Friday, March 25, 1983/The Battalion/Page 11
Technology tightens
crossing at border
ood, housing costs stable
21
Prices, spending down
JUnited Press International
ZlSHlNCiTON — Prices de
last month, but so die! the
ending power of many Amer-
H1S.
I Tie Labor Department said
ednesday consumer prices
Supped 0.2 percent in Febru-
^»rgely because of record
dimes in fuel prices, while
^Hand housing costs held
lady
_Hesident Reagan said the
Iw inflation figure was good
|vvs|for consumers and urged
Congress to help keep the rate
low by holding down “spending
and taxes and the growth of gov
ernment.”
But the department also re
ported blue-collar spending
power dropped 1.5 percent last
month. This meant the savings
brought by falling prices was
wiped out by income lost due to
unemployment.
It was the worst deterioration
in real earnings for any month
since April 1979, brought about
by a 2 percent decline in the av-
ouse passes
w jobs bill
^JJnited Press International
jVV’ASHING LON — The
real that thousands of jobless
topic might go without unem-
bynn in i hecks was brought to
j end Thursdav with die con-
esslonal approval of a jobs bill
for So billn >ii in l< >.uis
^Te unemployment funds.
I Balore the House signaled its
sroval, sending the bill on to
i’hite House for President
|fet)’s signature, four states
cjut of money. Eight more
1.4 million unemployed
her expected to run om of
by the end of the day.
^wsident Reagan is expected
I quickly sign the $4.() billion
is and recession relief bill that
ries with it the $5 billion in
kemployment money.
The bill, laced with “pork
■1” construction programs
districts of Appropriations
|)mfiiittee members who wrote
■neasure, provides about
^nilliiui m publii works pro
mts, most of it directed to areas
high unemployment for
aiding or repairing federal
rilities from parks to prisons.
The biggest single block of
Mith, $1 billion, will be spent
Ttommunity development
ants, money for states and
lies to use on public works
(ograuis. Halfof itcan be used
public service jobs, aiding
■mien shut out from the heavy
instruction tilt elsewhere in the
It spends about $550 million
on humanitarian aid to hungry
and homeless recession victims,
and $217 million in job training
for the young, the old and the
“dislocated” whose line of work
has disappeared.
The bill also provides $50 mil
lion for a college work-study
program, $200 million in grants
and loans to communities with
which to attract new business
and $225 million in social service
grants.
It also provides $126 million
to extend jobless' benef its 10
weeks for laid off rail workers
with less than 10 years seniority.
Nobody knows how many
jobs the bill would create, but
estimates range from 200,000 to
500,000.
The final dispute was over
how to distribute the money.
The House wanted more of it
targeted to localities, the Senate
to states.
The compromise version
combines elements of both
plans, with $1,275 billion aimed
at localities with 9 percent un
employment and $ 1.5 billion for
states, divided according to
three different formulas.
One part of the Senate mix
would send $750 million to
states on the basis of formulas
described in the bill for each
program, $500 million based on
a the number of unemployed in
a state compared to the national
total, and $250 million to the 21
states with unemployment
above 9.4 percent.
locial Security
kindle OK’d
ES United Press International
HASHING I ON — Senate
proval of a $165 billion Social
ciirity rescue package has
wjed Congress within striking
stance of its Friday deadline,
t first the bitter issue of cover-
5 federal workers must be set-
d.
■A conference committee
uusday was to try to resolve
Silrences between the House
■Senate bills, in hopes Con-
ess can send a bill to the White
>ilse before the Easter recess
Bis Friday afternoon.
■The Senate voted 88-9
ednesday night for payroll tax
ikes, a six month pension
IBe, a first-ever benefits tax
d, next century, raising the re-
ement age and trimming the
sic benefit.
KSenate Democratic leader
Bert Byrd of West Virginia,
felring to the bill’s distasteful
klividual provisions, said he
shed he did not have to vote
sr it.
f“But when confronted w'ith
■alternatives — the destruc-
pn of the Social Security Sys-
im| bankruptcy of the Social
ecurity system — 1 was left with
o choice,” Byrd told his col-
agues after the vote.
®he Senate and House bills’
lort-term provisions are simi-
ir — except on the issue of cov-
ring new federal employees,
liich government unions lob-
ied heavily against.
erage number of hours worked.
