Slouch
By Jim Earle
“When I stay in bed and take care of myself, I get jumped
for cutting class! Now I ask you, are we committed to
conserving energy or are we just giving lip service to it?”
Opinion
Mortgages changed by rule
Home mortgages may never be the same again. The Great
Squeeze of record interest rates has dried up home sales.lt
was time to lubricate the whole business, and this week a
federal agency moved to do precisely this.
In response to pleas from lending institutions the federal
Home Loan Bank Board broke with tradition and decided
that thrift institutions (mainly savings and loan institutions)
could begin offering variable-rate mortgages. Within limits,
the interest charged on such loans henceforth can ris^opfalf.
Some consumer groups oppose the board’s move, arguing
that some homeowners (such as those living on fixed*ih'fcom-
es) could be severely hurt if such rates continue to climb.
This is a real concern that Congress should monitor closely.
It would be disastrous to make home ownership more diffi
cult than it already is, for many people. Yet the new ruling
also protects borrowers in several ways. Mortgage rates
could go up or down by no more than one-half percent a
year. Lenders would have to pass on reductions in interest
rates.
The new approach would seem to encourage competition.
Some would-be home buyers now may be wiling to take out,
say, a 16-percent mortgage with some confidence that its
rate will decline as interest levels begn to recede from their
present peaks.
Providence, R.I., Journal-Bulletin
the small society
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4
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Associate Editor Keitli Taylor
News Editor Rusty Cawley
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Focus Editor Rhonda Watters
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Viewpoint
The Battalion
Thursday
Texas A&M University
April 10, 1980
GSA buys expensive furniture
for federal wage council’s H.Q.
The
headed
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By DONALD LAMBRO
United Press International
WASHINGTON — When the General
Services Administration furnished the
office of a high-level White House official
last April, money was no object. GSA
bought the best in 18th century reproduc
tions.
The Chippendale chairs and end tables,
Sheraton pedestal and cocktail tables, and
custom covered sofa and chairs, which cost
taxpayers $5,700, was, according to GSA
auditors, a waste of money.
The irony — if it can be called one — was
that the furniture went into the office of the
director of the President s Council on
Wage and Price Stability, which is charged
with holding down government spending
to curb inflation.
Its director, auditors said, shouldn’t be
blamed for this bit of extravagance. GSA,
circumventing agency rules, decided on its
own that his office was entitled to some
thing better than ordinary furniture.
This is not an isolated case. It is one of
many in an eyeopening internal GSA audit
completed in February as part of an in
teragency investigation into the govern
ment’s seemingly unending furniture
buying spree that costs taxpayers about
$250 million a year.
The audit found numerous cases in
which GSA has engaged in ‘‘unnecessary
procurement of new furniture for high-
level officials” and other federal offices
while government warehouses bulge with
new and used furniture.
It found “pervasive management prob
lems” in the purchase, use, and storage of
furniture, including “lack of understanding
of regulatory requirements, disregard for
administrative control, (and) the desire to
please important people.”
For example, the audit said GSA purch
ased $672,000 in new furnishings last year
just in the Washington region, an expendi
ture that “could have been avoided,” if
GSA had complied with its own regulations
requiring use of existing new or used furni
ture.
The auditors said that in most instances
GSA “failed to express a demonstrated
need for new furniture,” noting that
$314,800 in furniture bought to equip one
downtown federal building was entirely
unnecessary.
“The furniture was procured without au
thority, without approved funds, and with
out any method to recover costs ex
pended,” the audit said. “Furthermore,
there was no determination that the occu
pants of the building needed furniture and
inappropriate types of furniture were pro
cured.”
The Council on Wage and Price Stability
moved into the building in question, early
last year. The White House agency already
had adequate furniture in its previous loca
tion but left it behind when it moved.
The auditors said they were "unable to
determine what happened to the old furni
ture.”
In other cases, they said, instead of just
buying basic, useful furniture as needed,
GSA is spending hundreds of thousands of
dollars solely to “improve appearance, de
cor or status of offices belonging to high-
level GSA officials and their staffs.”
