Page 2 THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1977
ewe
Need beginning language courses
e.«>
Editor:
Because of a change in major I am
forced to take one course in a
foreign language, Although I had no
foreign language in high school, I
felt that since I was in a beginning
course that my lack of training
would not pose a major problem.
What a joke.
I was put in a beginning German
class with students who had as much
as three years of German in high
school. Admittedly they were in the
class for the extra grade points an A
in a four hour course can give you. I
was left trying to keep up with those
who had nothing to learn.
signed up for the course to begin
with. I was stuck in German. I stuck
it out for as long as I could. When
my other classes began to suffer I
had to drop it. Now I will have to
find some small school with real be
ginning courses in foreign language.
That way I can graduate.
Maybe I’m wrong, but it just
doesn’t seem right that a university
of this size would not have true be
ginner courses to offer its students.
I guess I expect too much.
Paula Chapman, ’78
After tlie first day of class I knew I
was in trouble. I checked the
schedule and found that Spanish is
the only language that has a course
for those people with no previous
language training. It looked like my
salvation. However, I was told by
the people in the Modern Language
Department that there was no
chance of my getting in the class be
cause there were too many people
Drive
defensively
Editor:
You are approaching the freeway
on the access ramp when the car in
front of you comes to a complete
stop; what happens? Either you
crash into the guy in front of you, or
you have a close call.
Incidents like this are common
occurences especially where there
is heavy traffic. Much to my dismay,
there are thousands of licensed driv-
Slouch
by Jim Earle
wt* 77
pec fi ' 1
“I’VE NEVER THOUGHT OF YOU AS A MUSTACHE-
PERSON!”
ers who no more deserve that
privilege than a first grader. I don’t
know how some of these people
have escaped major accidents. Luck
dr fate whatever the reason,
licensed motorists need to be defen
sive at all times.
When did your grandmother or
father first receive her or his
license? Ten, twenty, thirty years
ago? The question occurred to me
whether or not drivers who fall in
this category would be able to pass a
test on defensive driving tech
niques.
There are many adults who re-
creived their license during a time
when cars were few and highway
systems were far less complex.
Today drivers need to be on the de
fensive with respect to the other
motorists at all times.
I strongly feel a need to require
all licensed drivers to take a re
fresher course in defensive driving
in order to renew his or her license.
Also some type of reflex test should
be given in conjunction with the
course to determine if a driver is
able to respond fast enough while
on the road. I think the state should
fund both of the above.
— Margie SantaMaria, ‘79
No faith
in equal taxation
The Battalion
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Editor:
A column in last Tuesday’s Battal
ion (Feb. 15) exhibited a couple of
characteristics which deserve more
attention than they are liable to get.
These characteristics concern the
progressive nature of the Federal
income tax.
In her column, Miss Taulman
seems to be confused not only about
how progressive taxes are but also
about how progressive they should
be. She asserts that it is “too dif
ficult to get rich’’ and in the next
breath she complains that “the rich
do not pay their share. Granted she
also complains that it is “too easy to
stay rich perhaps this makes her
distinction possible? Even so her
complaints seem unlikely since
there is no question on the tax form
that asks if this is the first year one is
rich. Miss Taulman seems to have
lost sight of the fact that the Federal
income tax is an income tax, not a
luxury tax. Her confusion is further
demonstrated when she applauds
both Carter’s tax revision plan that
would increase taxes on the wealthy
and his call for elimination of the
corporate income tax, a measure
that would benefit mostly wealthy
people.
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In spite of her course reversals it
does seem that she favors a more
progressive tax, that is one that falls
heaviest on the wealthy. But is it
fair that one man should pay half his
income in taxes while another pays
only (sic.) a third. This is the situa
tion in America today (mostly in re
gressive state and local taxes) and
the rich pay half of theirs (mostly in
Federal income taxes). It is ques
tions such as these that have been
constantly ignored in the debate of
taxation. I challenge Miss Taulman
to examine them.
In short it seems that Miss Taul
man has a great deal of knowledge
about taxes but that she has done
very little thinking about them. I
contend that some thought on her
part would have eliminated both
her confusion and her starry-eyed
faith in equal taxation.
— H. Ed Mendieta ’80
Cl
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Carter’s reorganization plans should
consider current strengths, interests!
