Page 4
Opinion
University Daily Kansan, February 9. 1983
Don't let games begin
Children will be children, and it appears that politicians will also be children.
A good example is the bill introduced by Kansas Senate Minority Leader Jack Steineger, D-Kansas City, that would cut the legislative session this year from the usual 90 days to a mandatory 60 days.
On its surface, the idea seems to be a good one. Given limitless time and money, or the impression that they have them, governmental bodies tend to deliberate as long as they are allowed.
Steineger, speaking at a press conference with House Minority Leader and fellow Democrat Fred Weaver of Baxter Springs, said his aim was to hurry the Legislature into action on a severance tax proposal and school funding decisions.
No funding decisions.
He accused his Republican colleagues of "game playing" and said the system of spending money before ways had been found to raise it should be reversed.
But Steineger appears to have been playing some games of his own
playing some games.
Senate President Ross Doyen, R-Concordia, a leading opponent of the tax in the past, is expected to introduce his own version of a severance tax, and state legislators in both parties have conceded that a severance proposal is needed this year. The only question now is what percentage the tax will be, and what other taxes will be used.
So Steineger's play seems designed to beat the Republicans to the punch on the severance tax rather than streamline the process and come up with the best possible compromise.
All of the legislators should remember that the tax dollars they are playing with are not monopoly money. They are real.
Competency entrance exams won't upgrade state schools
State Rep. Keith Farrar, R-Hugoton, deserves an 'A'.
Farrar last week proposed that all Kansas high school seniors be required to pass a competency test before entering a state university.
A committee consisting of a representative from each Board of Regents institution would design the test.
design the test.
The bill, according to Farrar, would eliminate the need for remedial programs and thus reduce state tax dollars to the universities.
The bill has so many weak points that it's impossible to believe the Legislature will
actually waste its time debating it, but I'm sure it will.
TRACEE HAMILTON
i will.
First, it seems unfair to discourage prospective in-state college students with a competency test, while allowing out-of-state students to enroll without taking the test. A university should first provide higher education to the students in its own state rather than chase them away.
It also seems incomprehensible that the Legislature would seek to reduce the number of students enrolling in state universities in this bleak economic time. Keeping enrollment figures steady — or even increasing them — would appear to be the key concern.
would appear to be the key concern. But Farrar don't stop with the establishment of the competency exam. He proposes to cut by 0.25 percent the state aid to a school district if more than 10 percent of that district's students fail the exam.
Farrar here becomes the embodiment of good intentions gone haywire. How could anyone expect students in high schools across the state to have equal levels of education?
Farrar would use the results of the test to see which school districts best educate their students, an idea that seems to be totally obvious to obvious discrepancies in high school education. Does Farrar think, for example, that students in his native Hugoton are receiving an education equal to that of, say, students from the Shawnee Mission school district?
Shawnee Mission school district Small town schools do not necessarily and always set a lower standard of education than do big city schools. But the larger school districts have more money and are able to attract better teachers and offer a wider variety of courses.
teachers and other educators.
Farrar also ignores the obvious — that all students who enter college do not stay and receive their degrees. Universities seem to have a way of thinning their own ranks. Further, some students who do average work at best in high school may find their niche in college and become excellent students.
The bill represents the narrow-mindedness of some legislators who believe that the cure to all the state's economic ills lies in controlling and further cutting the money spent on higher education.
The Regents schools, at least, have done their part in taking a voluntary budget cut. Perhaps the Legislature should instead control its own spending, and quit wasting time debating bills that are foolish, hypocritical, and stand little chance of passage.
Thankfully, no one with any knowledge of higher education is supporting this short-sighted bill. Former KU Chancellor Archie Dykes, a Regents appointee, says he thinks the state's open admission program would be less well regulated would pass." Dykes said recently.
Not surprisingly, even Farrar doesn't think the bill stands much of a chance. "I just put it in the pot to get it stirring," he said. "This may not be the best method to improve the quality of education."
