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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 8, 1974)
id sherman'i number! !• If yon Flounder althougl pearance, flat witb ) or smai sand and it, you're rmen and aid of i :er makes iting and rod and cillers for ($3.00 a e shrimp ler. 5, are just 'jigs, one bounced and a red tion, but t is good 1 fish the elf down lutfit for ig, like a 2 pound ry about to allow not seem casting, t before in drives 'feet on est string morning miles an cet, vest, g was so sold 44 abel that on their nder and ntil you founder ip is just with no ren hang Thought for the day For what avail the plow or sail or land or life if freedom fail? —Ralph Waldo Emerson Battalion Vol. 68 NO. 40 College Station, Texas Friday, Novembers, 1974 Salaries raise budget Commissioners to act Monday Economic decline ruins budget hopes WASHINGTON (AP) — Infla tion and economic decline are play ing havoc with the administration’s | budget hopes for 1975 and 1976, and some officials say a balanced I budget in 1976 probably is now 1 beyond reach. I Unless there are cuts in 1975 (spending, the government faces a 11975 budget deficit of at least $13 (billion, instead of the $11.5 billion (deficit projected in May, an ad- |ministration source said. | The Ford and Nixon administra- jtions have made a reduced budget deficit in fiscal 1975 and a balanced budget in 1976 a major part of their anti-inflation program. The last time the federal budget wasn’t in deficit was in 1969, when it showed a surplus of $3.2 billion. Treasury Secretary William E. Simon and others have said the con tinuing federal deficits are a major cause of the nation’s inflation. But inflation also has made the goal of balanced budgets more elu- ★★*★★★★★★★★★★★ Fall board due Tuesday Final board installments are due by Tuesday. Students on the 7-day Board Plan must pay $127 and students on the 5-day Board Plan owe $114. The payments may be made either at the main fiscal office or in the new branch office in the Rudder Tower. ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ ***** l sive, by forcing government costs upward. Meanwhile, the current economic slowdown is threatening to slow down the growth of federal tax revenues. “My guess at the moment is that the revenue prospects for fiscal 1976 make it difficult to assure a balanced budget for that year, ” said Sidney L. Jones, a former White House economist who was recently ap pointed counselor to Simon. Joners said the government should concentrate on turning back pressures to increase federal spend ing. “There is a great risk of it getting out of hand,” Jones said. Informed sources at the Office of Management and Budget predict that President Ford and Simon will soon begin backing away from cal ling for a balanced federal budget next year. They note the government still favors balancing federal receipts and revenues next year, but the price might be getting too costly,” one source said. If the government should reduce federal spending to match lower re ceipts, it could aggravate the nation’s economic decline and pos sibly result in cutbacks in programs which help the economically disad vantaged. But Simon has argued that deficit spending only adds to inflation by increasing demand for goods and services and requires the govern ment to borrow money. Today. Inside Oil panel p. 3 Bad checks p. 6 Cellist p. 6 By STEVE GRAY Staff Writer Increases in revenue sharing funds as well as salary raises are re sponsible for the overall increase in the proposed $2,429,272 county budget for 1975, County Judge Wil liam R. Vancq. said Wednesday. Commissioners’ court will con sider approval of the proposed budget during its regular monthly meeting Monday at 10 a.m. The salary increases, which in clude a 10 per cent across the board pay raise for most county employes, total nearly $80,000 in the proposed budget. Revenue sharing funds are up $248,000. Approximately $400,000 has been appropriated for salaries in 1975 along with $374,471 in re- Texans protest venue sharing funds. Those funds will probably be used for purchasing real property, Vance said. The bulk of increases in the gen eral fund, however, are due mainly to the salary raises alone,” said Vance. Appropriations for the general fund total $1,017,440, representing a $62,508 increase over 1974. Top county officials will receive £ $43,500 increase in their salaries under the proposed budget. “Actually, it’s difficult to compare the other increases in the proposed budget with the 1974 one because of the budget format change,” Vance said. “Various appropriations have been added to the general fund that were formerly listed under other categories in this year’s budget.” Vance said that the new format will allow more detailed itemization of funds. “There’s not doubt that we’ll be able to keep better track of where the money is going once we change over to the new copputerized ac counting system.” Vance pointed out that each county office will have its own in surance listed under the office in stead of all insurance policies being listed under proposed disburse ments as in 1974. The proposed budget includes a 300 per cent increase in voters’ re gistration expenses under the tax assessor-collector’s office. Vance said the increase