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Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, June 24, 1988 Opinion one For years, of the major points of dis agreement be- tween Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals has cen tered around our country’s welfare system. Democrats argue that taxes must be raised to better enable Barbara Jones our country to support those in need of aid. Republicans think that our welfare system is too costly and strips from those it seeks to serve their motivation to achieve. Concerning our current system, heavily burdened by the inefficiency of its own bureaucracy, both sides of the political spectrum agree it must be improved. Unfortu nately for all of us, this is about as far as our politically entrenched legislators have gotten. Recently however, the Senate ap proved a welfare reform bill: the Family Securities Act, and the bill has now gone into conference to be reconciled with the House’s version of the bill. This bill, if passed, could dramatically change our current welfare program for the better. In the past, one of the major com plaints of our current welfare system was that it encouraged people not to work, thus placing a monetary burden upon those who do work and pay taxes. It is indeed a weakness of our current system that recipients become depend ant upon the welfare program. As a re sult, this country now has an entire sub class of people who depend entirely upon welfare for their survival. We must not place the blame on these peo ple but upon the system itself. Booting out a doctor is just plain nutty By any mea sure, Margarida Magalhaes, 33, is a useful member of our society. She’s a physi cian, but not the sort who parks a Mercedes in the hospital lot. Her speciality is blood diseases. She works at the he’s now paying back. And both would fall two years behind in their medical training and experi ence. Another option. They can appeal, which will delay Dr. Megalhaes’ depar ture for a while. Mike Royko University of Illinois Hospital in Chi cago, where most of her patients are in digent, and she is paid about $28,000 a year. But she’s not going to be doing that much longer. She will soon be booted out of this country. That’s because she came here from Porttigal seven years ago under an “ex change visitor’s visa” to get advanced medical training. Under this visa, she has to leave when her studies are finished or after seven years. Her seven years will end next month. Why am I telling you about this? Just to show how nutty laws can be. I like tell ing nutty stories. To begin, Dr. Magalhaes doesn’t want to leave the United States. She has seve ral reasons. One is that while she was here, she met, fell in love with and married Wil liam Silverman, who is also a physician. He specializes in emergency medicine at a suburban hospital. Because Dr. Silverman is an Ameri- can, and prefers to remain one, he would like to have his wife live with him in his country. Second reason. If Dr. Magalhaes re turns to Portugal, it’s unlikely that she could practice medicine there. For some reason, Portugal has a glut of doctors. So here we have someone who is doing valuable work, but we’re telling her that we want her to go where her skills really aren’t needed. aurally, she and her husband are ;ry; ! <g to find a way for her to stay here. ‘ hey’ve written to senators, talked to uTtmigration authorities and the 5i n Department. And here’s the deal. She can go back to Portugal for two years and then apply for U.S. residency and probably return. The problem with that is that she would then be separated from her hus band, which is not a pleasant prospect. Of course, he could go to Portugal for two years. But he wouldn’t be able to practice medicine there. And he’d be come a deadbeat on the student loans But while their appeal is being stud ied by the State Department, she will have to stop her medical work. And it is likely that the appeal will be denied. That’s because the State Depart ment has a limited number of reasons for letting someone like Dr. Magalhaes stay in this country. The reasons must be “catastrophic” by State Department standards. And what’s “catastrophic?” The per son has a disease that can be treated only in the U.S. Or the person’s home land is having a civil war or some other dangerous upheaval. Or the person needs political asylum. As Dr. Silverman says, “The fact that a family would be separated isn’t consid ered catastrophic. “I’m looking at the calendar, count ing the days to when my wife has to leave. And there’s Reagan and Gorba chev discusing human rights. And Rea gan was criticizing the bureaucracy in Russia for separating families while the bureaucracy here is separating me and my wife.” He does have a point. And he didn’t even mention the “catastrophic” aspects of two reasonably young people who, I assume, have normal impulses, spend ing the next two years billing and cooing by long distance phone calls. But what makes this even nuttier is that this country has been engaged in a campaign to persuade illegal aliens to drop in at their local immigration office so that they can be declared legal under the new laws. We’ve been practically begging ille gals to come forward so they don’t have to worry about being shipped out any more. Yet, here we have someone who came here legally, paid taxes every year, has a useful, humanitarian profession, and she’s being shown the door. In many big cities, entire subcultures of foreign dope pushers have flou rished. They commit gang murders, knock off cops and make millions of dollars. They come and go, and the law can’t keep up with them. But a physician who works with the poor, and is married to an American, is told to take a walk. Sometimes 1 think that we should try having a psychiatrist as president. Copyright 1988, Tribune Media Services, Inc. The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Richard Williams, Editor Sue Krenek, Managing Editor Mark Nair, Opinion Page Editor Curtis Culberson, City Editor Beckv Weisenfels, Cindy Milton, News Editors Anthony Wilson, Sports Editor Jay Janner, Art Director Editorial Policy 7'he Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspa per operated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Station. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial board or the author, and do not necessarily rep resent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, fac ulty or the Board of Regents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Department of Journalism. