Opinion
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Is Hubble history?
Public must ask representatives to support resolutions that would service Hubble
The Battalion
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Page 5B ♦ Monday, April 19, 2004
Chris Griffin • THE BATTALION
T his past week, Texas A&M had the
privilege of hosting the Mitchell
Symposium on Observational
Cosmology. Distinguished astronomers
and cosmologists from all over the country
lectured the Bryan-College Station public
a wide array of topics concerning
this amazing universe. Despite the
diversity of the symposium’s lec
tures, one common theme
seemed to unite them - the
call to save the Hubble Space Telescope and
the plea for all members of the public to
respond accordingly. The Hubble is one of
the most valuable scientific instruments
ever devised and needs to be rescued from
an early retirement.
In January, NASA Administrator Sean
O’Keefe cancelled a planned 2006 shuttle
service trip to the Hubble, according to
The Houston Chronicle. The mission is vital
) keeping the Hubble in working condition.
If this mission does not occur, the Hubble could
likely stop operating by 2008. In making his deci
sion, O'Keefe cited budget and safety concerns regarding
the Hubble mission trip.
The safety concerns are somewhat reasonable. It has been
a little more than a year since the Columbia tragedy. But as
Robert Kirshner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics correctly pointed out in Monday’s lecture in
Rudder Tower, the risks associated with repairing the Hubble
must be balanced against the potential scientific gains.
The gains are enormous. It is amazing to think what the
Hubble has already given in terms of learning about man’s
place in the cosmos. From the images the Hubble has
provided, the age of the universe has been learned (13.7
billion years), the existence of black holes has been
confirmed and the image known as the Hubble Ultra
Deep Field has become famous for depicting hundreds of
the earliest galaxies formed.
As for the budget concerns, these arise from a more
political source: President Bush’s mid-January announce
ment of a plan to build a permanent space station on the
moon and use that as a stepping stone to get to Mars.
Assuming the president’s desire to further explore the
universe is not fueled by the goal of making himself appear
more electable, his ambition to send Americans to Mars is
one of his few commendable initiatives. But the timing
could not be worse. Some experts have estimated such a
mission might eventually cost $1 trillion to successfully
execute. At a time of record deficits, expensive tax cuts and
the pouring of billions of dollars into war-torn Iraq, the
money will unfortunately have to come from NASA cut
ting the budgets of many of its programs, including the
beloved Hubble.
NASA has seriously underestimated the emotional
attachment of the scientific community to the Hubble. As of
Sunday, nearly 38,000 individuals had signed a petition at
savethehubble.org. Ironically, Robert Zubrin, president of
the Mars Society, a group that urges that Mars be quickly
explored and settled, told The Chronicle that O’Keefe’s
decision was “a massive crime against science.” Indeed,
many of the scientists that NASA will count on to support
the president’s Mars initiative might be less willing to help
if the Hubble is forced into early retirement. Thus, O’Keefe
should reverse his decision if only to placate many of the
scientists who will be integral in maintaining NASA as a
viable space agency.
Getting back to the safety issue, repairing the Hubble
will be many times less dangerous than traveling to either
the moon or Mars. It is hypocritical of NASA to support
one mission despite certain risks and simultaneously deny
the other mission claiming to be concerned about the
same risks.
Kirshner and Dr. Alex Filippenko of the University of
California at Berkeley urged the people who attended their
talks in Rudder to contact their representatives to advocate
congressional resolutions that support servicing the Hubble.
All members of the public should ask their representatives
to support Senate Resolution 324 and House Resolution
550. The Hubble is too valuable to let die without a fight.
Collins Ezeanyim is a senior
computer engineering major.
ublic school finance
Issue still unresolved
'ewhursfs plan presents best solution
DAVID
SHOEMAKER
Ihe past year has been a turbu
lent one for Texas public
schools. Many districts joined
tgether in a lawsuit against the
<obin Hood” school funding plan,
Ihich the legislature repealed without
pacing, in the last session. With the
Igislature’s preoccupation with the
udget and redistricting last session,
Shool finance was a thorny problem
lobe put off until later.
