- i
v.' V V ? V
The Battalion
Viewpoint
July 28, 1981
Slouch
By Jim Earle
“We’re in favor of students having the opportunity to select
their teachers. We only hope that the student are agreeable
when the profs ask permission to select our students!”
Congress should
learn by experience
By DAVID S. BRODER
WASHINGTON — The membership of
the Congress of the United States is almost
certainly smarter and better educated to
day than it was a decade ago. The invest
ment in education that began with the GI
Bill and continued with Sputnik and federal
aid to higher education — to say nothing of
the increasing competitiveness of electoral
politics — has had a marked effect in reduc
ing the number of hacks in the House and
Senate.
This conundrum has been gnawing at me
ever since the Senate decided, in a rather
offhand way, to throw into the tax bill a
provision that would index future tax rates
and deductions for inflation, starting in
1985, when the last of the scheduled
Reagan-suggested cuts go into effect.
The political appeal of indexing is ob
vious. It ends bracket creep — the unlegis
lated increase in an individual’s tax burden
that comes when a cost-of-living pay raise
moves you in to a higher bracket. It ends
the situation, in the words of Sen. Dave
Durenberger (R-Minn.), one of its propo
nents, where the “government, one of the
primary causes of inflation, is also the main
beneficiary of inflation.”
Hooray.
But indexing — especially when man
dated four years in advance by people who
can have no real idea what the economic
climate will be — is also the most hazardous
form of revenue-roulette. It is a classic ex
ample of the Congress of 1981 hog-tieing
and hampering the reasoned choice of the
Congress that will be sitting in 1985.
Now, the discouraging thing is that if
there are any men and women in America
who ought to know that fact, it is the 57
senators who voted for indexing last week
and the 218 representatives who have
signed on as co-sponsors of a similar provi
sion in the House.
Why should they know it? Because much
of the agony they have been going through
this year on the budget and reconciliation
bills is the direct by-product of their prede
cessors’ past embrace of indexing for Social
Security, government and military pen
sions and a variety of other programs.
The folks who indexed all those benefits
were operating off what they considered a
fine ringing principle. If Durenberger and
Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and Sen. Bill Arm
strong (R-Colo.) can see the wickedness of
government “profiting” from inflation,
their worthy predecessors in the 1970s
could see that it was equally iniquitous to
make retirees the victims of inflation.
When then-Sen. Frank Church (D-
Idaho) put the cost-of-living indexing for
Social Security into the law back in 1972,
the principle of equity seemed so obvious
that it passed 82-4. What 82 senators could
not foresee was that indexing would be
come so expensive within a decade that it
could threaten the system with bankruptcy
and could force Congress to such desperate
expedients as eliminating the minimum So
cial Security benefits for a couple million
70- and 80-year-olds, living on the ragged
edge of poverty.
It is a double folly. Inflation is not a
scourge that affects particular groups. It
clobbers everybody, and it can be cured
only when everyone understands that disci
pline and sacrifice are involved. To “index”
anyone— taxpayer or beneficiary — fully
against the impact of inflation is to reduce
the odds that everyone will see the need for
joint action against the common enemy.
Second, it is demonstrably dangerous to
lock the government into a long-term fiscal
policy that restricts future room for man
euver.
We are not talking about trivial sums.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates
that in its first two years, tax-indexing
would cost the government $50 billion. No
one now sitting in Congress can possibly
know whether those $50 billion will be
needed to balance the budget in 1986 or
whether returning them to the taxpayers in
that year will stimulate a lagging economy
or just feed the fires of inflation.
A government in which benefits are inde
xed to rise with inflation while taxes are
indexed to resist inflation would be a gov
ernment on the way to bankruptcy, of
It boggles the mind that these smart folks
we’ve got in Congress now can’t see that for
themselves. Maybe we need to send them
to summer school.
The Battalion
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It’s your turn
‘Radical’s’ actions applauded
lishec
Tl
pay in
dicta
re-cn
Editor:
news
I like WARPED. I enjoy it, I find it
amusing. I accept the art work on it. As for
some of the less “intellectual” strips, neith
er I nor my friends are intellectual all the
time. We are silly and occasionally say
rather dumb things when we are perfectly
sober. This is a normal reaction for normal
people; everyone has a lax moment occa
sionally. Therefore, I find the strip believ
able. Certainly close friends and/or room
mates can let loose with each other — this
aspect of the strip is also, I feel accurate.
P.S. I like the art work, too.
Kathe Barber
Graduate student
P.O. Box 1244, CS
higher purpose. Captain Watson is
growing number of individuals
impr<
Comic debate goes on
Editor:
Everyone is certainly free to have their
own stupid opinion, as long as they don’t try
to shove it down anyone else’s throat.
I like WARPED!
