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THURSDAY
August 8, 1 996
Tax issue
cuts both
ways
I n a 45-
minute
speech
on Monday,
Bob Dole re
vealed a
scheme to
cut taxes by
an estimat
ed S548 bil
lion across
six years.
The eagle
has landed.
Actually, Dole used to be
more of a hawk — a deficit
hawk. That’s the term used to
describe people who would go to
great pains to reduce the feder
al budget deficit.
But that’s all in Dole’s past.
Now he promises that, if elect
ed, he would work to cut person
al income taxes for all Ameri
cans by 15 percent.
Dole’s new supply-side
stance asserts that by cutting
taxes, Americans will have
more income to spend, and the
increased economic activity will
pay for the tax cut.
Whether that is true will
probably never be found out,
since Dole still trails Clinton by
20 points in the polls. But Dole’s
change of heart is probably mo
tivated more by politics than
rock-solid economic theory.
In order to remind Ameri
cans he is still a candidate,
Dole needs something other
than his age to distinguish
himself from Clinton.
It is likely that Dole is resur
recting Fteaganomics because he
needs an argument where his
voice still sounds fresh.
Lately, most of Dole’s cam
paign speeches begin something
like this: “Bob Dole has been out
on the front lines working for
(insert issue here) for the past
120 years.”
By highlighting his longevi
ty in Washington ad nauseam,
he has left many voters asking
why, if he has been working
for so long, is there still a
scarcity of tort reform, fiscal
conservatism, family values,
free pony rides, etc.?
Republicans can rush to
Dole’s defense by saying it is the
evil Democrats that have kept
Dole and others of his ilk from
working their legislative magic.
The problem is. Dole doesn’t
have to convince Republicans
to vote for him in November.
Instead, he needs to woo unde
cided voters and disgruntled
Clinton supporters.
But the awesome cunning of
Clinton’s new swing to the right
is that he has betrayed only the
special interests that would
never consider supporting Dole.
Homosexuals, for example,
might be miffed at Clinton for
helping to exclude them from
the marriage pool, but most of
them would sooner go straight
than vote for Dole.
Contrast this with Dole’s
public embrace of the tobacco
lobby. He has unnecessarily fon
dled an interest group that
some Americans blame for the
deaths of family members.
Dole would have collected to
bacco money and votes even if
he had a no-smoking sign tat
tooed on his back. The only
thing that tobacco lobbyists
hate more than fresh air is the
Clinton administration that has
hammered the industry’s death-
peddling incessantly.
Clinton extends his lead by
mainstreaming his positions
in the areas where Dole could
have accused him of liberal
extremism.
So now that Clinton is a Re
publican, and a more likable
one than Dole, the aging former
senator is forced to go for broke.
Economists on both sides of
the political spectrum will no
doubt argue whether or not
supply-side economics would
break the nation’s economy.
But Dole’s new budget center-
piece spotlights other interest
ing questions.
Would Dole dramatically
abandon his previous budgetary
philosophy if his campaign were
in better shape? Does Dole truly
agree with the plan he an
nounced on Monday? Would he
be in such trouble if Clinton
wasn’t such an excellent politi
cal chameleon? Probably not.
Jeremy Valdez is a Class of
’96 chemical engineering major
JEREMY
VALDEZ
Columnist
OPINION
Prison privatization lets crooks care for crooks
I t is easy to
accept any
thing you
hear without
really bother
ing to think
about it.
When I
first heard
about the pri
vatization of
jails, I
thought it was
a great idea.
Obviously, so did a lot of oth
er people.
It seemed to make sense —
take the bureaucracy out of the
prison system (i.e the govern
ment), and voila — inexpensive,
well-run jails.
Anyone who compares the
U.S. Postal Service, the butt of
countless jokes, with the Unit
ed Parcel Service would come to
the conclusion that the private
sector manages businesses bet
ter than the public.
However, comparing jails
and post offices isn’t exactly
fair because prisons are in the
business of holding people.
Prison management in
evitably leads to a conflict of in
terests when it comes to cutting
corners on the care of humans.
It isn’t that I disapprove of
horrible jail conditions as a re
sult of companies trying to save
money. What bothers me is the
fact that the more people pri
vate companies have in their
jails, the happier they are. As
crime goes up, they build and
manage even more jails.