But according to The Houston Chronicle,
iter has come. The Chronicle quoted Texas Gov.
ick Perry as saying, “The time for pondering is
v er. It’s time for action.” And Perry’s second act
ter calling a special session was to unveil his
:w school tax plan. Perry’s proposal is not the
% one, but it has received the most attention,
he three main parts of his new
x plan are caps on property
ixes, increased reliance on “sin
xes” and a statewide tax on busi
es property. Perry’s plan faces
serious questions about viability,
|nce some of its elements appear
be more short-term “fixes” than
ng-term solutions. Lt. Gov.
avid Dewhurst’s plan, however,
°lfers school districts more realis-
revenue streams.
- One of the key planks to
liny’s plan is an increase in “sin
Ixes” and gambling taxes.
Iccording to The Bryan-College
Itatioil FtKtIp tTip*
tation Eagle, the specifics
Pdude increasing the cigarette
lx to $1 a pack, charging a $5
l :e to enter adult entertainment
I'tablishments and legalizing (and taxing) video
Ambling terminals.
Taxes based on these activities will likely
crease revenues in the short term, but as a
' n g-term measure, these revenues seem unsta-
™ e ' Cigarette tax revenues will fall as people cut
ck on purchases due to the higher cost and as
°re people quit. The proposals related to gam-
■ in g niay also see an eventual drop-off of rev-
■'aes as people may eventually grow weary ot
the taxation.
■ Perry’s idea for a cap on property taxes is
Birrored in other plans that have been put for-
■ ar <J, especially Dewhurst’s. But the way Perry
■■shes to split the tax rolls has drawn many crit-
l 8, an d rightfully so. Perry would split residen-
Pi from business property taxes and collect the
Iciness taxes on a statewide basis. A cap would
company this split on the maximum tax rate.
’ s u psets many school districts that would be
4 4 n ,
Gov. Penys
plan faces serious
questions about
viability, since
some of its
elements appear
to be more
short-term "fixes"
than long-term
solutions.
denied a major source of revenue and busi
ness leaders who fear that it will prove eas
ier to sell school tax increases to voters.
This part of Perry’s plan would simply
redistribute the pie by having the state
collect taxes to get around constitutional
equity problems. But it would not bring
any new, lasting revenue streams online
for future growth. This is the major area
where Dewhurst’s plan excels compared
to Perry’s.
Dewhurst’s plan makes an attempt to
find some lasting, growing revenue streams by
creating a broad-based business activity tax.
Dewhurst was quoted as saying in The
Chronicle that “more than two-thirds of the
state’s service businesses don’t pay franchise or
sales taxes now.”
A business activity tax would
allow the state to avoid higher
sales taxes and would remove
some of the equity issues since
everyone subject to it would be
taxed at the same rate. The rev
enue from this tax would proba
bly fluctuate with business cycles,
but would not face the same
downward long-term trend as
Perry’s sin tax proposals.
The other major element of
Dewhurst’s plan is to cut the
school property tax in half and
have the tax be collected
statewide. Although many dis
tricts will not like losing direct
control of their revenue, the
state must meet the funding
equity provisions of the state
constitution. And Dewhurst has said that he
will reinstate the “two-thirds” rule in the Texas
Senate. This would indicate that he feels that
he has support, at least in the Senate, for his
own plan.
The only major player yet to weigh in on
the matter has been House Speaker Tom
Craddick. Any bill to revamp the school
finance system will have to originate in his
chamber. He is certainly weighing the options
available to him and trying to determine what
kind of changes Texas voters will agree to. But
he would be well advised to seriously look at
Dewhurst’s plan for the future before he makes
his own proposal.
David Shoemakeer is a junior
management major.
MAIL CALL
Bush’s tax cut has gotten nation
out of recession, benefits all
In response to John David Blakley’s April 16
column:
After reading Blakley’s editorial on Friday, I was
absolutely stunned. What moronic assertions. The tax
cuts Bush put into place have helped us out of the
recession. Remember those 300,000-plus jobs creat
ed last month?
If you know how economics works, you know that
when people have money, they tend to spend it on
goods and/or services. When the rich do this, it in
turn creates jobs for the middle class, which pro
vides the good or service. The middle class then
does the same with the money they acquired from
those jobs. This allows the economy to grow (Let me
explain it for Blakley, it’s when the graph goes up and
to the right).
