August 16, 1990

LEAD: Federal auditors said today that the Government should sharply increase the regulation and supervision of Government-sponsored enterprises that lend money to home buyers and college students or else taxpayers might have to foot the bill in the future.

LEAD: In contrast to their fluctuations in recent days, oil prices were little changed yesterday as the market confronted a lull in news from the Middle East and awaited a decision from OPEC whether it would authorize members to pump more oil.

LEAD: The threat of lawsuits, an increased concern about child abuse and new evidence that minority and handicapped children are paddled more often than other students have combined to revive the debate about corporal punishment in schools. In the last three years the number of states that have banned paddling has nearly doubled.

LEAD: At 10:30 this morning, in a clean white chamber that looks like a Congregational church, the Board of Estimate, the centerpiece of New York City's government for nearly a century, will come to order to do the business it always does and then do something else. It will die.

LEAD: Gov. Jim Florio, in his first statewide television address, pleaded with angry taxpayers tonight to give his tax initiatives time to work, and denied that he had lied to them when he said throughout last year's election campaign and right up to the day he took office that no new taxes would be needed.