Viewpoint The Battalion Texas A&M University Tuesday February 24, 1981 Editors i Slouch By Jim Earle “I was so upset about that test that I resorted to studying!' Lobbyists: Getting, stopping, keeping By ARNOLD SAWISLAK United Press International WASHINGTON — Washington lob byists have three basic missions — to get, to stop and to keep. Getting is the process of securing some benefit — a federal aid program, a tax break, a subsidy — for some group, busi ness or region. It is hard work, often requiring years of agitation, propagandizing and persuasion to get both Congress and the White House to agree on some new attachment to the feder al treasury. Lobbyists have spent their en tire working lives trying to get one goodie in Washington. With President Reagan basing his entire budget-cutting proposal on the premise that the federal cow has been milked dry, getting is going to be the toughest job a lobbyist could have for a while. The excep tion is the defense industry lobby. If your client sells weapons systems, this ought to be open season for getting. Stopping has been tough work for lob byists in recent times. It consists of pre venting Washington from getting involved in some area of the economy or the society that in the past has been the province of local, state or no government. It often has pitted stopping lobbyists against getting lobbyists, and during much of the time since FDR brought the New Deal to Washington, the cards were stacked in the White House and in Congress in favor of getting. But Reagan’s arrival ought to make stop ping much easier. He says the United States already is over-regulated, and with the small society by Brickman MV /^^f'JTAKT W&'LL && AHEAP FILIAL A fZFTUf^- W& £Abi GTAlAP IM^TFAP T\A/£> - ) I960 King Features Syndicate. »nc World rights reserved Warped Keeping the pledge at lower cosl bree-pa probler dren. By MAR Editor’s note: This is the second of a three- part Guest column giving one man’s views of U. S. strategy and costs during the Viet nam War. Guest By RICHARD S. LE VIEUX The Nixon Administration was commit ted to ending the war with the Kennedy commitment intact. The table above shows, as the troops came home, casualties drop ped dramatically to 1964 levels by the end of 1972. And yet the reduced military forces still continued to fulfill the Kennedy com mitment. The explanation for this paradox is sim ple. Instead of limiting the destruction of military supplies to the “front lines” (always the most expensive place to do so), these enemy supplies were destroyed further and further behind the front lines by consistent, intense application of U.S. Air Power. A maxim discovered long ago was that when one side no longer has any military sup plies, the war is over for that side. American military forces in the Philippines surren dered to the Japanese in April 1942 only because they had no expendable military supplies left with which to resist the Impe rial Japanese Army (although our military Column force there represented better than 70 per cent of all the Allied power in the Southern Pacific, including Australia!). Never before or since has such a large American military force surrendered. It should be beyond debate that from 1961 through 1972 Southeast Asia did not fall to communism. The price we paid in the lives of our youth and in our money from the national Treasury ($150 billion), to say no thing of perhaps a half million Southeast Asians, is another subject. If the commit ment was not worth American lives, then the Kennedy commitment was hypocrisy on the part of our government. If it was worth one or more American lives, then one is quibbling about how many ... unless one is thinking about malfeasance, dereliction of duty or treachery in carrying out the commitment. 1 Why J The total collapse of the American Sp Leasing by the end of 1972 caused events oh andteac following two years (from January Will educatn April 1975) to go unnoticed and tks ;. Marys w appreciated. By 27 January 1973, thek C >1 or be the U.S. combat forces had departed^ The l South Vietnam. On 7 November Iffl, Kennedy commitment was de shambles by the War Powers Resoli passed by Congress over a Presidi veto. Still another 13 months before North Vietnam could again i sufficient military supplies to re-invat World ' neighbor to the south. Abandonedbyli, rents, th the authoritarian government ofra Educatic Vietnam fell to the totalitarian goverac ofTduca of North Vietnam (though not as quiet: ^ 1967 Poland did to Germany in 1939. iared 1! led. Ir the righl been bre by the re educatio In the were required instead of 30 days). Mii K ech ; Kennedy feared would happen to Mb , .1 • i i j^erc ci i] Asia did happen. otion What the really concernedcitizeni; In 197 be asking is how the U.S. militarydm vs, the the ’69-’72 period could fulfill the Kei®) stated th commitment with fewer and fewer trt! °f handi and with correspondingly lowercostiife "ght to than during the ’65-68 period? Ands I i keep Southeast Asia free for anottai years without any American combatfc in South Vietnam! (i 0Ii a g