was necessary be cause of precinct re-districting. “We’ve got a monumental task coming up in that we are going to have place voters in their correct precincts. This happens when peo ple do not register or vote in their precinct at least once every three years,” he said. Vance said this must be done be tween now and March 1. More than $96,000 was approp riated for the Highway 6 west by pass project. Vance said that money may not be used. “That project is essentially com pleted, Vance said. “There is a pos sibility that we may have to spend some money to re-locate some utilities in the area of the west by pass but I don’t think we will.” Demo committee hears challenges Weather Continued mostly cloudy Friday and Saturday. Light drizzle today and winds from the east-northeast 5-10 mph. Slightly warmer Saturday. High today 57°; low tonite 50°; high Satur day 64°. HOUSTON (AP) — A national committee Thursday heard chal lenges from two groups seeking to replace Texas delegates to a Demo cratic national mini-convention in December in Kansas City. The groups, led by Mrs. Billie Carr, a Democratic national com- mitteewoman from Houston, and Joe Bemel of San Antonio, chal lenged the way 15 at-large delegates of the 98-member convention were chosen at a tumultuous state party convention Sept. 17 in Austin. Both groups charged the at-large delegation was handpicked by Gov. Dolph Briscoe. They also com plained that a minority report at the convention was gaveled down be fore it could be presented and that the state party failed to adequately attract minority members to the party process. Those hearing the challenge came from the Democratic National Committee’s compliance commit tee for the 1974 mini-convention. Chairman Charles Ward of Con way, Ark., said he hopes the com mittee will be able to release its re- 38 per cent turnout Cliff-hangers mark election port Friday in Washington. The hearing committee’s report will then go to the full compliance committee which meets Nov. 15. Bernel’s group said the commit tee should recommend that five more Mexican-American delegates be added to the four at-large dele gates currently on the list chosen by the convention. Mrs. Carr’s group said 11 of the 15 members of the at-large delega tion should be replaced to make the entire list more accurately reflect the state’s percentages of Mexican-Americans, blacks, youth and women. Of the 98 delegates, 61 were cho sen by the 31 state senatorial cau cuses at the state convention by the entire convention, and 22 are Democratic national congressmen. Both groups complained of the failure of Calvin Guest, chairman of the Texas Democratic party who chaired the state convention, to let delegates vote on a minority chal lenge at the at-large delegation after the majority of the nominating committee had chosen 13 of the 15 at-large delegates recommended by Gov. Briscoe. W-l adviser Lt. Theresa Holzmann spoke to the Women’s Aw areness group Thursday about the W-l outfit. (Photo by Glen Johnson) By The Associated Press If a bare handful of the near record number of Americans who stayed away from the polls had voted, many who lost cliff-hanger elections Tuesday might have been elected to high government office. Five races for state governorships "ill go on record as being decided by less than 5,000 votes. One of the five squeakers still is undecided. In a sixth close contest, a candidate conceded that he had lost, only to learn later that he was the winner. There were cliff-hangers in five U S- Senate races. In one, the final unofficial returns had the candi dates less than 100 votes apart, too dose lor the outcome to be decided efore an official canvass. In another one, the spread was oss than 300 and in a third it was about 600. The two others were de cided by fewer than 5,000 votes. Voter turnout for Tuesday’s election—estimated at 38 per cent—was at its lowest level since 1946, when 37.1 per cent of the vot ing age population went to the polls. The lowest figure on record is 32.5 per cent for 1942, when millions of men were away at war. Republican Paul Laxalt, the former governor of Nevada, nar rowly won his U.S. Senate race by some 600 votes out of about 158,000 cast in the race. The same for U.S. Rep. Louis C. Wyman, another Re publican, who won by less than 300 votes in a New Hampshire race where 220,000 ballots were cast. Incumbent Oklahoma Republi can Henry Bellmon got by a little more easily. Even though some 777,000 persons voted in the race, Bellmon won by a little more than a 3,000-vote margin. Democrat Patrick J. Leahy, a county prosecutor in Vermont, is going to the Senate by virtue of a 4,042 margin of victory. That race attracted 136,000 voters. Then there’s North Dakota, - where the results of that Senate race are still uncertain. As canvassing boards began going over election re turns Thursday, GOP Sen. Milton R. Young was leading his chal lenger, former Democratic Gov. William L. Guy, by less than 100 votes out of more than 236,000 cast. The winning margins were somewhat wider in four of the cliff- hanger races for governorships. Had 5,000 persons voted the other way, Arizona Democrat Raul Cas tro, Republican Robert Bennett of Kansas, incumbent Republican Meldrim Thompson of New Hamp shire and Democrat Jerry Apodaca