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday and examination periods. Mail subscriptions are $17.44 per semester, $34.62 per school year and $36.44 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on request. Our address: The Battalion, 230 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-1 111. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battal ion. 216 Reed McDonald. Texas A&M University, Col lege Station TX 77843-4 111. In response to this problem, the pro posed welfare reform bill would create a jobs program in which income supple ments ai'e assumed to be temporary. An important provision of the program would require that all recipients of cash assistance with children three years old and older to participate in a works pro gram. The bill would require states to create flexible work programs including reme dial education, job training and job placement. The legislature would also feature a binding contractual agreement between the recipient and the government. The recipient must strive for self-sufficiency while the gov ernment must provide adequate sup port services for a designated period of time. Another serious problem of our cur rent welfare system is that it discourages men from taking an active role in their responsibilities as fathers. Under cur rent law there is no federal requirement to provide assistance to two-parent fam ilies in which one of the parents is un employed. Critics of the welfare system have challenged this rule for years argu ing that parents should not have to abandon their families in order to be eli gible for welfare. This rule has resulted in the creation of another subclass of people bred by the system created for their benefit. Statistics show that pres ently over 50 percent of black children are born into one-parent households. Indirectly our welfare system has led to the steady deterioration of the family structure of welfare families. Once again we must not blame the people but reevaluate the entire imperfect system we as a country have created. The new reform bill would end dis crimination against two-parentfn Hopefully this will enable then till ing of the welfare family. Bringing about change in eminent is not an easy task. I lobbyists and special interest j contribute to the problems a ciencies of the legislative process importance of changing our a welfare system must notbeoverk The Family Securities Act basts strong bipartisn support in Senate and the House, but we® the power given us as citizens United States to make our repte lives and senators aware of the tance of this bill. Barbara Jones is a senior join major and a columnist for The! Mail Call That Maker of Men EDITOR: I really enjoyed Jill Webb’s column “What do we fear but change itself?” in the June 15 edition of The Ban. It is very true we all fear change in one form or another. on a national level. What about the local economy. Ho» many “fat chicks” do you see walking to class? Maybeoi or two at the most. So how do they get to class? Answer Scooter Browns! The only problem with the column is that the timeliness is off. It would have been more effective had the organization it was intended for been in school. You know the one I speak of, the Maker of Men, the Boy Scouts in sheep’s clothing, the He-man woman haters club of A&M, the keeper of traditions: that is the Corps of Cadets. Maybe you could run it again this fall. Timothy J. Hammons ’89 The economics of obesity EDITOR: In response to “fat chicks,” let me start by saying that “fat chicks” are beautiful too! In an economic sense that is. Do you realize the billions of dollars — maybe even trillions — that the national economy would suffer if all these chicks lost their flab? How many companies might go out of business? Dolly Madison, Sara Lee, Betty Crocker and Nestle are just a drop in the bucket! The tons of chocolate, caramel and twinkies that these chicks eat every day is astronomical. And how many authors wouldn’t have made thier millions writing diet books that never really worked in the first place? And would VHS be as popular today without Jane Fonda’s workouts. That’s just speaking What about the personal level of obesity? How those of beached whales along the coasts each year were really whales? Think about it — could it have beena deranged husband who was trying to get rid of hisfattf by putting her in a wet suit thinking somebody mightpi her out into the ocean never to be seen again? And who knows — if all these women lost their weight the earth might rotate around the sun faster. Wouldn’t thatjusth hell! We’d have to change all the calendars and our birthdays would come earler, thus making us oldbefort our time! Who would want that? So all you “fat chicks us a favor and eat your twinkies and ding dongs, buyja# Fonda’s workout, don’t forget to be careful when sunbathing, and what ever you do — don’t lose thatflai) I’d like to stay young as long as I can! Andrew Myers ’91 And if we all gained weight, would the earth rotate slower making us young before our time? Oh, twinkie induced eternal youth. — The Editor Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorialsH' serves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make every effort to tain the author’s intent. Each letter must be signed and must include thecWf tion, address and telephone number of the writer. BLOOM COUNTY by BerRe Breath ’s time to change our welfare systeuPc By Texas i the last 6^ ing umqi ties for . Class of’9 The A: dents is se students ; the first / gies 65 ye. the week dorms an< A&M- Carolyr Class of ’i college wii AggieH derHostel that encot turn to col Many o the only ] since thei of Kyle Fi( Robert said, “I’ve football j have been Two of lived in a and Pury Aggie can “When dents) spe say‘hi.’ ” Camere changed f ‘I’m gh “They us shave it d< it flat — tl for the f through tl sion befo: Field. Th< sit down.” But Pai A&M may “One tl that it sho all people were here gineenng ture. 058078 are the irr sity. It’s t they do te Fran P dleton, Cl “You’vi few year; down bee: to more grow,” sh those nur tract thos< Wiley ; Corps of < "When was point dents do l dent was 7:30 at i Te KARN. many sen tary instal arriving i medium-i Thursday Mortor the Long $1.1 milli of about 1 der ajoin The pi one of tv Pershing Under servers wi “On-sit viets will Col. Aller ( Co D