort to choose the terrain of this year's budget battle.

Clinton proposed $351 billion in tax cuts through 2010 that he argues can only be enlarged by eroding Social Security's trust funds, diluting efforts to expand and strengthen Medicare, or slashing other popular initiatives such as hiring teachers or reducing the national debt.

"This budget, in short, makes really strong and significant steps toward achieving the great goals that I believe America should pursue in this new century," Clinton told reporters.

Consumer reports prepares defense

LOS ANGELES - Consumer Reports, America's widely respected buyers' guide, will be forced to defend its own credibility in a trial that gets under way this week in Los Angeles federal court.

Isuzu Motors has accused the magazine and its nonprofit parent, Consumers Union, of rigging tests to show that the 1995-96 Trooper sport utility vehicle displayed a propensity to roll over when making emergency turns.

Both sides already have poured millions of dollars into preparations for the product-disparagement and defamation trial, which begins today.

Since 1968, Consumer Reports has been sued a dozen times for knocking products and has never lost a case or paid an out-of-court settlement.

But this legal battle could prove to be the most challenging. And looming just ahead is a companion suit by Suzuki Motor Corp., whose Samurai SUV was branded rollover-prone in 1988.

The Trooper was put through its paces in the spring of 1996 at Consumers Union's 327-acre test track in East Haddam,Conn.

Three professional drivers with engineering degrees performed a rapid zigzag maneuver intended to simulate what might

happen if a driver had to swerve to avoid striking a child who darted into his path.

Rounding the turns at just over 33 mph, the Trooper ``lifted both right wheels high off the pavement. It would have rolled

over completely were if not for our test driver's quick and skillful steering,'' the Consumer Reports article said.

To avoid putting the other drivers at risk, engineers mounted a pair of outriggers _ similar in function to bicycle training

wheels _ on the Trooper, which continued to tip up when run through the course, the magazine reported.

All told, the Trooper tipped up its two right wheels during 75 of 192 lane-change maneuvers, Consumers Union says in

court papers.

Although all vehicles with high centers of gravity have a potential to tip over, Consumers Union says that in 12 years of

testing more than 80 SUVs, pickup trucks and minivans, only the 1988 Suzuki Samurai and the 1995-96 Isuzu Trooper

performed so badly as to warrant a ``not acceptable'' rating.

According to Isuzu, however, the test drivers caused the Trooper to tip by turning the steering wheel faster and farther than

real-world drivers would ever do in the worst emergencies.

Isuzu said in the suit that years before the Trooper article was published, the National Highway Transportatio

Pfizer strikes multi-billion dollar deal

NEW YORK - After a bruising three-month takeover battle, Pfizer Inc. struck a deal to buy Warner-Lambert Co. for $92.3 billion yesterday in a merger that puts Viagra and the blockbuster cholesterol drug Lipitor in the same corporate medicine cabinet.

The combined company, to be called Pfizer, will be the world's second-largest drugmaker. But if the merger succeeds as analysts expect, the company is expected to vault to No. 1 within two years.

The challenge for executives of both companies is to put aside their nasty accusations and lawsuits and unite their research, sales and manufacturing efforts.

For consumers, the gargantuan merger will have little short-term effect. The new Pfizer will control less than 7 percent of the world market for prescription drugs.

But the companies contend that by combining they will be able to more effectively develop new medicines and hold down expenses.

"We predict the integration will go very smoothly," said William Steere Jr., Pfizer chairman and chief executive, who will lead the business.

Warner-Lambert chairman and CEO Lodewijk J.R. de Vink is stepping aside once the merger is completed this summer.

''The fact that de Vink will not be staying will be sufficient to clear the air,'' said Joseph Zammit-Lucia, president of London-based Cambridge Pharma Consultancy.

De Vink last November agreed to a takeover by American Home Products. De Vink was to be the top executive of the combined American Home-Warner-Lambert. But Pfizer stepped in with its own hostile offer.

Pfizer won by offering 2.75 shares of its stock for each Warner-Lambert share, a deal valuing Warner-Lambert at $100.89 a share.

In trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange, Warner-Lambert rose $2.56 1/4 to $97.12 1/2, Pfizer climbed 93 3/4 cents to $36.68 3/4 and American Home gained $2.50 to $48.

Before moving forward, Warner-Lambert will pay American Home $1.8 billion - the largest breakup fee in history. American Home will use the money to help pay the legal bills from health claims brought by customers who used its diet drugs.

Pfizer's first step will be to identify $1.6 billion in cost cuts to be taken by 2002. A big chunk of that is expected to come from layoffs.

But de Vink, referring to the 4 percent unemployment rate that is the nation's lowest in 30 years, said: ''It's a good market for finding other jobs.''

Wall Street analysts said the new company will be the fastest-growing large drug company for at least the next several years.

Pfizer, with strong sales of Viagra and its blood pressure medicine Norvasc, had been among the best-performing drug companies in the last few years. But analysts said Pfizer had too few blockbuster drugs in its pipeline to keep its growth rate going.

Warner-Lambert's fast growth has been spurred by Lipitor, which had $5 billion in sales last year and will soon be the world's top-selling drug. But analysts worried that Warner-Lambert was growing too dependent on it.

Pfizer, which had been the world's fourth-largest drugmaker, will now be second behind Glaxo SmithKline, which is being formed by the proposed merger of British companies Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham.