The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, June 08, 1993, Image 5

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    Opinion
Tuesday, June 8,1993
The Battalion
Page 5
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The Battalion Editorial Board
Jason Loughman, editor in chief
Mark Evans, managing editor
Stephanie Pattillo, city editor Kyle Burnett, sports editor
Dave Thomas, night news editor Anas Ben-Musa, Aggie//7e editor
Mack Harrison, morning news editor Billy Moran, photo editor
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Editorial
Freedom's last chance?
U.S. can't afford not to build station
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Like the Skylab program's end
during the 1970's, the current Unit
ed States space station program
may go down in a ball of flame this
week. The proposed space station
Freedom faces the danger of having
its budget pulled out from under
neath it, leaving the program to fall
into obscurity.
In Washington, last week's ap
pointment of David Gergen as a se
nior presidential advisor signifies a
lack of executive support for the
program. Gergen has repeatedly
recommended the space station be
axed as a way to cut costs. As edi-
tor-at-large of U.S. News & World
Report, he recommended in a col
umn that President Clinton could
improve his economic plan by can
celing the space station.
Yesterday, Clinton's blue-ribbon
panel to study the space station re
ceived three differently priced re
designs of Freedom from NASA.
The new designs were presented as
$5 billion, $7 billion and $9 billion
alternatives to the proposed $14.6
billion cost for the actual hardware
needed to house four astronauts
permanently. Later this week, the
panel will send its report to the
president.
On Capitol Hill, the chairman of
the House Science, Space and Tech
nology Committee, Rep. George
Brown, proposed a vote on yet an
other design adapted from Freedom
that would end up costing $500 mil-
The content of our character ...
Skin color no qualification for government officials
ROBERT
VASQUEZ
Columnist
lion more than the most expensive
design President Clinton said he
would sign. The vote most likely
will come before the recommenda
tion of the president's panel is
made.
This type of disjointed decision
making is part of the problem with
the space station funding. Few
politicians want to appear to the
public as being against progress and
the exploration of space, but the na
tion is calling for costs to be cut, so
the officials must look for ways in
which to cover their true intentions.
Washington needs to realize that
spending for the space station is not
an investment that will pay off in
the short term. Research and devel
opment costs are high, but the real
benefits of a permanent laboratory
in space will be realized after the
station is up and operating.
The present funding situation can
be compared to the government in
vestment in railroads, canals and
seaports during the 19th century
that led to the growth and eventual
worldwide domination of the Unit
ed States economy. The cost of the
construction was a burden at the
time, but the eventual benefits far
outweighed the expense.
The United States cannot afford
to drop programs such as the space
station in the name of budget reduc
tion for the present year, because
the real expense will come from not
investing in the future.
I like green M&M's. I don't know
why. Maybe it has to do with
something I once heard about
their effect on people.
I just know that when a bag of
M&M's is opened, I search out the
green ones.
It's kind of silly, really, because
green M&M's don't taste any sweeter
or crunch any louder than the others.
They don't make me feel any better
than yellow M&M's do, or brown
M&M's do, or even, say, oysters do.
But for some stupid reason — be
cause someone once told me that
green M&M's were better — I favor
them.
Lani Guirder has been removed as the president's choice
to head the Justice Department's civil rights division be
cause people charged that she, too, played favorites.
Guinier, people said, favored minorities for government
positions simply because they were minorities. She has
been called the "quota queen" because of articles she wrote
suggesting that Congress encourage diversity in govern
ment "until enough nominations have been made to estab
lish a pattern of 'affirmative recruitment.'"
"Affirmative recruitment" as suggested in Guinier's arti
cles refers to the prioritizing of Blacks, Hispanics and other
minorities when appointing leaders to balance the U.S. gov
ernment, a government which Guinier suggested is not a
fair representation of America's diverse population.
"Affirmative recruitment," like "affirmative action," is
based on the belief that restitution must be made for the ne
glect and unfair treatment of minorities, for the wrongs im
posed against them, due to prejudice and racism, which
prevailed for so long in this nation's history, and ostensibly
survives today.
Affirmative action suggests that passing and enforcing
laws which guarantee equal rights and benefits to everyone
— regardless of race, religion or color — is not enough. Af
firmative action demands that preference be given to those
people who were wronged so that they may be made equal
in practice and not simply in word or theory.
Picture, if you can, that your family has been abused, ne
glected, treated like animals for centuries. Then, one day,
the abusers say, "Sorry, we were wrong. We're now
equal."
Well, the gesture may seem like a good one, but how can
two parties be equal when one has the benefit of centuries
of advantage? Are the two instantly equal? Are the posi
tions of power instantly divided and distributed evenly to
ensure that privilege and opportunity are available to all?
Not likely.
No, the abusers who enjoyed the advantage of the upper
hand for so long remain in control, no longer by written
law, simply by vote. Who knows how long it would take to
balance the scales when one side is empty, the other full
from centuries of gluttonous bounty?
What should be done? Are those who "have" obligated
to give to those who "have not?" Are those who "have
not" en tided to that which they have not earned? The
process of equality is a slow and tedious tug of war, we
have learned.
Who has the right to what?
Well, we all have rights to the same.
