
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 13, 1990                   TAG: 9007130007
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                LENGTH: Medium

GOP COUNTERATTACKS ON BLAME FOR S&L MESS

The Republican Party opened its midyear meeting Thursday with an aggressive counterattack against Democrats seeking to blame the savings and loan crisis on President Bush and the GOP.

Edward Rollins, co-chairman of the GOP's congressional committee, led the effort.

Democrats have "become corrupt, complacent and cocky," Rollins said in a speech to the Republican National Committee. "Now it's time for a comeuppance."

Democrats have tried to gain a political edge by blaming the $300 billion-plus S&L bailout on the Reagan and Bush administrations.

But Rollins said blame rested with the majority Democrats in Congress. He singled out former House Speaker Jim Wright, former House Whip Tony Coelho and former House Banking Committee Chairman Fernand St Germain. Wright and Coelho resigned last year amid ethics questions, and St Germain was defeated in 1988.

They and other Democrats, Rollins said, took millions of dollars from the S&L industry in the 1980s and refused to act when evidence of a looming crisis surfaced.

"If money is the mother's milk of politics, the Democratic fund-raisers who were getting rich by looting S&Ls were the milkmen," Rollins said. "For a few million dollars in campaign contributions, the Democrats sold out the taxpayers."

Democratic party Chairman Ronald Brown returned Rollins' fire.

"We're not surprised that `casino economy' Republicans who gambled us into this whole mess are whining and scapegoating every step of the way," Brown said in a statement. "None of it is going to work."

The effort by Rollins and other senior Republicans to blunt the attack was a clear indication the GOP is concerned about the Democrats' salvos.

"We're fighting back," said GOP consultant Charles Black, who has been helping run the committee while party chairman Lee Atwater battles a brain tumor. "Democrats not only aren't clean on this issue, but a lot of their leaders are the people who caused the problem."

Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a Republican strategist in the South, said "Democrats are going to get their fingers burned on this as often as they are going to have success."

by CNB