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The Battalion
|Vol. 82 No. 156 GSRS 045360 6 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, June 3, 1987
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JVASHINGTON (AP) — Presi
dent Reagan announced Tuesday he
isBnciminating economist Alan
pfeenspan as chairman of the Fed
eral Reserve hoard to succeed Paul
VBcker, who guided the nation’s
economic fortunes for eight years.
Reagan made the startling an
nouncement concerning what is of
ten described as the second most
Rverful job in the nation in a brief
statement he read as Volcker and
Greenspan stood at his side.
Volcker, 59, a hard-money man
who was named to head the central
bank by President Carter in 1979,
said he was leaving voluntarily and
had informed Reagan of his decision
at a meeting Monday.
“I had no feeling I was being
pushed,” Volcker said, refusing to
answer directly a question of
Analysts: Greenspan
continue policies.
agenda set by Volcker
■WASHINGTON (AP) — Al
though news that Paul Volcker is
stepping down as chairman of the
nation’s central bank shocked the fi
nancial and political communities,
major policy changes at the Federal
Reserve under economist Alan
Greenspan seem unlikely.
■\nalysts predicted Greenspan
Ijjitmmmmammmmmmmm would follow
l
of the
Analysis
many
same conserva
tive policies
championed by
Volcker, who in his eight-year ten
ure earned an international reputa
tion as an inflation fighter.
ffiVolcker’s departure will mean
that all seven members of the mone
tary policy-setting board will be Rea
gan appointees.
■But economists generally sug
gested that Greenspan, a Republican
who was President Ford’s chief econ
omist, is just as independent as Vol
cker, a nominal Democrat.
B“He is even less likely to gun the
money supply or move to an easier
policy for political purposes,” Wash
ington economist Michael K. Evans
said. “In 1976, when he was chair
man of the Council of Economic Ad
visers, he refused Ur spur the econ
omy even though Ford was running
for president.”
But while Volcker took a keen in
terest in international financial is
sues, engineering a landmark 1982
financial rescue package for Mexico,
Greenspan has focused on domestic
economics.
Allen Sinai, chief economist for
Shearson Lehman Bros, of New
York, said, “The strengths of Vol
cker are not the strengths of Greens
pan. Greenspan’s strengths are more
industrial economics and the U.S.
economy and certainly not financial
markets and international finance.”
While Volcker focused on infla
tion as the nation’s foremost eco
nomic concern, Greenspan has said
reversing deficit spending “is the
most important policy action that
one could identily for the 1980s.”
While Volcker ruled the Fed with
almost an iron hand, a degree of
control that had slipped of late as
Reagan appointees became more
numerous, Greenspan “is much
more deliberative, more methodi
cal,” Evans said. “I think he will draw
people out and get a consensus.”
Clements kills
permanent rise
in gasoline tax
AUSTIN (AP) — Gov. Bill
Clements, who earlier had in
sisted it was either all of his tax
plan or nothing, made good on
his threat Tuesday and vetoed a
permanent 5-cent increase in the
motor fuels tax.
Less than 12 hours after the
Legislature’s regular session
ended, Clements sent lawmakers
a veto message saying he wanted
two tax bills passed — the 5-cent
gas tax hike and a bill to keep the
sales tax rate at 5 'A percent.
He vetoed a permanent 5-cent
increase in the motor fuels tax.
“Games are being played with
the fiscal integrity of Texas,” he
said.
“The games must end,” Clem
ents said. “We must do what is
right.
“We must make both taxes
permanent to preserve the cash
flow and avoid a major problem
this fall.”
Clements has scheduled a spe
cial legislative session to meet
June 22 to complete work on the
unfinished state budget and on
taxes.
Throughout the 140-day reg
ular session, (dements had
pledged to veto any tax increase
larger than $2.9 billion.
He said he wanted to raise
that amount by making perma
nent the “temporary” sales and
gas tax hikes adopted last au
tumn.
But both of those increases
expire Aug. 31.
Unless action is taken, the mo
tor fuels tax will fall from 15
cents per gallon to 10 cents, and
the sales tax rate will drop from
5'/i cents to 4 l /s cents.
Both the House and Senate
approved the extension of the
fuels tax.
The extension would have
raised an estimated $888 million
for 1988-89.
But lawmakers bogged down
on the sales tax.
The House approved the plan
Clements wanted, but the Senate
voted to extend the S'A-cent rate
only through the end of 1987.
Clements said that won’t do.
“There is no rhyme or reason
to passing the permanent exten
sion of the fuels tax and limiting
the sales tax extension,” the gov
ernor said.