Well, then who has earned what?
Must it be earned? Can't it be given?
Assigning preference to candidates simply because of
their race, religion or color is tantamount to preventing
people from voting because of their race, religion or color.
A people's right to govern themselves should not be deter
mined by the color of their skin, just as the color of skin
should not determine who will be elected to govern.
Assigning preference to green M&M's because of their
color is a silly practice based on myths and ignorant beliefs.
Assigning preference to people because of their color is ille
gal and violates certain basic human rights and civil liber
ties.
Across the nation, in cities large and small, leaders from
every race, religion and color have been selected to govern,
to represent a diverse electorate who have chosen the best
candidate, the most qualified individual to do the job.
Whether they be man or woman, young or old, liberal or
conservative, the leaders of our nation must be chosen for
what they can do, not for the color of their skin.
Vasquez is a senior journalism major
S
kIo
ienesis
For a Democratic Congress, a chance at redemption
ems
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The Democrats in Congress have
brought so much shame and despair to
our country, and have through proac
tive tomfoolery and passive/negligent
ineptitude, made our House of Repre
sentatives and
Senate less than
they were.
What follows
is a newer per
spective that
downplays the
usual examples,
and goes straight
to the heart of the
matter.
First, and most
importantly, even
though we have
had Republicans
in the White
House, a lack of
cooperation from
Congress has made it rather difficult to
accomplish seemingly minor tasks that
snowball into major problems.
For instance, it seems that in both
1982 and 1984 President Reagan asked
Congress to stop allowing businesses
to take large losses on paper when they
had very small stakes in certain real es
tate investments. These people were
GUEST
COLUMN
MARK G.
CLEMENTS
using losses on paper to keep from
having to pay taxes on the earnings,
and were using the money to pay back
their loans.
Banks felt compelled to make such
risky-sounding loans because if money
that people were trying to spend dur
ing the time of unprecedented high in
flation went for purchases and not in
vestments, inflation would have been
further fueled.
Loaning money to investors looking
for tax shelters, to build shopping
malls, or even to Third World govern
ments all helped keep the inflation
down during the Carter administra
tion.
Congress seems to have not acted
with near the speed in "shifting gears"
for the new economic policies after the
end of Carter's presidency. Then Con
gress seems to have done something
with too much haste, and enacted the
Tax Reform Act of 1986. This reduced
the paper losses being counted on by
investors in tax shelters much too
quickly.
At this very point of the enactment
of the new tax laws, banks were al
ready suffering from Third World
countries not being able to pay back
loans. Also, shopping malls and de
partment stores were suffering because
people were no longer trying to get rid
of seemingly "worthless dollars." It
seems like the Democratically con
trolled Congress kicked America when
it was already down.
This, along with basic ludicrous fis
cal mismanagement, have helped con
tribute to the demise of our Federal
Treasury.
There are more side effects than a
weak economy because of actions and
inactions by the Democrats in Con
gress. You see, when there is a weak
economy, there is a perception by
many that the government represent
ing those fiscal numbers is weak as
well.
Civil disturbances, crime, riots, and
absolute chaos abound and thrive
when a government is perceived to be
destabilized. The recent bombing in
New York City is not the original prob
lem in and of itself; it is the perception
by foreign entities that we have a weak
draft-dodger President, and an ineffec
tive Congress.
A possible solution: First of all, give
Congress SIX years to clean everything
up ...everything.
Step 1: A debt swap: Swap out all of
our-existing Federal debt for 6%, non
renewable, 50-year bonds.
Step 2: Give attractive tax credits to
individuals and business who take
hold of real estate and improve it and
help pay the old debts to the original
(or modern version) of the lending
banks.
Step 3: Starting with the savings on
debt repayment and interest repay
ment, with no off-the-record anything,
make Congress have the budget in bal
ance. They have until the end of six
years to do it.
Step 4: Eliminate the personal in
come tax as we know it today: it is
rather inefficient and is more of a pow
er trip for Congress and government
bureaucrats than it is a beneficial way
of funding our treasury. If it were ef
fective under our present system,
wouldn't it be enough of a safeguard
that Congress would not have run
astray?
A more effective way of handling
things may be to rely primarily upon
businesses (since they already have to
plan with budgets), along with certain
types of private transactions. Then
Congress would be forced to plan a
budget based upon a percentage of
projected business activity, and indi
vidual members of Congress who were
responsible for misrepresenting out
comes of the business climate (those
who fraudulently presented unrealistic
outcomes) would be imprisoned. Now
we would truly be holding Congress
accountable.
Step 5: Have auditors from Fortune
500 companies come in and audit gov
ernment operations: and make the
government entities come into confor
mity with the standards the auditors
present to them, or else suffer impris
onment.
Step 6: The people would be the
ones who set the tone for what Con
gress did; business would be in charge
of funding it, because of the benefits of
efficiency involved. People would vote
on spending priorities. The debt from
the six year transition would be put
into 10-year, on-the-record payment
schedules from issuing new bonds for
the transition debts.
It is a real challenge for the Democ
rats who have brought so much shame
to Congress to turn things around.
They have made it less than it was -
now is their shot at redemption.
Mark Clements is a local businessman.