of New Mexico would be looking for other work. Their winning margins really aren’t as wide as they look since hundreds of thousands of votes were cast in these races. In Alaska, with 75 per cent of the vote in Thursday, incumbent Democrat William Egan was virtu ally deadlocked with his Republican challenger. That race, too, likely will be decided by a relatively few votes. Then there’s the strange case of Ohio where nearly one million votes were cast in the governor’s race. Republican James A. Rhodes won by roughly 14,000 votes. Rhodes had given up hope and conceded when incumbent Democrat John J. Gilligan took the lead. However, Rhodes rallied late as the tabulation swung in his favor and turned his opponent out of office. Strauss says Demo gains show pressure for action WASHINGTON (AP) — Party chairman Robert Strauss said Thursday that sweeping victory in Tuesday’s elections puts pressure on Democrats to lead in the fight against inflation with a legislative program of their own. But AFL-CIO President George Meany and elections expert Richard Scammon disagreed with Strauss’s assessment of the vote as a mandate for the Democratic party. “I don’t believe in this mandate stuff, ” Meany said in a news confer ence. “I don’t think it was a mandate for the Democratic party. It was a vote against the party which hap pened to be represented at the White House.” Scammon, a former director of the Census Bureau, told the Na tional Women’s Democratic Club the vote was “anti-situation and cir cumstances, not necessarily pro- Democratic. This was an anti- Nixon, anti-inflation and anti- Republican vote.” But all three agreed that given the congressional strength, the Democrats had better do something with it to ease the public’s anxiety over the economy. Meany said Democrats already control Congress but haven’t been producing with current majorities. “We re not getting a great deal of support for things, the bread and butter issues, that we believe the American people are interested in, ” Meany said. Strauss said he had talked to the Democratic leaders in Congress and expected them to come up with a firm legislative program which they will try to pass early in the new Congress, which convenes Jan. 3. “We need to pin down a rather precise first-stage legislative prog ram,” Strauss said at a National Press Club breakfast. “And the Hill leadership will do that. ” Otherwise, Strauss said, “We ll hear from the people in a couple of years”—in the next elections. MSC backed Senate also asks change in Batt editorial policies Senator reads The Battalion—main topic of Thursday’s meeting. (Photo by Steve Krauss) By TERESA COSLETT Staff Writer The Student Senate passed a re solution Thursday night supporting the MSC Council’s criticism of The Battalion’s campus news coverage. Senator Dale Foster sponsored the resolution in response to an MSC Council letter asking The Bat talion to re-examine its editorial pol icy concerning the amount of cam pus news coverage. Senator Susan Fontaine said, “If I want to read about the national, state or local news I subscribe to The Eagle. In The Battalion, I want to read about what’s going on around this campus.” Student Vice President of Exter nal Affairs John Nash said, “There is no implied threat in this resolution. It is merely an attempt to give ‘The Battalion’ student input and should be taken as a constructive sugges tion.” Senator Cindy Wallace said, “I see no reason to side with the MSC.” Before passing the resolution. senators discussed off campus stu dents’ dependence on The Battalion for campus news and the effective ness of the resolution. Foster omitted a portion of the resolution requesting a survey of Battalion news coverage due to lack of Student Government funds. A resolution requesting the Aggie Players be allowed to produce “Marat/Sade”, the play canceled earlier by Dr. David Maxwell, dean of liberal arts, was presented on first reading. John Tyler, student vice presi dent of rules and regulations intro duced the motion saying the issue was not the play itself but illegal censorship. Senator Tom Woodfin said the theater department could never hope to improve with a history of censorhip. Also up for first reading was a re solution introduced by senator Joe Marcello concerning the forced res ignation of students Greg Marchand and Elmer Banes. Marchand and Banes worked for the Housing Office and were asked to resign by Glenn H. Jennings, Housing Office Manager because of a letter to “The Battalion” concern ing Centrex policy. Marcello’s resolution would ask Jennings for an explanation of the forced resignations and provide for automatic censure if the senate voted the explanation was unsatis factory. Marcello’s resolution would ask Jennings for an explanation of the forced resignations and provide for automatic, censure if the senate voted the explanation was unsatis factory. Marcello said, “The senate has a right anywhere students are di rectly involved. I feel it is a wrong we should investigate. “If it’s only a question of neglect of duty we have no right to inter fere. “But if it involves student rights — that is our business.’ Passed unanimously at the meeting was a resolution eliminating parallelism in the senate’s constitution, involv ing minor changes in wording.