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WASHINGTON — Reorganiza
tion of government is the buzz-word
in Washington this winter. It was a
major theme of President Carter’s
campaign and it is a high-priority
item in his legislative agenda for the
new year.
The first skirmish in the reorgani
zation war has now been fought in
the Senate. The result, as James P.
Gannon forecast in the Wall Street
Journal last December, does “give
an early indication of whether the
pervasive campaign rhetoric of 1976
about streamlining the government
can be translated into political reality
in 1977 over the protests of those
with a stake in the status quo.”
The answer is not as discouraging
as skeptics would have you think.
It indicates that substantial prog
ress can be made in Carter’s type of
comprehensive reform, but only if
there is a good deal of awareness of
the power realities and personality
factors that lie behind an organiza
tion chart.
The Senate reorganization effort,
headed by Sen. Adlai E. Stevenson
III, D-lll., had as its purpose
rationalizing the jurisdiction of Sen
ate committees and reducing the
overlapping and competing time
demands on individual senators.
It was aimed, as Stevenson said
early in the process, at a situation in
which senators were neither
generalists nor specialists but “com-
partmentalists.”
We have sliced out daily routines
into superficial fragments, and we
have divided and subdivided large
problems into a host of committee
cubbyholes,” he said last year. “It is
no wonder that there is little consis
tency or coherence to what we do
here.”
The plan adopted by the Senate
earlier this month does not guaran
tee “consistency or coherence” in
the future. It does not go as far as
Stevenson recommended. But it
does reduce the number of Senate
committees by one-fifth, the
number of subcommittee assign
ments for the average senator by
one-third, and the number of chair
manships some senior members ac
cumulated by one-half.
It broadens the jurisdiction of sur
viving legislative units. And, as polit
ical scientist Norman Ornstein, a
member of the Stevenson commit
tee staff, noted, it introduces into the
Senate rules and committee descrip
tions, for the first time, such con-
David S.
Broder
IK;
search, environmental protection,
international economic policy, con
sumer protection, government in
formation, intergovernmental rela
tions, revenue-sharing” — all of
which were afterthoughts or appen
dages previously.
The greatest single success of the
Stevenson effort was combining the
energy issues, which had been scat
tered among seven different com
mittees, in a new Committee on
Energy and Natural Resoiurces.
That committee is the old Senate
Interior Committee, headed by Sen.
Henry M. Jackson, D-Wash., one of
the true Senate powerhouses. No
such similar consolidation of energy
jurisdictioni has been possible in the
House; its Interior Committee has
had three different chairmen in the
last five years.
There is an obvious implication for
the President, who is now weighing
his own proposal for consolidation of
energy functions in the executive
branch. The message is to go with
strength — not against it.
Yet Carter, from all reports is con
sidering doing exactly the opposite
— removing the energy functions
from the powerful Interior Depart
ment and building his new energy
agency around a relative bureaucra
tic lightweight, the Federal Energy
Administration. It has had the same
kind of leadership turnover that the
House Interior Committee has seen.
The important lesson from the Se
nate experience is that there are cer
tain jurisdictions where the internal
rivalries and interest group pres
sures are so strong that they almost
defy rational reorgainzation. A prac
tical President would be wary, in
deed, of blundering into those areas.
One is transportation. Just as
Lyndon Johnson had to settle for a
Transportation Department which
omitted the maritime industry, so
Stevenson’s efforts to create
fied Transportation Committee
the Senate were frustrated by
interests of road-builders, n
men and others.
Carter could also learn
Stevenson’s experience tobewani
the veterans and the elderly Mon
to abolish the special-interest
mittees dedicated to those
stituencies were shot down inf!
— and very nearly upset thewl
plan. The President might
member that history, when
planner tells him the Veterans
ministration really ought tobei]
of a Human Resources Depi
or that there’s no reason for
rate Administration on Aging.
But even with these caul
there is reason for Carter to
heart from Stevenson’s experif
“If I had been wiser at thebi
and perceived all of those thick
Stevenson said at the end
struggle, “I might not haveg(
into so many of them. . ..
is very satisfying to have left
with my colleagues, on this
durable institution.
(c)1977. The Washington Post
[“You get
Vt stay i
jsb the sh
le Te
shop
75 under
pgrammii
cepts as transportation, energy re-
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