Gasoline prices dropped 6.7
percent with an average gallon
at $1.17, and fuel oil prices de
clined 4.7 percent — the
steepest one-month decline
since the government started
collecting monthly fuel data in
1967.
February’s Consumer Price
Index was down for only the
second time since August 1965,
the department said.
The department’s report said
February’s gross average weekly
earnings in 1977 inflation-
adjusted dollars increased more
slowly than the cost of living, de
clining $2.57 to $168.47 for full
time and part time production
workers.
Since February 1982, despite
the relatively low inflation rate,
spending power has eroded by
0.3 percent after changes in
wages and changes in the length
of the average workweek were
figured in, the report said.
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The
number of illegal aliens being
caught by the U.S. Border Patrol
is “up dramatically” to 30 per
cent above last year’s rate of
apprehensions, Immigration
and Naturalization Commis
sioner Alan Nelson says.
Nelson told a Senate approp
riations subcommittee Wednes
day the patrol has disrupted
some favored entry routes of
illegals.
Since last August, he said, the
Border Patrol has caught more
illegal border crossers each
month than it has for the past 30
years.
Nelson told the Senate panel
that increased technology is im
proving the effectiveness of the
border watch.
He said helicopter operations
have been increased at Chula
Vista and El Paso, and the addi
tion of helicopters in the Yuma,
Tucson and Del Rio sectors has
improved night surveillance of
the border.
In the Chula Vista sector, he
said, new infrared nightscopes
are being used to spot illegal
border crossers. “They rely
upon the heat generated by a
live body, and are* capable of
spotting a person in rain, fog
and darkness up to three miles,”
he said.
With more money available,
Nelson said, border watches,
traffic checks and city patrols
have been strengthened in areas
where increased crossings are
observed or expected.
Such areas have included the
Laredo, Del Rio and Chula Vista
sectors, he said.
“Illegal activity tends to drop
off in these areas during and af
ter such operations, indicating
that alien entry patterns have
been disrupted,” Nelson said.
Fie said intelligence reports
also indicate the smuggling of
aliens into the country has been
interrupted for several weeks af
ter the additional of ficers leave.
Nelson said anti-smuggling
efforts are being focused on
“major violators” rather than on
“low-level smugglers.” As an ex
ample, he cited the breaking up
of the “Villasana Organization”
— named for its hotel headquar
ters in Juarez, Mexico.
The operation, he said, made
an estimated $24 million over
seven years by smuggling more
than 3,000 aliens a year across
the U.S.-Mexican border.
Nelson said the Mexican na
tional who headed the organiza
tion was sentenced to 1 5 years in
prison.
The INS head testified in sup
port of the agency’s $539.3 mil
lion budget request for fiscal
1984, an increase of $25.7 mil
lion over fiscal 1983 funding.
The Senate rebuffed a com
promise, 50-45, then agreed on
a voice vote not to force newly
hired federal workers to join So
cial Security until Congress
approves a supplemental pen
sion plan to give them the same
level of benefits current em
ployees get. The House voted to
cover new federal workers Jan.
1, 1984.
Mandatory coverage would
mean $9.3 billion in new re
venue by 1990 and wipe out one-
seventh of Social Security’s long
term deficit.
The amendment’s sponsor,
Sen. Russell Long, D-La., said
federal employees should be co
vered. “Only when we live up to
our part of the bargain” — pas
sing a supplemental plan.
There are two other major
differences between the ver
sions of the bill:
—The Senate bill raises the
retirement age to 66 by 2015,
first affecting Americans born
in 1938, and cuts the basic be
nefit 5 percent for new retirees
as of 2008. The House bill hikes
the retirement age to 67 by 2027
but leaves benefits intact.
—The Senate bill, but not the
House measure, requires offi
cials to reduce the annual cost-
of-living increase when Social
Security’s trust funds dwindle,
but to warn Congress in advance
so lawmakers can find alternate
funding.
Good friends will help you study angles
when all you can think about is curves.
It didn't take a genius to tell your mind wasn’t
on your studies. But it did take a couple of
smart roomies to do something about it.
So out came the calculators. And the
doughnuts. And they started drilling you
until you knew physics as well as
you know yourself.
When it was all over, you
showed them that there was
one more thing you knew
something about-gratitude.
Tonight, let it be Lbwenbrau.
Lowenbrau. Here’s to good friends.
1983 Beer Brewed In U.S.A. by Miller Brewing Co., Milwaukee. Wl