Well, certainly not, unless you consider keeping people out of college a way to improve education. The pot that Farrar mentions is definitely where this legislation belongs.
Red ink of overspending runs deep
I was sitting in my living room yesterday when there was a loud knock at my door. I opened it, and there, standing before me was the President of the United States. But it wasn't the Reagan of campaign appearances, of endless lobbying efforts.
The man before me was a shadow of the Reagan I was used to seeing on TV. His normally smiling face was drawn, etched with the lines of worry that only a president can know.
"Cmon in, Ron," I said. "Have a seat. Can I get you a hot drink, a cup of tea, perhaps?" He sat down on the couch and sighed.
"No, thank you," he said. "But maybe you can help me with something else."
"You name it," I said, with chuckle, "as long as it isn't voting Republican." He didn't laugh.
collect, and frankly, Matt, it's keeping me awake nights, thinking about it."
two, what I need is some advice." Ron said. "I just got out of a bipartisan budget session, and you wouldn't believe the back-stabbing, the personal attacks, and the favoritism towards pet projects I had to endure."
"Democrats, hell!" he said, his voice rising. "Those were the Republicans! Sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't have made a better Democrat." I told him that was doubtful.
"Those Democrats can play pretty rough, 1 ues," I said.
"The other Republicans on the committee and myself finally did agree on some priorities." Ron said, "but by then the Democrats were organized against us. We couldn't even agree to vote the meeting into session, and I finally left in a huff.
I shook my head
"But that's not what really has me stumped," he said. "Right now, whether we went with their budget or ours, we would lose money. I mean, not just a few bucks, or even a few thousands, but billions and /billions of dollars. We're spending money this year that we may never
I could see he was concerned, but some doubt still lingered.
"Yes, Ron, I think I can identify with that," I said. "But what can I do about all this?" I'm just some Joe College student from South Succotah, Kansas, who doesn't even have a job yet."
"Well," he said, "you were appropriated a certain amount at the beginning of the year in
MATT BARTEL
the form of a loan, a GSL I believe, wasn't it'?'
nodded.
"Okay, then." Ron said, "why don't you show me how your budget works? If I could just see one that was balanced from the start, I think it would be a tremendous lift."
would be a friend here.
I went to fetch some scrap paper and my checkbook, and began scribbling down numbers for him.
for bills.
"All right, we start with $2,325 for room and board," I said. "That works out to about $230 a month for ten nights' rent, food and bills."
"Now, we look over last semester's expenditures, we can see what a budget, meticulously applied, is worth." I said. I was gaining confidence as I went along. After all, what if my little lesson on budgeting resulted in a balanced federal budget and the end of the recession? I could almost picture myself as I stepped forward to accept my Nobel Prize in economics.
"Let's start with August," I said, I leaped through my old cheeks, looking for ones dated August, but all I could find was a tattered, still damp one made out to Green's Retail Liquor for $39.
"Apparently I deal mostly in cash that month. I said, "Maybe if we just add up the entire things, will look a little better. It's the average that counts, anyway."
I divided them into categories, and added them up. The results were not very reassuring. Beer, $775; gas and insurance, $350; food, $300; bills, $150; and typing paper, $3.95 (after all, I explained to him. I was majoring in journalism), adding up to a total of $1,578.95, or $550 a month.
I canceled my plans to attend the Nobel ceremony.
"Gosh, Ron, looks like the deficit is driving me to the poorhouse," I said. "Unless I freeze domestic spending, I'll go hungry. I'll have to pursue reductions in every department in order to survive the year."
He rose from the couch and smiled.
"Matt, I can't tell you how good it makes me feel to see that there are ordinary people out there with problems like mine," he said. "All you have to do is manage a paltry $2,300, yet you overspend until a crisis develops. Have you ever considered running for Congress?"
considered running for a seat. This was a new winkle. It hurt me to admit it, but Ron was right. Maybe my budget problems were simply a reflection of the inability that many Americans have looking ahead and setting limits. Maybe if individuals could keep their spending under control, it would be a great precedent for Congress to follow.
naannn, I thought. If Tip O'Neill had dropped by, things would have balanced out.
