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

DATE: SATURDAY, October 1, 1994                   TAG: 9410030049
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BRIEFLY PUT . . .

If the other numbers detailing the win-win effect of free trade don't convince, maybe these will. The average resident of Europe spends $300 a year on goods imported from the United States. The average resident of wealthy Japan spends $385. The average resident of Mexico, now America's No. 2 trading partner, spends $450.

The Mexican economy is "developing" - and that means growth, which is not a euphemism for "dirt poor" or "economic basket case." The North American Free Trade Agreement is working, and should be extended to other Latin American countries.

THE HOUSE has passed, with much acrimony, a bill that would cut off the usual freebies - lunches, theater tickets, games of golf - that lobbyists have long provided to members of Congress to grease their access to the nation's lawmakers. The Senate is expected to follow suit, which is all very well.

The measure would tighten reporting rules and impose strict gift rules. But all the fuss would tempt one to think the congressional pain is real.

Far more significant would be meaningful reform of campaign-finance rules, which allow huge amounts of money from special interests to pour into re-election efforts. That change appears to have been killed this session, talked to death by filibustering Senate Republicans. Which leaves Congress still for sale.