“This bill was part of a two-bill
package of legislation to con
tinue the present revenue
stream to help finance state gov
ernment,” Clements said.
“To have one without the
other serves no useful purpose,”
he said.
Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby, who leads
a Senate that reportedly was pre
pared to increase taxes by nearly
$6 billion, said the governor’s
veto didn’t bother him.
Although the state’s fiscal year
ends Aug. 31 and faces a serious
need for more cash, Hobby said
the veto only will add pressure to
the Legislature to find a solution
to the problems.
“That means the Legislature
has a very few weeks to enact the
necessary taxes to keep the state
going for the next biennium,”
Hobby said.
“As Sir Walter Raleigh said as
he was about to lay his head on
the block and have his head cut
off, and he felt the sharpness of
the hitsman’s ax, he said it fo
cuses the attention marvelously,”
Hobby said.
House Speaker Gib Lewis said
Clements’ veto wasn’t a surprise.
“He said he was going to do it
unless something happened,
and it didn’t happen,” Lewis
said. “So therefore, he fulfilled
his commitment.
“We’ll have to pass it again.”
whether the president had asked
him to stay.
Reagan said he was accepting Vol-
cker’s resignation with “great reluc
tance and regret.”
The surprise announcement sent
financial markets momentarily into a
tailspin.
There had been a widespread be
lief the administration would seek to
keep Volcker at the Fed given the
turmoil in recent months caused by
the unsettled Third World debt situ
ation, rising inflation worries and a
falling dollar.
The Dow Jones average of 30 in
dustrial stocks fell 22 points within
minutes of the announcement al
though it later rebounded after trad
ers recovered from the initial shock.
But bond prices and the value of
the dollar continued to be under
downward pressure.
While surprised about Volcker’s
departure, many in financial mar
kets and on Capitol Hill said the
White House could have not selected
a better, person for the post than
Greenspan, who served from 1974
to 1977 as chairman of the Council
of Economic Advisers under Presi
dent Ford.
Greenspan, 61, who now runs an
economic consulting firm in New
York, won widespread praise for his
chairmanship of the blue-ribbon
commission appointed by Reagan in
1983 to recommend reforms to the
financially ailing Social Security sys
tem.
“Filling Paul Volcker’s shoes will
be a major challenge,” Greenspan
told reporters, saying it took him
only “milliseconds,” to decide to take
the job when he was called by the
president on Monday.
The post of Federal Reserve
chairman often is viewed as second
in influence only to the president be
cause of the great effect the central
bank has on the overall economy
through its control of the U.S.
money supply.
By controlling how much money
banks have to lend, the Fed influ
ences the price of money — interest
rates —and also the pace of eco
nomic growth.
Cannonball Fun
Hunter Coles takes advantage of a sunny morning
to go swimming at Thomas Pool. Coles, 11, is one
of many local children on summer vacation.
Photo by Robert W. Rizzo
Thomas Pool, on Moss Street in Bryan, is open
Monday through Friday from 1 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
and Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Child-care services missing atA&M
Student parents confront problem
By Lisa Vandiver
Reporter
The alarm goes off at 6 a.m. and
Rachel Kennedy, a student at Texas
A&M, gets up for a day of classes.
While trying to get herself ready for
class, though, Kennedy also must get
her daughters — Amber, 7, and
April, 6 — ready for their day.
After the breakfast dishes are
done, everyone’s teeth are brushed
and clothes are on right-side out,
Kennedy, an experienced student
parent, gathers books, crayons and
children and heads for class.
This situation is not unfamiliar to
Kennedy or to other student parents
who attend A&M, at which child
care is an especially difficult prob
lem.
If Kennedy had been a student at
the University of Houston, the Uni
versity of Texas or one of 13 other
schools in Texas, she could place her
children in a campus child-care cen
ter, but not at A&M.
Most campus day-care centers are
set up through the departments of
education, home economics or edu
cational psychology.
Dr. Douglas Godwin, assistant
professor in A&M’s College of Edu
cation, says the main reason the edu
cation department hasn’t become in
volved in a program is because of the
lack of a home economics depart
ment with which to coordinate it.
According to an article in Texas
College Student magazine titled
“Student Parents Scramble for
Childcare,” about 40 percent of the
nation’s colleges and universities
provide some child care, which in
cludes schools that merely refer stu
dents to non-campus facilities.
Aside from the convenience of an
on-campus facility at A&M, the cost
of a campus center would probably
be less than private off-campus child
care. The cost of the university cen
ters around the state ranges from $8
to $45 a week, while the average cost
of the off-campus care in the Bryan-
College Station area starts at about
$45 a week.
