Chump Change

Next week, fans. Next week, now that you've helped beat them down and humiliate them, you can resume hero worshiping football players. You won't have to keep track of how many characterless jerks have betrayed their teammates and crossed picket lines. The teams will be relatively stable; their strength won't depend on how weak their members are as people. You will have only the relatively simple task of slandering players union head Gene Upshaw, who made the mistake of being a dedicated guy who lost a fight.

Bill Clinton wants you to believe this election is all about "change. " Let's look at some of the changes Clinton does - and does not - support. The National Center for Policy Analysis says Clinton proposes "middle- class tax relief averaging about $5.5 billion per year - or about $55 per family. " That's change, all right. Chump change - 15 cents per day for the average American family. Don't spend it all in one place! But Clinton's no piker when it comes to spending your money.

In a fresh overture to the middle class, President Clinton yesterday announced that $200 would be shaved off the cost of buying many homes, calling it a step toward achieving the American dream. Republican Bob Dole's campaign immediately dismissed the idea as "chump change" and said if Clinton were truly interested in lowering such costs, he would back a balanced budget amendment. Clinton fired back by saying Congress ought to fashion a balanced budget from two plans proposed by Democrats and Republicans and "let the voters resolve the differences.

IS THERE any reason that the Daily News is not covering the U.N. Oil for Food program scandal where Kofi Annan and the "sacred" U.N., France, Germany and Russia got billions of dollars in kickbacks from Saddam Hussein that was for feeding the people of Iraq? Is it to perpetuate the myth that George Bush alienated the whole world in his war on terrorism - even though those countries that strongly opposed it weren't doing it for humanitarian reasons? They opposed it because they were taking money that was supposed to help poor and starving Iraqis while Saddam was building dozens of palaces.

It's tough being commander-in-chief. Consider the battlefield from President Reagan's window: He's got a war on hunger and homelessness on his hands; he's got the welfare cheats and assorted other freeloaders (some trying to pass themselves off as hungry and homeless) in his sights. And now - just when you thought it was safe to say "Philippines" again - there's a fuss over Ferdinand Marcos and a $200,000 tab his entourage charged to Uncle Sam for personal expenses in exile. Let's face it. The United States feathered Mr. (and Mrs.)

On May 10, 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant welcomed more than 180,000 visitors to the opening day ceremonies of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. Grant pulled a lever of the gigantic new Corliss engine, which powered the 800 other machines at the exposition. With the first hiss of steam, the crowd shouted and threw their hats into the air; guns roared, and church bells pealed. The fair was officially opened, and Philadelphia had secured its place as the "Workshop of the World.

A hit-and-run driver wouldn't have been as bad. The little red car that struck Rave Martinez, 21, of Camden, Sunday night as he was crossing Haddon Avenue near Newton Avenue dutifully stopped. Two men got out and approached Martinez, who told police he had bounced off the car. But instead of administering aid, the pair proceeded to beat him and then rob him, Martinez said, when "chump change happened to fall out of my pockets. " One man held him while the other - he was about 6-foot-4, Martinez told police, and during the assault his partner called him "Stretch" - pistol- whipped Martinez.

A study released yesterday reveals that the city is on the hook for an additional $258 million in pension costs due to the expense of the controversial Deferred Retirement Option Plan. That's no chump change. Now, the $258 million figure - roughly $22 million per year - has a lot of strings attached to it. It's an estimate, it's spread out over 30 years, and even if the city had it, much of the money would likely go to prop up the failing pension fund. But that doesn't mean we can't dream about how we want to spend it. So here goes: These are the Daily News ' best ideas on how we'd spend $258 million, if we should ever be so lucky.

FIRST, LET me say that Michael Vick is an amazing talent when it comes to football. But I feel sick in my stomach to think of how those animals were treated. I am an animal lover, especially dogs. I grew up with a dog, got my first dog, Midnight, a black lab, when I was first married. I had 15 wonderful years with that dog. When we lost her due to her age and illness, it was like losing a child. The hole in my heart has never fully healed, and I don't suspect it will anytime soon.

If it looks like a tax, walks like a tax and quacks like a tax, it's a tax. That, in essence, was the common-sense "duck rule" enunciated last week by Richard G. Darman, the incoming budget director. That's understandable. Many Americans, having heard President Bush's pledge "no new taxes" about a zillion times when he was a candidate, would feel snookered if his administration pretended to be keeping that vow by raising "user fees" or "tariffs" instead. Americans don't much care what label gets applied to something that takes more money out of their pockets.

