Viewpoint
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Wednesday
June 27, 1979
‘Euro-gratitude’ is non-existent
Americans don’t get no respect.
At 22, I have noticed a universal lack of esteem for
the United States. It hacks me oflF because I think it’s a
bum rap.
I’m pretty tired of tinker-toy banana republics and
twelfth-rate European principalities trying to push the
U.S around.
Whenever a country has been down, whether
through the fault of the U.S. or not, we have invariably
given them aid of some sort, usually financial.
America is probably the only nation in the history of
modem civilization that has been sneak-attacked, de
feated its attacker and then actually gone into debt
rebuilding the same.
The Japanese, though, have paid their financial
debts. Unfortunately, this is not the case with other
nations.
During the years immediately following World War
II, the U.S. government literally rebuilt Europe. We
felt it was our obligation; after all, they were our allies.
Billions of U.S. dollars were and are invested in the
continuing defense of Europe.
Meanwhile, students in Europe call Americans
‘capitalist pigs’ and paint anti-American slogans on
walls.
The American Commander of NATO forces in
Europe was nearly killed the other day by a land mine
on a city street in Paris.
That’s ‘Euro-gratitude.’
In Asia and Africa, thousands of Americans partici
pate in organizations like the Peace Corps and other
service organizations designed to aid the poor. Other
Americans contribute millions of dollars to causes such
as Save the Children, UNICEF, and CARE.
At the same time, the president of Libya has offered
political asylum to terrorists working against the
capitalist system.
We’re the capitalist system he’s refering to, folks.
If it’s not the Koreans capturing the Pueblo, it’s some
of Somoza’s goons killing an American journalist. You
think we’d learn to completely avoid everyone else.
The U.S. regularly sends disaster aid to Central
America. When was the last time Nicaragua, Panama
or any other country even offered to help out America
during a disaster? The United States is getting a raw
deal somewhere.
An example: The U.S discovers pools of oil in the
Middle East under sand where even tumbleweeds re
fuse to grow. The local sheiks lease their land to Ameri
can corporations to drill on. The sheiks, who thought a
gallon of goat’s milk was a big deal before the oil com
panies moved in, got a taste of Western life and liked it.
People who once had the standard of living of a camel
now live in houses with fifty-two rooms. Instead of rid
ing mules to the market, these guys have air- con
ditioned Bentleys and are driven to the airport, board
their private jets and go to Neiman-Marcus in Houston
for a gallon of goats milk!
The Arabs got to be the richest men in the world
because they “nationalized” (see stole ) U.S.-owned re
fineries. And to top it off, now they’re jacking the price
of oil sky-high.
Some Americans want to jack up the price of wheat
proportionately. That may not be the answer to the
situation, but it may indeed show our “pals” abroad
that we don’t like being pushed around.
Giving the rest of the world a taste of its own
medicine might be the cure for its chronic ingratitude.
R.W.B.
Rate of consumer purchasing power
rises during presidential election years
By DAVID BRODER
WASHINGTON — When Jimmy Car
ter became President in January 1977, the
average blue-collar factory worker was pul
ling down $5.07 an hour, or $181.51 a
week. Run the latter figure through a
Bureau of Labor Statistics computer to
crank in adjustments for the inroads of in
flation and taxes on a worker with a
typical-size family, and you get a wonder
fully sophisticated statistic — the season
ally adjusted, average net spendable
weekly earnings, after taxes, of a married
production worker with three dependents,
on a private, nonagricultural payroll, ex
pressed in constant 1967 dollars. When
Carter began his term, it translated to
$91.25 a week.
When George P. Shultz was in Wash
ington, as secretary of labor, director of
the budget, and finally, secretary of the
treasury in the Nixon administration, he
touted reporters onto that particular statis
tic as the single most politically meaning
ful of the thousands of numbers tossed out
by the government.
“That is about as close as we can come,”
Shultz would say, “to measuring directly
what the average working guy really cares
about — whether his take-home pay buys
more or less than it did before. If that
number is increasing, an administration’s
economic policies are likely to look suc
cessful. If it’s not, that administration is in
trouble.”
The political history of the Nixon-Ford
years confirmed Shultz’s prediction. And if
his theory is still valid, which history
suggests it is, it explains why President
Carter is in such deep political trouble
today and why it may take drastic eco
nomic measures — price controls or a big
tax cut or both — to pull him out of danger
by November 1980.
First, the history. When Richard Nixon
became President in January 1969, the fac-
NfCfpy*
4L. "
tory worker’s take-home pay (always ex
pressed in constant, inflation-adjusted
1967 dollars) was $91.42 a week. It
bumped along on a fairly even keel for
awhile, but then began to dwindle in the
mild recession of 1970, dropping to $89.38
in October of 1970, just before the mid
term election in which Democrats re
pulsed Nixon’s big effort to gain Republi
can control of Congress.