While jails managed by the
government are concerned with
keeping people out of their cells
once they have served their
time, how much money would
private companies spend on de
terrence and rehabilitation?
The privatization of jails is
not a new concept. For a long
time, the prison system has re
lied on the private sector for
everything from hamburgers to
basketballs. However, the na
tional trend in the late ’80s and
early ’90s has been to allow com
panies to manage all aspects of
the prisons from ground break
ing to day-to-day operations.
So who do these companies
report to? Right back to the
same people who gave them
their contracts in the first place.
When the Texas Department
of Criminal Justice’s (TDCJ)
budget skyrocketed from $700
million in 1990 to $2.2 billion in
1995, prison building and man
agement became big business.
A massive prison build-up
was attracting people eager to
make a quick buck at the ex
pense of the taxpayer.
Officials of TDCJ were be
sieged by contract offers and
money on the side to help con
vince them of the worthiness of
these contracts.
Even the Texas Prison Over
sight Board, consisting of nine
unpaid citizens, wanted its fair
share of the profits. The board’s
chairman, Allan Polunsky,
pushed the TDCJ into canceling
existing contracts in order to
hire his former roommate.
Although the prison system
might have been overcrowded,
it was practically empty after
the TDCJ finished its shopping
spree — despite being full of
useful toys like greaseless
mousetraps.
There were now 146,000 prison
beds for 129,000 inmates and
eight brand-new prisons that had
not yet opened their doors.
The jails that were open
weren’t running very well ei
ther, thanks to the antics of the
private companies contracted
for the job.
From understaffing prisons
to overcharging inmates’ phone
calls, the companies had no
heed to legitimize their actions
because no one really cared.
Politicians were ecstatic be
cause by building more prisons,
it looked like they were “getting
tough on crime.”
The Prison Oversight Board
and officials of TDCJ were hap
py because of all the profits they
were pulling in on the side.
However, society should not
be content with the easy an
swers; it is time we concentrate
on reducing crime, not just
housing it.
Heather Pace is a Class of ’99
English major
HEATHER
PACE
Columnist
Martian lifeforms highlight
NASA’s desperate situation
The Battalion
Established in 1893
Editorials appearing in The Battalion reflect the views of the editorials
board. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other Battalion staff
members, the Texas A&M student body, regents, administration, faculty
or staff. Columns, guest columns, cartoons and letters express the
opinions of the authors. Contact the opinion editor for information on
submitting guest columns.
Fence Straddling
The University's admissions policy changes
show little commitment to diversity.
Editorials Board
Stacy Stanton
Editor in Chief
Dave Winder
Managing Editor
Jason Brown
Opinion Editor
David Taylor
City Editor
L ong ago, on a plan
et right next door,
there was life.
The stunning news
was unveiled Tuesday
after a team of scien
tists from Johnson
Space Center and Stan
ford University found
evidence of life in a me
teorite from Mars.
But just as soon as
they revealed the titil
lating discovery, they
diminished it by describing the “life.”
They hadn’t found strange little men
with bulging eyes and misshapen heads.
They hadn’t found skeletons of ostrich
like creatures with opposable thumbs
and a highly advanced civilization. They
hadn’t even found superintelligent moss.
“These are extremely small, single-
celled structures that somewhat resem
ble bacteria on Earth,” NASA adminis
trator Dan Goldin said.
All this fuss over bacteria.
Of all the things that come to mind
when someone mentions life on other
planets, bacteria are about the least in
teresting — and most common. I grow
bacteria constantly without even trying.
If the scientists at NASA want bacteria
on Mars, all they need to do is build a
bathroom there and watch the life begin.
If the bacteria were alive now, it
might be a different story. But they’ve
been dead for three or four billion years.
Certain chemicals found in the meteorite
— produced at the time of the poor bacte
ria’s untimely deaths — are the only
clues the scientists have to base their as
sumptions on.
Admittedly, this discovery is some
thing the folks at Johnson Space Center
and Stanford should be proud of. The at
tention it’s getting within the scientific
community is understandable and justi
fied. But the overinflated media publicity
is not.
The “major” discoveries NASA cranks
out are a lot like scandals involving Pres
ident Clinton. We’ve become so accus
tomed to their happening every day that
we just don’t care anymore.
The last really big one was when
NASA announced they might have dis
covered some planet that might be orbit
ing a star billions and billions of light
years away.