On May 10, 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant welcomed more than 180,000 visitors to the opening day ceremonies of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. Grant pulled a lever of the gigantic new Corliss engine, which powered the 800 other machines at the exposition. With the first hiss of steam, the crowd shouted and threw their hats into the air; guns roared, and church bells pealed. The fair was officially opened, and Philadelphia had secured its place as the "Workshop of the World.

Last weekend, I bet my husband that Philadelphia Housing Authority czar Carl Greene would resign by Friday. Stories of his personal financial failings, I predicted, signaled the beginning of his end. My timing is off - as of this moment, Greene remains on vacation from his $306,370 job at the state-chartered, federally funded public housing agency - but at least I'm out only $10. PHA employees were relieved of far more, if tales of weekly payroll deductions...

A study released yesterday reveals that the city is on the hook for an additional $258 million in pension costs due to the expense of the controversial Deferred Retirement Option Plan. That's no chump change. Now, the $258 million figure - roughly $22 million per year - has a lot of strings attached to it. It's an estimate, it's spread out over 30 years, and even if the city had it, much of the money would likely go to prop up the failing pension fund. But that doesn't mean we can't dream about how we want to spend it. So here goes: These are the Daily News ' best ideas on how we'd spend $258 million, if we should ever be so lucky.

HOW STUPID IS Bryant McKinnie? By now, everyone knows the Vikings offensive tackle didn't play in last night's Pro Bowl because the league threw him off the NFC team for three unexcused absences at practices. McKinnie, depending on who you listen to, said he didn't practice because he had the flu, or because he was too sore. It was soon discovered, however, the former Woodbury (N.J.) High star is a nit-twit. He couldn't practice during the day, but - according to his Twitter account (bigmacvikings)

I sure wish the Honorable Ronald J. Buckwalter had presided over the trial of my client, former Philadelphia City Treasurer Corey Kemp. As it was, despite my best efforts, another federal judge sentenced my client to a decade in prison for what can fairly be characterized as chump-change chicanery. In return for the likes of a free deck on his house and Super Bowl tickets - that's right, Super Bowl tickets - Corey has become a 10-year guest of the taxpayers. In contrast, Judge Buckwalter recently sentenced former State Sen. Vince Fumo to 55 months in prison for his conviction on 137 counts of fraud, obstruction of justice, tax evasion, and related offenses.

WITH billions of dollars being tossed around like so much spare change, it's time for somebody to suggest a real stimulus package that could change the face of America. Change was the dominant theme last year - yet we now seem to be getting a lot more of the same. Americans want change because that's what has always made America the place to be - all those people who came here in the last 100 years and changed their lives, then changed the world. So what would real change look like?

FIRST, LET me say that Michael Vick is an amazing talent when it comes to football. But I feel sick in my stomach to think of how those animals were treated. I am an animal lover, especially dogs. I grew up with a dog, got my first dog, Midnight, a black lab, when I was first married. I had 15 wonderful years with that dog. When we lost her due to her age and illness, it was like losing a child. The hole in my heart has never fully healed, and I don't suspect it will anytime soon.

IS THERE any reason that the Daily News is not covering the U.N. Oil for Food program scandal where Kofi Annan and the "sacred" U.N., France, Germany and Russia got billions of dollars in kickbacks from Saddam Hussein that was for feeding the people of Iraq? Is it to perpetuate the myth that George Bush alienated the whole world in his war on terrorism - even though those countries that strongly opposed it weren't doing it for humanitarian reasons? They opposed it because they were taking money that was supposed to help poor and starving Iraqis while Saddam was building dozens of palaces.

Time travel is tricky business. If you go back a decade or so - let's not even think about hundreds of years - and tinker ever so slightly with the fabric of events, the course of human history can change. Say you return to 1980s L.A. to leave that coffee-shop waitress you had a crush on a $50 tip, instead of the chump change you'd originally given her. Well, she could decide to run across the street on her break to buy a blouse at the very moment that the talent agent who was set to discover her enters the eatery.

For more than 30 years, ex-bartenders Ralph Natale, 68, and Anthony "Weasel" Viesti, 66, were best friends. After Natale spent 15 years in prison for an arson-racketeering case, Viesti picked him up and drove him to Natale's Pennsauken, N.J., home. They became inseparable: at dinner, at the race track, on dates with Natale's girlfriend. They even resembled each other: short, stocky, balding. Where they differed was in loyalty, especially in illegal methamphetamine deals.