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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 22, 1986)
Page 2AThe Battalion/Wednesday, January 22, 1986 In tests we trust A few weeks ago President Reagan proposed that govern ment officials take a lie-detector test to help combat the recent wave of espionage. Last week Gov. Mark White called for drug testing of public and private employees. While such tests may help prevent spying and drug abuse, they don’t establish trust in public officials. Drug and lie-detector tests send a clear message of distrust to employees. If an employee is justifiably under suspicion then some sort of test should be administered out of fairness for all involved. But indiscriminately administering such tests to all em ployees not only has negative psychological effects, it twists the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” into guilty until pro ven innocent. In Reagan’s case, many of the people he wants to test are his appointees. If he had questions about their loyalty, the president should not have placed them in positions of trust. Reagan should have confidence in his selections. Distrust is like the plague. It may not be noticeable at first, but it spreads throughout the organization and even to the pub lic. How can the public trust officials who don’t have the confi dence of their bosses? Trust is essential to the smooth functioning of any business or government. Without it, cooperation is nearly impossible. An institution that lacks trust lacks stability. The Battalion Editorial Board Opinion THE CABINET IMK& A IJE DETECTOR JSAN A Tuesday d in to pu 0-calorit Christmas vacation more enjoyable than usuo iims by c jder stars l Dr. Job i ■•year-olc d Breed When I wasin grade school I used to dread coming back to school after Christmas vaca tion. Not for the obvious reason of not wanting to go to school but be- Karl cause I didn’t want PGllmGy@r to write that stu- pid essay on —— “What I Did for Christmas.” I never had done much over the Christmas holidays and therefore didn’t have much to write about. But this year was different. It would be a shame to have a good time and not be able to write about it, so, even though I don’t have to, here it is: Dec. 21 — I went to a Winter Solstice party. The Winter Solstice celebration is one of the oldest traditions known to man and is the original form of what we now celebrate as Christmas. The party was held out in the country at a profes sor’s house. After spending half a tank of gas traveling through the wilds of Brazos County we finally found the place. It was probably the best party I’ve been to that I was able to leave under my own power. Dec. 22 — I got up and drove 140 long miles to my hometown of Merid ian. After about 20 minutes on the road I thought that maybe I should have left that party sooner. Dec. 23 — My parents and I loaded up the car and drove to Amarillo to spend a few days with my brother and sister. It’s over 400 miles from Meridian to Amarillo; not much fun, but I finally got to read some of those books that I never find time for during the semester. Dec. 24 — Christmas Eve. I volun teered to go to the grocery store in hopes that I could find some real beer so I wouldn’t be forced to drink Coors Light. I was lucky enough to find lots of beer and none of it American. Christmas Eve everyone got together to open presents. Fifteen people: Mom, Dad, Paula (my sister), Ronnie (my brother-in-law), Susan (my niece), Scott (my nephew), Will (my brother), Deb (my sister-in-law), Amy (another niece), Dewayne (another nephew), Angela (yet another niece), Frank (my brother-in- law’s brother), Renee (my brother-in- law’s sister-in-law), Henry (my brother’s father-in-law) and Bernice (my broth er’s mother-in-law). Needless to say I made a pretty good haul with that many people around. Dec. 25 — Christmas Day. Will (my brother), Wayne (my brother’s brother- in-law) and I went out for our tradi tional Christmas Day bowling game (we’ve done it for three years now so it must be a tradition). We got our tradi tionally low scores, too. Dec. 26 — We went shopping. I’m not a big fan of shopping centers but I wanted to get out of the house so I tagged along. At one of the stores, Su san (my niece) bumped into a ceramic Santa Claus and knocked it to the floor — Santa broke into several dozen pieces. Being the kind and understanding uncle that I am, I started to tease her about it. I changed the words of the Christmas ditty “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” to “I Saw Susan Smashing Santa Claus.” I changed the words of the Christmas poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to read: “Twas the day after Chrismas and all through the store/I watched Susan throwing St. Nick to the floor.” I had Wayne (my brother’s brother-in-law) call her and pretend he was the manager of the store who wanted her to fess up to her crime of manslaughter. Needless to say, Susan was not amused. I realize now it is possible that Santa, facing an upcoming 11 months of unemployment, became depressed and threw himself to a most ujitimely end. Some people just don’t like the holiday season. Dec. 27 — My parents and I loaded up the car and drove back to Meridian. Not an exciting trip but a lot of good reading time. Dec. 28-30 — Home. I spent most of these three days driving up and down the street or playing Trivial Pursuit with my mother. When we played with the box of music questions I won pretty eas ily but she usually won when we played with the box of general questions. Me ridian is not the fun capital of Texas but at least I got to eat my mother’s home cooking. Cooking is notone of the skills I have mastered. (Watch for the Karl Pallmeyer Home Cook Book in this spot soon). Dec. 31 — New Year’s Eve. I drove to Dallas to meet my roommates and to stay with one of our old roommates. We had a New Year’s Eve party that couldn’t be beat and I couldn’t have left under my own power even if I had to. Jan. 1 — New Year’s Day. Those of us who could get up from the party went to the Cotton Bowl. I won’t go in to any de tails about the game or gripe about the television coverage but I will tell you about my favorite moment of the day. It was during the third quarter when I decided to go to the official men’s res troom of the 50th Anniversary Cotton Bowl Classic. Lying in one of the troughs was someone’s official Fightin’ Texas Aggie Twelfth Man Towel. Since nobody obviously wanted that particular towel I committed an official act of dese cration on the official Fightin’ Texas Aggie Twelfth Man Towel. I’ll