Stung by that setback, the Nixon admin
istration changed course and began pump
ing up the economy. By August of 1971,
when Nixon ordered wage-price controls
into effect, the key indicator had climbed
back up to $92.87. By October 1972, the
month before Nixon faced the voters, it
had reached its all-time high of $98.04.
That handsome 7 percent increase in the
average family’s buying power during Ni
xon’s first term probably had as much to do
with his landslide victory as the Peking
and Moscow summit, the disengagement
in Vietnam or the deficiencies of the
McGovern campagin.
A cynic looking at the figures could con
clude that Nixon and Co. timed their eco
nomic policies perfectly, for the key figure
began to shrink the very month after the
election. By August 1974, when Nixon was
forced to resign, it was back down to
$90.86. It dropped another $3.50 in the
recession of 1975, before Jerry Ford
turned his policy around and obtained a
stimulative tax cut from Congress.
In October 1976, just before the presi
dential election, the figure stood at $91.40
a week — 2 cents less than it had been
when Republicans took over the White
House in 1969. That miniscule economic
shortfall was an accurate forecast of the
equally small degree by which Ford failed
to convince the American voters to keep
him office, rather than turn the White
House over to Jimmy Carter.
Carter’s benchmark — the January 1977
figure — is $91.25 a week. His 1977 tax-
cut and economic stimulus package
pushed the figure up to a $95.23 Carter
administration high, nine months after he
took office. It began to dwindle as inflation
increased, but still was on the upside at
$92.04 last October, just before the mid
term election, when Democrats held their
losses to a minimum. Since then, how
ever, the key figure has dropped precipit
ously, as inflation has outstripped earn
ings.
The preliminary figure for April — in
the latest report — is $89.58. That figure
— the lowest reported since the mid
recession April of 1975 — may be artifi
cially depressed by several short-term fac
tors. But Charles L. Schultze, the chair
man of Carter’s Council of Economic Ad
visers, said in an interview, “The trend is
an important one, and you can be sure it is
being looked at.”
Schultze said there was confirmation of
the fact that “peoples’ incomes are being
squeezed” in the reports showing that re
tail sales, adjusted for inflation, have been
declining since December.
Under the administration’s battered
wage-price guidelines, workers’ pay is
simply not keeping pace with inflation.
With petroleum prices zooming and signs
of an economic slowdown becoming more
plentiful, the key figure is likely dete
riorate further.
Already, it has weakened to the point
that Carter’s reelection is in jeopardy. If it
continues to move down, it is hard to be
lieve that the administration will not be
driven to the kind of last-ditch, despera
tion economic policies that Nixon reached
for back when George Shultz was watching
the same numbers Charles Schultze now
monitors.
(c) 1979, The Washington Post
Company
More money for Congressional elections
Public campaign financing not working
By ARNOLD SAWISLAK
United Press International
WASHINGTON — When we built the
interstate highway system, one of the goals
was supposed to be rejuvenation of the
cities by making it easier to get goods and
people in and out of their congested cen
ters.
Instead, we gave the suburbs a giant
boost as both bedrooms and workplaces
with the big new roads, and at least for a
while, made things economically and polit
ically worse for the established cities and
the people who remained in them.
That was the kind of negative accom-
E lishment that well meaning planners
ave made infamous in recent decades.
But it isn’t just public works enthusiasts
who get us into situations that are just as
bad or even worse than the original pre
dicament.
Public financing of election campaigns
provides an example. Back in the heat of
Watergate days, reformers jumped on the
chance to get the “fat cats” out of politics
by pushing public financing.
In fairness, it should be said that groups
like Common Cause tried very hard to get
across-the-board legislation that would
i.
cover congressional as well as presidential
campaigns.
The Senate, in fact, approved congres
sional public financing. But opposition in
the House was led by one Wayne Hays of
Ohio and he still had enough clout to stop
the show.
The big public objection against public
financing of congressional races was that it
was a waste of taxpayers’ hard-earned dol
lars. The real beef was from incumbents,
who failed to see why they should vote to
provide campaign funds for their oppo
nents.
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The reformers had to settle for financing
of presidential elections only in 1974, al
though the same legislation did provide for
new controls on private contributions to
congressional campaigns. Public financing
for congressional campaigns was supposed
to be the second step in the reform pro-
Public financing of presidential cam
paigns passed in part because Congress
wanted to demonstrate that it had no part
of the hanky-panky that was being dis
closed in the White House. It is doubtful
that many of the members of the Senate
and House who voted for the bill did so
because they saw potential windfalls for
their own campaigns.
But that’s what they got. With private
donations to presidential campaigns bar
red, a lot more money went into congres
sional campaigns, especially in presiden
tial election years when big contributors
usually concentrated on the national con
test.