The tax cuts were also given to the rest of America,
too, but I guess that wasn’t important. Also, the
Democrat formula “when there is less money coming
in than before, something is going to have to go," is
dead on. Some of the programs need to go.
If we get rid of half of these needless government
programs such as Medicare, which more or less
makes senior citizens completely dependent on the
government for medical care, we would have more
money for worthwhile programs.
Either way, Blakley can go vote for Kerry, and I’ll
wait until 2008 to see if the Democratic party can
nominate a candidate with a spine, then I might
consider voting for a Democrat. Bush is easily the
lesser of two evils in this race.
Todd Heath
Class of 2007
Terrorism was only fueled by
Bush’s decision to invade Iraq
In response to an April 15 mail call:
In my four years of rising every morning and turn
ing the pages of The Battalion to the opinion page, I
can honestly say that I have never come upon a mail
call letter as appallingly vicious and callous as Mr.
Branagan’s.
Aside from falling back on hackneyed character
assassinations of “liberals" and a petty ad hominem
attack on Battalion columnist Nicholas Davis who, by
the way, seems anything but “liberal,” Mr. Branagan
displayed a frightening level of ignorance about the
incredible human tragedy that is the Iraq conflict.
President Bush’s decision to invade and occupy
Iraq was an elective one being that Iraq posed no
imminent threat to the United States and no credible
evidence linking al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein was
ever established, as even the Bush administration
has now conceded.
And I am not even going to get into the whole post
war “weapons of mass destruction" scandal.
Furthermore, Iraq is now a “central front" on the
War on Terror because the Bush administration top
pled its government without having a sound plan pre
pared for a post-invasion Iraq.
This unforgivable folly has created an immense
power vacuum that has resulted in an unstable Iraq
where chaos, including terrorism, now prevails. So in
effect, the Bush administration actually created the
condition that it erroneously thought it was acting to
prevent resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And no, Mr. Branagan, we would not prefer terror
ists attacking Americans in New York to terrorists
attacking Iraqis in Baghdad even though you sug
gested that you actually prefer the latter. Fortunately
for America and Iraq, it does not have to be an either-
or proposition. “Liberating Iraqi cities into the
ground” would not be palatable either to any rational-
thinking and compassionate human being who cares
about the fate of Iraq and understands how proceed
ing down such a reckless and inhumane path will only
breed more deadly anti-American violence and insta
bility in that troubled nation.
Bereket Bisrat
Class of2004
Ring Dance ticket covers costs,
all proceeds go to Class Gift
In response to an April 16 mail call:
I would like to make some clarifications to the April
16 mail call regarding Class Council and Ring Dance.
For the past many years, Ring Dance tickets have
cost $35 per person, just as this year.
Our purpose is not to “jack up prices,” but to
charge an amount so that we are able to cover the
cost of the bands, casino, entertainment, gifts, secu
rity, marketing and decorations.
All profits go directly to the 2004 Class Gift, the
renovation of the MSC Flag Room. Speaking on
behalf of both myself as well as the 2004 Class
Council, we’ve spent the last two semesters making
arrangements for this Saturday’s event.
The members of the 2004 Class Council have been
held to a strict requirement of working a minimum of
12 hours in exchange for admission to the dance.
Simple calculations divulge that 12 hours of labor at
minimum wage equates the cost of two tickets.
Being a member of the Class Council and giving of
time, effort and money to facilitate events for our fel
low students is a non-paying job. The members of the
Class Councils do it because they have a desire to
serve their classes and Texas A&M University.
Saying that council members should pay to
attend an event they have worked very intensely to
plan is virtually the same as saying that Coach Fran
and team should be charged admission to Aggie
football games.
Lindsey Shanklin
Ring Dance director
Class of2004
The Battalion encourages letters to the editor.
Letters must be 200 words or less and include
the author’s name, class and phone number. The
opinion editor reserves the right to edit letters for
length, style and accuracy. Letters may be submit
ted in person at 014 Reed McDonald with a valid
student ID. Letters also may be mailed to: 014
Reed McDonald, MS 1111, Texas A&M
University, College Station, TX 77843-1 111. Fax:
(979) 845-2647 Email: mailcall@thebattalion.net