HOUSE DOES RIGHT, DOES WRONG

Note please, for the record, that members of Congress, in doing the right thing, still have the capacity to do the wrong thing.

To their credit, representatives in the U.S. House took action Tuesday to appropriate $3 billion that will be used to provide assistance to victims of Midwest floods. Approval of the measure came after five days of partisan disagreement that was interrupted by the legislators' weekend break. (Those on the sandbag lines, it might be noted, took no such respite.)

However, the House leadership could not be shamed (admittedly, a formidable task) into removing an amendment that provided money for an inner-city jobs program in Los Angeles (which, to the best of our knowledge, is nowhere near the Mississippi River). The amendment, maintained to appease a key legislator President Clinton needs to pass his tax package, gives a $100-a-week stipend to young people seeking jobs through a program in Los Angeles. What that has to do with high water, we're not sure.

Maybe the Senate will deal with this pork-barreling when it takes up the flood relief package. The notion that the House would turn out an uncorrupted relief plan that aimed only to do its one job was perhaps a bit much to hope for.