Candidates for House and Senate, espe
cially incumbents, now are able to put on
increasingly more lavish and sophisticated
campaigns as the economic and political
special interests concentrate their funds
on congressional contests. Some congres
sional candidates probably have come to
think of the present situation as normal
and all that new money from interest
groups as their due. If that state of mind
takes hold, no one should suspend brea
thing waiting for that second step to be
taken.
STATE
Nueces to seek Roloff indictment
Nueces County Attorney Phil Westergren said Tuesday he would
seek a grand jury indictment against the fundamentalist minister Les
ter Roloff on a misdemeanor charge of operating child care centers
without a license. For the past month Westergen had been seekinga
similar indictment against Roloff Evangelistic Enterprises, the non
profit corporation which operated three child care centers at Corpus
Christi and Zapata. He said if convicted of the charge, Roloff could
receive a maximum six months in jail or fine up to $1,000. Wester
gren said he hoped the Nueces County Grand Jury would act on his
request for the misdemeanor indictment during its Thursday meet
ing.
NATION
Radioactive water mopped up
Chi Omega jury choice continues
Popeye creator dies at age 84
Talmadge asked to testify
The Senate Ethics Committee Tuesday forced a confrontation with
Sen. Herman Talmadge, D-Ga., by requesting in writing that he
testify under oath in his financial misconduct case. Following a closed
meeting that lasted more than two hours. Ethics Chairman Adlai
Stevenston D-Ill., told reporters the committee agreed unanimously
to request Talmadge’s appearance before the panel on Thursday
morning, with his testimony to continue on Friday if necessary. Tal
madge faces five charges of financial misconduct, the most serious of
which involve the filing of $50,000 in false Senate expense claims and
the conversion of campaign contributions to his personal use.
WORLD
Seventeen blacks get 167 years
Six more executed in Ghana
Ghana’s new military rulers Tuesday executed six senior officers in
Accra, including the country’s former military ruler Gen. Fred W.K.
Akuffo. A government announcement said the six died before a firing
squad at the Teshie military range outside this West African capital at
5:30 a.m. EDT. It was the second round of executions since Flight
Lt. Jerry Rawlings overthrew the Akuffo government in a coup June
4. All six were convicted by the special military court of misusing
their positions to enrich themselves while in office, the new military
rulers said.
The Battalion
R
Workers Tuesday mopped up 1,000 gallons of radioactive coolant
water that sprayed over the upper level of the containment building
at the D.C. Cook nuclear plant in Bridgman, Mich. A plant spokes
man said none of the radioactivity escaped into the environment. The
radioactivity was described as "fairly low level by an official of the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The incident occurred Monday
during tests prior to putting the No. 2 nuclear reactor back on line. It
was shut down May 19 when cracks were discovered in two feed
water piping systems.
Some j
days. >
Judge Edward Cowart in Miami suggested Monday if attorneys
don’t speed up their questioning, “it’s going to take us six months to
get a jury to try Theodore Bundy for the Chi Omega murders. A
masked intruder slipped into the Chi Omega House at Florida State
on Jan. 15, 1978 and attacked four sorority sisters as they slept. Two
died — Lisa Levy, 20, and Margaret Bowman, 21, both of St.
Petersburg. A fifth student who lived six blocks away was beaten
brutally, and Bundy also is charged with that crime. Cowart re
peatedly sustained objections to what he called “repetitious and irrel
evant questions about how the prospective jurors felt about the case.
Cowart dismissed seven prospective jurors on the trial’s opening day.
rei
Cartoonist Dave Fleischer, creator of Popeye, the spinacheating
sailor, and Betty Boop, died of a stroke in Calabasas, Calif. Monday.
He was 84. Fleischer and his brother Max were among the pioneers
of movie animation, running a studio that was once considered sec
ond only to Walt Disney’s in the field. Fleischer did the animation for
Alfred Hitchcock’s film “The Birds, was twice nominated for
Academy Awards, and in 1974 won the first "Annie, the top award of
the Animation Society of America. The funeral is scheduled for today
at Mount Sinai Mortuary in Hollywood.
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Seventeen black members of the outlawed Pan African Congress
were sentenced to a total of 167 years imprisonment Tuesday in
Bethal, South Africa for offenses under the country’s Terrorism Act.
Supreme Court Judge D.J. Curlewis imposed individual sentences
ranging from 30 years to 5 years in jail in the windup of a trial that
lasted nearly 19 months. Sixteen of the men were found guilty of
reviving the banned Pan African Congress and of sending men out of
the country for guerrilla training and the violent overthrow of the
government. They were also found guilty of of inciting riots in the
black township of Kagiso, outside the mining town of Krugersdorp,
about 30 miles west of Johannesburg.
1
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