One GSA furnishing project, which cost
$5,100, included decorative “luxury items
such as a custom-covered camelback sofa,
wing chairs and mahogany reproductions of
18th century furniture” including a Chip
pendale chest, drop leaf table, butler tray
have it.
McK
counti
should 1
b«
table, and a Pembroke table.
Federal regulations forbid
than essential items for offices
furniture procurement to the
sive lines available. Sadly, the)
“We found no evidence thi
alternatives were considered,
Unfortunately, this isonlyai;
part of the government’s ibmitwi
sa ga Og
The audit details other cases
one in which GSA last yerp
$357,000 in furniture for its out#
out fully considering the_
$400,000 worth of unused fnDL |
hand.”
GSA Administrator Rowland{§
III — who has recently placed
furniture buying — ordered a
inventory of all GSA-ownedand
tore, but auditors say the att(
The government still does not
much furniture it has.
Moreover, it does not know
pens to millions of dollars in usajs KANM
ture that is routinely listed as’ station wl
which auditors suspect is bans day from
junked. M>rth side
99.9FM,
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the cable
Midwes
CBS reporter still has sense of humo
By RICHARD H. GROWALD
United Press International
News persons in television talk muchly
of Dan Rather’s gross salary and succession
of CBS anchor Walter Cronkite.
More wordage concerns Phil Jones, like
the late James Dean, a celebrated rebel
from Fairmount, Ind. The straw-haired
Jones has won Emmy and other awards for
his reporting for CBS news.
But lately there has been howling. A
Washington Post critic said Jones is too
aggressive. He said Jones is “exhibitionis-
tically scrappy. ’ He said Jones hits politi
cians with “sneak attacks.
Oh, how awful! Politicans, being so ap
plauded in the republic, should, of course,
be shielded from dead cats and eye
gouging.
Jones’ great crime is that he fights for
access to what our leaders are saying and
doing behind shut doors. Let us zoom in
the camera:
— At a 1970 Atlanta meeting of the
American Bar Association Chief Justice
Warren Burger said no to Jones filming his
speech on prison reform. When Jones
approached Burger and asked why he was
being nixed, the chief justice: 1) tried to
take possession of Jones’ microphone; 2)
asked police if they and not he were going
to oust Jones; and 3) said the next day any
interview would be given first to ABC and
NBC and only then to Jones’ CBS. Burger
did not make immediately clear why he
objected to having his words on prison re
form being televised.
And Jones became a television Mr. Nice
Guy.
— Later, in Southeast Asia, Jones mo
tored among U.S. Air Force bases in Thai
land, filming B-52 bombing mission
takeoffs and other ill-kept features of a not-
so-secret war and doing it without benefit
of Defense Department permission. He
won an Emmy for it. But Air Force public
relations officers did not make whoopee.
— There was the time in Delaware,
when then-Vice President Gerald Ford was
starring in a $l,000-a-person Republican
fund-raising reception and being trailed by
Jones. A Delaware GOP field marshal
ordered Jones out, for what goes among
politicians should not be necessarily seen.
Animated discussion followed. The Repub
lican lunged for Jones. CBS camera crew
men held him back. Jones, ever the sweet
fellow from James Dean’s hometown, re
marked the Republican was a “political
punk.” The Republican struggled. Vainly.
Of course, Jones is sometimes a victim.
CBS this season put him much on the trail
of presidential candidate Edward Ken
nedy. One of the things the Mi'- 3 *
senator has not lost in his camp 1 *' 1
sense of humor.
One frigid morning in Maine,
noticed Jones standing among 1
work reporters, waiting for a worY
candidate at a factory gate where
tor was greeting voters. Kenned)
had stepped away for a minute
Kennedy hurried to a Jones’riff
saw this and ran, reaching Kennel,
just as the senator was saying, '‘J :
all I’m going to say about thePresi)
not going to say another worr
Carter!”
Jones sensed he had lostapri
saw Kennedy turn toward him
Jones laughed. Even Mr. Nicef ^
one occasionally. IF
(D
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By Doug
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