The University Daily
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily Kansas (USFS 600-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Flint Hall, Lawrence, K. 60045, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer sessions, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays, and final period. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, K. 60044. Subscriptions by mail are $1 for each County and $1 for all students. Student subscriptions are $3 a month paid through the student activity fee. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the University Daily Kansas, 118 Flint Hall, Lawrence, K. 60045
Rebecca Chaney
Hebecca Chaney
Managing Editor    Mark Zuan
Editorial Editor    Michael Robinson
College Editor    Collette Gray
Cubicle Editor    Catherine Behnke
Associate Campus Editor    Sharon Appelbaum-Dong Changchun
Assistant Campus Editor    Anne Calvinch
Advertising Adviser ...
General Manager and News Adviser
Religious right straying course, writer says
Retail Sales Manager
National Sales Manager
Campus Sales Manager
Advertising Artist/Photographer
Pearsonbanks Manager
National Sales Manager
Campus Representatives
The high point of the recent National Religious Broadcasters convention was President Reagan's ringing reaffirmation of the social agenda - anti-abortion, school prayer and tuition tax credits — be and the generally conservative broadcasters share.
In particular, Reagan capped a yearlong campaign by many of the religious new right broadcasters by announcing he would designate 1983 as "the year of the Bible."
By DAVID E. ANDERSON United Press International
1835 is the year of the Bible. When Americans reach out for values of faith, family and caring for the needy, they are saying they want the word of God," Reagan told the broadcasters. "We want to face the future with the Bible."
But as the broadcasters ended their annual three-day Washington gathering, theologian Carl F. H. Henry kindly chided the conservative religious movement for its prosperity, its
non-biblical lifestyle and its often intemperate criticism of the United States.
Henry sees a lot of troubles in the United States, not least the favorite target of conservatives, "secular humanism."
But, he said at the convention's closing banquet, "to depict the United States mainly in terms of weaknesses and vices as politicians do in order to topple an incumbent from office or as some evangelists and social critics may elicit decisions or funnels to the eclipse of political models for authentic national possibility and spur interest in far less promising political alternatives.
"We need to voice a balanced judgment on our troubled nation."
troublesionation.
Henry, perhaps more than any other conservative writer, has been responsible for the renewed strength of the evangelical movement in the United States. But despite its apparent success, he told the broadcasters he found it ailing.
"For all our impressive numbers, for all our larger public visibility, for all our varied ministries with multimillion dollar budgets . . . evangelical Christianity is now weaker in America than it was 15 years ago.
There is then a trend, "In a culture where 40 million to 50 million people claim to be 'born again,' and where evangelists emphasize their growing harvest of
conversion, the statistics of abortion, divorce, alcoholism and drug addiction, rape and murder nonetheless continue to mount, and a disconcertingly wide segment of American society succumbs to the premise that life has not come from God, does not move toward God, and cannot be enriched by God's."
Then he threw the unsettling challenge at the broadcasters.
"One disturbing possibility, of course, is that evangelical agencies may have ready funding, but too little depth and vision to cope with the current conflict," he said.
current conjecture, he said,
"God's kingdom is built not on perpetual motion, one-liners and flashbulbs, but on Christ."
He suggested too much of the conservative evangelical movement confused spiritual and moral well-being with physical and financial well-being and that the evangelical were falling into the same trap of "self-fulfillment" ideas, especially secular paraviews of the "me generation."
generation.
"One sure way to frustrate evangelical awakening is for Christians to effusively give Sunday to God but for the res% of the week to accommodate a secular lifestyle shaped by craven greed," he said.
Bob
Only time will tell whether the broadcasters, prosperous and perhaps more used to preaching than listening, heard their distinguished dean.
Letters Policy
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansas reserves the right to edit or reject letters.