The need for such centers is hi-
lighted by the lengthy waiting lists at
most day-care facilities. According to
the Texas College Student article,
some students place their unborn
children on waiting lists in order to
ensure them a spot in a center. ,
Richard Beil, an A&M graduate
student, likes the idea of an on-cam
pus center because of personal
moral qualms about outside centers.
“We don’t like the idea of our
daughter being in a day-care center
eight hours a day, five days a week,”
was, she founded the Students with
Children program at A&M, a sup
port and action group designed for
student parents.
“The group lets you know some
one is there,” Kennedy says. “I re
member being sick and knowing I’d
have to get the kids to day care and
go to class because I didn’t have any-
“Working parents as well as student parents try to bal
ance several roles — the more resources they have, the
easier it is to manage. ”
— Diane Welch, family life education specialist
he says. “We want to be able to say
we raised our own child — not some
one else.”
So Beil and his wife, who also is a
graduate student, alternate days of
staying home two days a week to take
care of their 15-month-old daugh
ter. The other three weekdays she
goes to a mother’s day out program.
According to Diane Welch, a fam
ily life education specialist at A&M, a
center at A&M would not only create
a more convenient situation and less
of a financial strain on student par
ents, but also would lessen stress that
is created by juggling roles.
“Working parents as well as stu
dent parents try to balance several
roles — the more resources they
have, the easier it is to manage,”
Welch says. “Several of the roles they
try to balance are time and finance.
The student parents can sometimes
be more flexible than working par
ents because of class schedules.”
Kennedy also says the amount of
stress a student parent faces as op
posed to the single, childless student
attending school is great.
“There is a tremendous amount
of guilt,” she says. “It seems that no
matter how much I do, I can always
do better — something always has to
suffer.
“It is very hard to keep your prio
rities in line, to know what comes
first and what must be sacrificed —
studying, the children or sleep.
Sleep is always the thing put aside.”
When Kennedy discovered just
how tough being a student parent
one to fall back on. I would drive
April to day care wondering if I was
going to pass out on the way.”
The group also is planning to
bring in speakers and create a coop
erative program designed on a point
system rather than a monetary one
that would revolve around child
care. Members would earn points by
keeping children and spend points
by using baby-sitting services.
“I’m surprised at the people who
are willing to invest their time in a
co-op, because the time we do have is
so valuable,” Kennedy says. “Right
now though, it’s our only alternative
because child care is so expensive
and so difficult to find.”
The ultimate goal of the group,
Kennedy says, is to create an on-
campus child-care facility that offers
qualifications not met by off-campus
facilities.
Qualifications include a low adult
to child ratio, which has proven to be
much lower in on-campus centers.
Additionally, some campus cen
ters coordinated by the school’s de
partments of education or educatio
nal psychology are called lab schools.
These programs are used as learn
ing laboratories for departmental
students, creating a learning atmo
sphere for both the students and the
children, as well as offering an even
smaller adult to child ratio.
The cost of lab schools is slightly
higher than regular day-care pro
grams, but some campuses, such as
the University of Houston, provide
both types of programs for their stu
dent parents.
By having students work in the
programs as a lab, the children’s
learning and playing time is be!ter
structured than in current day-care
facilities because the student teach
ers’ labs only last from one to three
hours.
Also, Kennedy says that because
her children have been associated
with A&M through her classes, they
are less intimidated of the school
and the campus.
“It has given them confidence in
education and themselves,” she says.
“They are already talking about
going to college. To them, it is just
an accepted notion that they will go.
I just wish that they had learned this
in a more fun way rather than color
ing in Mom’s class because the sitter
didn’t show up.”
One of the main problems Ken
nedy has found with creating a cen
ter on campus is getting in contact
with other student parents at the
University — no forms require infor
mation pertaining to a student’s
maritiai or child status. Kennedy’s
group plans to contact those who
would most likely be candidates for
the student-parent category — grad
uate students and married students
who have applied for financial aid.
However, a majority of people si ill
aren’t reached.
The idea for campus child care
also has been picked up by other or
ganizations. The campus chapter of
the National Organization for
Women has become aware of the
problem and is interested in a possi
ble program to support the issue
Wendy Stock, campus presid.
of NOW, is enthusiastic about re
searching the subject.
“We would be very interested in
doing a program on the mailer,”
Stock says. “We would like to adver
tise the program, and depending on
the amount of response we receive,
perhaps support such a program. It
is a definite need at this school.”
In a Faculty Senate meeting held
on January 19, the Senate approved
a resolution that suggested a com
mittee be appointed by President
Frank E. Vandiver to investigate die
possibility of an on-campus child
care center at A&M.