ai | There hensive icapped States, c attendee the White House taking a jaundiced view of new federal intrusions into the private sec tor, stopping lobbyists should have a much easier time of it. Keeping usually is the lobbyist’s easiest task. Most often, a lobbyist doesn’t have to do anything to keep those federal dollars flowing once a goodie has been embedded in the budget and the bureaucracy. It fre quently becomes self-perpetuating, with federal employees in Washington and be neficiaries elsewhere in the country doing the work to keep the benefit alive. But keeping is now under the gun. The Reagan administration has compiled a huge “hit list” of federal benefits it says have to be reduced and eliminated, and that looks like work for hundreds of once-complacent lob byists who had little to do other than make sure that the food was warm and the wine was cold when their clients came to visit Washington. It is impossible to say how this will affect the lobbying industry in Washington, but it could result in a whole new lineup of allies among the special interests. Ever since the civil rights-crusades of the 1960s, coalitions of groups that appear to have divergent interests have been popular among Washington lobbyists. Most of that activity has been aimed at getting some thing from the federal government, but it is not unreasonable that the same technique might be adapted for keeping. If that becomes the case, members of Congress may find lobbyists on their door steps eager to make a case for dairy price supports, food stamps, AMTRAK subsidies and Saturday mail service. Sounds strange, but this is Washington. The Si is sponsi test. Stu( asked to • The win: prize. The 1c rary sen service t The c< I -Th A&M st Multipl mitted. — An design si a 12 incl V2 inch 1 It’s your turn Illegalparkers bother disabled Editor: I’m writing this letter in compliance with the fact that the handicapped parking spaces on this campus are unkept and ex tremely misused. I am not severely hand icapped, but nonetheless I have to park in the disabled areas. Many times I have driven up to a disabled spot and found a car parked there, one without a disabled sticker of any type. Most of the time I realize that they are only parked there for a short while but I have to go on and find the next spot which is sometimes far away from where I’m trying to go. Anyone with less than 60 hours that is disabled has to park with the rest of his class when the disabled spots are taken up. Some of the disabled spots on this campus are not marked will enough for the non-disabled to distinguish them as such. If all of the areas had the handicapped symbol of a person in a wheelchair then they would be much easier to distinguish. And on the weekends I’ve seen many illegal parkers in these spots but no tickets on them. Hey, I am disabled on the weekends as well as the weekdays! And what about those in wheel chairs? Gary Jackson Not all are good Ags Editor: I just read Mr. Wagner’s letter (2/18) and I couldn’t agree more. It is important to keep A&M pure. After-all there are only certain kinds of people that make good Ags. In past years homosexuals have tried to form on campus. They obviously don’t fit in here — they talk funny and don’t know how to have a good time. But, A&M pulled together and, with the help of Texas law, withstood the Gay scourge. Now the Greeks are trying to come on campus. They dress funny and spend too A lib< thougl Torn bate Te Nationa I am afraid that we have been lax inf (NCPA( vigilance and allowed several subvew MSC P< groups into our midsts. For example,#, “We students — they spend all their timesttf said San ing and sometimes seem more interested will be graduating than in joining the “Aggiefr* NC;p./ nity.” The Student Government doesnl Bayh, G in either. Those people spend all theirti it marks hanging around the SPO planning if' be help. political careers. ch much time partying. Besides, other schools have Greeks. They simply don’t show proper Aggie spirit. There is no doubt their request needs to be turned down. Our watchdogs in the system havesfl us from homosexuality, but their job is done. They must stop the vile threat#' by fraternities and sororities. TheysW also review existing organizations so wet “Keep that brotherly spirit” and pros say “some of we are Aggies, and theAj!? are some of we.” David Witzel ! ebate. Polit The Battalion By Scott McCullar HET, LET'S THIS ONE, ONE IN A STOP AND 5E£ I HAVEN'T REAP LoNe rine. OH NO, YOU'RE NOT R£ALLY| G0/N6 TO MAKE Nl£ STOP JUST TO SEE SOME.. % HISTORICAL MARKE R 1 MILE OH COME ON, SOMETIMES THEY'RE REALLY INTERESTING.; TALK ABOUT BEING PRIVEA/ CKAZ.Y... ■ SOMEWHERE RIGHT NOW THE WHOLE STATE tt/STORICAL SOCIETY IS G16GLIM6 JO DEATH. A\l\ THIS is THE FIRST BLACR MA6IC MARKER EVER MADE IT WAS /NYEA/TED ON THIS SITE IN l«i« tfA&i MEMBER ISPS Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Congress Editor Dillard Stone Managing Editor Angelique Copeland Asst. Managing Editor Todd Woodard City Editor Debbie Nelson Asst. City Editor Marcy Boyce News Editors Venita M