Radicals and terrorists are not always
committed to destructive causes. The ac
tions and plans of Captain Paul Watson, (as
stated in a Battalion article, July 14, 1981,
p.7) which are certainly in violation of inter
national and admiralty law conventions,
and which parallel those of fanatics commit
ted to destruction of life, have however, a
realizing that definitive, individik tor ^
may have a beneficial affect on 01 McD
environment. 1 heartily applaud solve
tain's efforts, and hope the Russia 2,05^
Zevedny can be stopped or sun! of 99
loss of life. Henry David Thoreau h 35 j;
that no man is an island. We musty;
realize, and soon, that no species J&Fi!
land. Man alone does not m ake : |*^ e
Captain Watson’s actions in a nat!^|nw ce
safeguard marine mammalian
undertaken in bcli.tli of all men
whom are undeserving of the efft toacc
agen<
coulc
David D sorgai
1507B Oalifevolur
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ise o:
Mediation solves money squabbles
ised
lenei
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unco
o kn
By DREW VON BERGEN
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Despite the impact of
President Reagan’s new federalism, an in
novative mediation approach to financial
disputes among federal, state, and local
governments may have greater use in the
1980s.
The concept of using mediation to solve
such intergovernmental problems — called
Negotiated Investment Strategy — has
been advanced by the Charles F. Kettering
Foundation to deal with problems inherent
in federal categorical grants that are being
virtually eliminated by the new administra
tion.
At a recent conference on Capitol Hill,
officials of the nonprofit research-oriented
foundation joined researchers and city and
state officials to discuss what effect the
administration’s move toward block grants
to states will have on the process.
A 10-page paper by Charles R. Warren,
senior research associate of the National
Academy of Public Administration, con
cluded that while the concept will operate
differently under strong state control of
funds, it will still be necessary to solve in
creasing state-local conflicts.
The process, tried in Columbus, Ohio,
St. Paul, Minn., and Gary, Ind., last year,
brings together officials from all three levels
of government, along with a mediator, to
hammer out an agreement that, while it
may not make any participants happy, will
at least be satisfactory to all parties.
Results of pilot negotiations last year
showed:
— Agreement in Gary for $250 million in
financial commitment, with 63 percent
from the public sector and remaining from
private areas for downtown development,
transportation, recreation, housing, indust
rial and commercial development, health
care and public safety.
— In St. Paul, an agreement committed
all sides to support four major development
projects for which the federal negotiators
pledged more than $40 million, including
$32 million for land acquisition and de
velopment of a 250-acre energy park.
— In Columbus, consensus was reached
on eight broad areas, including specific pro
jects to promote downtown and neighbor
hood revitalization and building restora
tion, with the federal government sup
plying $330 million of the $480 million cost
of physical improvements.
T c
own needs and resolve their owiave
lems,” he said. “Yet, the policyck n on-
the federal level are placing tre®®8 g
strains on intergovernmental rib. ese; |
“States and localities are
adversaries, and at the same tir jj,
mutual dependence is increasing, 'm an ^
added. md r
Warren said if some taxing povvfRge
turned to the states and energy-ric! 5i tes
are able to derive considerable if
from mineral resources, many states®
in a far superior position to finanf ‘
activities than the federal govemmi
“This would not hold true for sotf
in the Northeast and Midwest, wltf
less economic conditions improve!
tically, will remain in a fiscal straitf'
he said.
In his report, Warren indicated the new
Reagan federalism may just be the begin
ning of more problems for states and cities.
Warren added that states have! 1
more involved in levying controls^
governments, noting substantialii !
tion into previously defined locak
ment issues surrounding financial
bled New York City and Cleveland
Columbus Mayor Thomas Modi
the conference the mediating stral
mains valid with decreasing fede
sence.
“The already evident reductions in feder
al aid programs will place a far greater bur
den on the states and localities to meet their
“It’s more important that thelittlf
from the federal government be oft
imum use in the community,” Mo«
Warped
By Scott McCd
EVER SEEN ONE OP THESE?
IT'S A S' DOLLAR BILL, AN
ITEN\ PRACTICALLY USELESS
ON THE A«-N\ CAttPUS. OH,
SURE, YOU CAN PAY FOR
THINGS WITH IT, JUST NOT
GET change*
cause ALIAOST EVERY PLACE
ON CANVPUS THAT DEALS WITH
N\0NEY DOESN'T GIVE CHANGE,
POR*!^ OR $S'S, AND S0N\t 7
TIMES YOU MAY HAVE TO
RESORT TO DRASTIC MEASURES
PLEASE SIR,
coul.p you give
IAE CHANGE
FOR A $S?
OH SURE, THERE are A FEW
PLACES ON CAMPUS THAT
GIVE CHANGE, BUT YOU NEVER
NEED IT IN THOSE PLACES,
DO YOU? NOPE. YOU'RE
ALWAYS IN Z-ACHRY OR
THE ACADEMIC BUILDING, RIGHT:
^ /
BUT I GUESS Af|fl WO
RATHER AVOID GOING
THE BANKING BUSINEb
THEN WHY IS IT
SNACK BAR BUSI/VEii
irfU