I haven’t heard much about that one
for a while.
My apathy is extended by all my ex
pectations about aliens from movies, TV
shows, abductees, etc. If they had found
an alien corpse identical to the tentacled
aliens in Independence Day, then my cu
riosity would be piqued.
Maybe NASA feels it has to prove its
relevance. It’s facing some pretty serious
risks with all the budget-cutting going on
in Washington. The space agency has
planned a mission to Mars in 1997 to col
lect soil samples, but by then the agen
cy’s astronomical budget and bureacracy
may make it pretty unpopular among the
general public.
A manned flight to Mars might be ex
citing, but officials have said that won’t
happen before 2018.
What the dwindling space agency
should do to stir up excitement over this
find is somehow resurrect the Martian
bacteria and let it loose.
Maybe NASA feels it has to prove
its relevance. It's facing some pret
ty serious risks with all the budget
cutting going on in Washington.
“We have troubling news, news that
could potentially mean the end of all hu
mankind,” they would say at the press
conference. “The famed Martian bacteria
was accidentally released this afternoon
into the open air by a clumsy janitor who
knocked over the display case.”
Imaginations would run wild. Mass hys
teria would be rampant. People would
rush to hospitals with strange coughs and
unexplained rashes. Puny earthbound doc
tors would scratch their heads uselessly.
The only people who could alleviate the
panic would be the suddenly popular re
searchers at NASA.
But until they do that, the space agen
cy’s credibility will slowly deteriorate.
Unless NASA does something bigger to
bring itself more prestige, it may eventu
ally be reduced to a bacteria-sized associ
ation of overexcited scientists.
Shannon Halhrook is a Class of ’98
English major
The Hopwood ruling derailed Texas
A&M’s attempts to diversify the Uni
versity. Unfortunately, Executive Vice
President and Provost Ronald G. Dou
glas’ changes in the admissions
process, to be implemented in 1997, do
little to get the train back on track.
In fact, the changes are more in
sulting than they are productive, be
cause Douglas appears to be content
with the notion that the University
needs to accept lower qualified appli
cants to attract minorities.
The most egregious change is in ex
panding the Provisional Admission
Program. All students in the top quar
ter of their high school class with an
820 on the SAT will be eligible, al
though not all will be accepted.
The other major change is to request
parental educational background in the
application for admission. Even though
the parents of minorities are more like
ly not to have received higher educa
tion than the parents of Anglos, this is
a weak attempt to encourage diversity.
Douglas’ memo to the University
says all the right things about coordi
nating scholarship and financial aid
awards and involving current stu
dents in recruitment efforts. Douglas
also writes that this is only a start,
and the University will have more in
formation in a few months to make
more changes in the policy.
Still, there is little to indicate a true
commitment to diversity, especially in
the long run. A true commitment
would involve a more rigorous effort to
recruit highly qualified minorities
while making the community a more
positive environment for minorities.
Yet Douglas barely addresses either
and offers no specifics on expanding re
sources to reach top-notch minorities.
For example, the woefully under
funded (yet committed and hard
working) Department of Multicultur
al Services could play a larger role in
recruitment and retention. But with
its meager financial resources, it is
barely capable of covering the costs of
its present programs.
The University also has an image
problem. In all recruitment efforts,
from speaking engagements to
printed material, the University
should keep potential minority ap
plicants in mind.
Perhaps most frustrating is the Uni
versity’s refusal to make waves. The
President’s Achievement Award was a
primary attraction for highly qualified
minorities, but the University no
longer limits it to minority applicants
to comply with Hopwood.
So why not violate Hopwood by
keeping minority status as a criterion
for the scholarship?
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to
hear Hopwood because the UT Law
School admissions policies were ex
treme and no longer used. It clearly
showed interest in looking at the issue
of affirmative action in universities,
just a more relevant example. Texas
A&M could provide the example.
By reinstating the PAA’s eligibility
requirements, A&M would show much
more of a commitment to diversity
than a provisional student program
ever could, it would continue to attract
high-achieving minorities, and it
would help settle the issue of affirma
tive action in universities.
Simply talking about a commit
ment to diversity won’t do anything to
attract minorities, especially the intel
ligent ones the University should be
looking for.
SHANNON
HALBROOK
Columnist
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