never again be able to look at anyone waving their stupid towel and keep a straight face. Jan. 2 — I decided to stay in Dallas for another day. Jan. 3 — I went back to Meridian. Jan. 4-5 — More fun in Meridian. More Trivial Puruit with my mother. More driving up and down the street. Jan. 6 — I drove to Lubbock to stay with an old friend. It’s 300 miles from Meridian to Lubbock and the road for about 150 of those miles is as straight as a ruler — a very dull looking ruler. Jan. 7-8 — My friend and I spent most of the time talking about old times and playing Trivial Pursuit with the box of music questions. My friend, who works at a radio station and is minoring in music at Texas Tech, was a formida ble opponent. Jan. 9 — I drove back to Meridian. Excess federal spending won’t just vanish Though President ~ Reagan says he won’t Gnet let it happen, many CUfTiGr people persist in talk- News Analysis ing of the possibility of a tax increase this year. They reason that raising taxes might well be the only way to resolve a series of confrontations over the federal budget. The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings bill that was enacted late last year sets a schedule of deadlines for shrinking the annual federal deficit to zero by the fis cal year that begins Oct. 1, 1990.^ That law is being challenged in the courts as unconstitutional. But no mat ter how the court rules, the underlying problem — federal spending far in ex cess of federal revenues — won’t go away easily. Assuming that Gramm-Rudman stands, it mandates automatic cuts in spending by the government at intervals if the deficit exceeds specified levels. Analysts from Washington to Wall Street agree that these reductions would be increasingly noticeable and painful to the public. As Raymond F. DeVoe Jr., an analyst at the investment firm of Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc., sees it, Gramm-Rud man “appears more and more like a le veraged device forcing some tax in creases through a president who has promised to veto them.” The search for an alternative to an in crease in income taxes has turned up only a few questionable prospects. One is a national sales tax or other form of tax on consumption. This idea has been noised around for years without attract ing much of a fan club. Taxes on consump tion are widely crit icized as regressive, putting a disproportio nate burden on people with lower incomes. Furthermore, many skeptics say, a regres sive tax might well cre ate the demand for ad ditional government service programs that would reduce or elimi nate its benefits as a source of Treasury revenue. A variation on ttie sales tax theme is the “value added tax which is levied on businesses as they process raw materials into finished goods and move them through the dis tribution pipelines of the economy. Such taxes naturally tend to show up in the ultimate selling price to consumers. “We see abundant problems with a value-added tax,” said Peter J. Davis Jr., a Washington-watcher at Prudential- Bache Securities Inc. “The regressivity is severe, and exemptions for food, housing and medical expense ,do pre cious little to moderate the impact on the poor.” Even if President-Reagan, Congress and the public should manage to agree on an income tax increase, its effective ness in shrinking the budget deficit might not live up to expectations. As many analysts have pointed out, if you decide to increase tax rates by, say, 15 percent, you do not necessarily get a 15 percent increase in tax receipts. When tax rates change, people respond by changing their behavior. Chet Currier is a business writer for The Associated Press. United Feature Syndicate This time I took a more scenic roult ^ U< Lj I passed through Cross Plains, i O untso place of Conan creator Robert E.H Konikov ard, I realized why he killed himstlf edict, f< not good for a writer to stayinasi town for very long. Jan. 10 — I drove back to College! tion. Not long after I unloadedmvc ntinue o got a call from a friend who wantd :hospita go out drinking. It’s good to bel ilsnursii home. tube, w Iveston 1 He said Autumn 's Inc. at em in The sta Jan. 11 — I bought books. It'siu. mer e easier to by books before the 36,f Jrc i er j other students get back. The check- girl recognized me and almost refii rvation to sell me my books. The fact thatl* through all the books and dumped all the magazine subscribtion can the counter as she was checkingmfi didn’t help matters much. Jan. 12 — I finally got aroundto packing the boxes that had been around the apartment all weekend Jan. 13-17 — I spent most of days writing and running off news] salesmen. In one week five people by wanting to sell me a Houston p)| You just can’t be nice to those guys Jan. 18-19 — One of my roomi got back in town, and we spent weekend getting good and drunks)] would feel our best for classes morning. My Christmas vacation wasn't aj as I thought it would be. It was a l four weeks without any hassles or j real work. Now I’m all ready forj other semester. I hope you are too. Karl Pallmeyer is a senior jourm major and a columnist for The l ion. The Battalion USPS 045 360 Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Michelle Powe, Editor Kay Mallett, Managing Editor Loren Steffy, Opinion Eage Editor Jerry Oslin, City Editor Cathie Anderson, News Editor Travis Tingle, Sports Editor The Battalion Staff Assistant City Editors Kirsten Di £ Scott SutherW Assistant News Editor Brad Whitlj Assistant Sports Editors KenS^ Charean 1 Entertainment Editors T. Bill Hughes, TriciaParMl Photo Editor John MaW Make-up Editor Richard WilM| Morning Editor Cheryl Burt 1 | Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting^^ per operated as a community service to Texas Bryan-College Station. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are Editorial Board or the author and do not necessartiQ resent the opinions of'Texas A&M administrators,!*^ or the Board of Regents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory nesrspaptj^ students in reporting, editing and photography c within the Department of Communications. The • Battalion is published Monday through fridtfl Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holidifi ing I exas A&M regular semesters, except for holidif' l t examination periods. Mail subscriptions are {16 75pel mester, S.VI.23 per school year and S35 per fullyeir ’e vertising rates furnished on request. Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed ilcDi Building, Texas A&M University, College Station, 1 77843. Second class postage paid at College Station, 7'A’"#| 1