The University Daily
KANSAN
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Wednesday, January 26,1983 Vol. 93, No. 84 USPS 650-640
President seeks austere budget
Reagan proposes freeze on federal spending
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — President Reagan, warning that budget deficits are "a clear and present danger" to the nation, proposed a freeze on a broad range of federal spending in his State of the Union message yesterday.
The new austerity measures would include $55 billion in "savings" — but no freeze — at the Pentagon over five years, and standby income would be doubled and take effect in 1985 if deficits are still too high.
"WE CAN'T rely on hope alone," he said, calling for bipartisan cooperation to head off ballooning deficits that "could weaken and shorten the economic recovery now under way."
Addressing a joint session of Congress, Reagan called his plan to rescue the budget "strong medicine," and acknowledged it. It was based on research he enacted. But he said the proposal was realistic.
While acknowledging that this is a "painful period" for the 12 million who are unemployed, Reagan insisted his economic recovery program working, "America is on the mend," he said.
He said his proposed freeze "on a broad range of domestic spending programs" would mean no growth in the budget in real terms — that is, discounting inflation. Without action, Reagan said, total federal spending will balloon by $1 trillion in the next five years.
With House Speaker Thomas O'Neill, D-Mass., and Vice President George Bush sented
behind him on the dais, Reagan also promised he would offer jobs legislation, endorsed a school prayer constitutional amendment and new education aid programs, and asked for new powers to help American products compete in world markets.
REAGAN DREW two standing ovations during the 43-minute speech and was interrupted 27 times by applause of varying length, the longest reserved for expressions of concern about the poor and needy and declarations that he would keep America strong.
he would keep him alive, so observers hated, however, that Reagan's delivery was not as smooth as last year and that he stumbled several times.
The president, who has had several furious struggles with the Democratic-controlled House, stressed the need for cooperation between the White House in meeting the nation's needs.
The focal point of Reagan's address was a four-part austerity program aimed at holding down deficits now heading toward $200 billion a year "to assure sustained recovery";
- A one-year freeze on "a broad range of domestic spending programs ... federal civilian and military pay and pension programs." He said he also wanted Congress to extend the proposed six-month delay in Social Security cost-of-living increases to the government retirement programs.
- Savings of $55 billion in military spending over the next five years. The Pentagon, which has trimmed its 1984 requests by $8 billion to $294 billion, would not be subject to a reagan. Reagan
said. "We will not gamble with our nation's survival."
- A standby tax package, starting Oct. 1, 1985, if deficits are too high. Aides said the taxes would be a 1 percent surcharge on taxable income and an additional $5-a-barrel excise tax on oil. Reagan vowed to protect the 10 percent personal income tax cut due this July, and the indexing of tax brackets to account for inflation, starting in 1985.
- New controls on benefit programs, such as food stamps and Medicare, that he said were rife with "waste and corruption," to assure tax dollars "go only to the truly needy."
The difficult problem is a clear and present danger to the basic health of our republic," the president said, speaking from the podium of the packed House chamber.
Reagan said his budget proposal to Congress on Monday would hold the increase in spending for fiscal 1984 to "no more than the rate of inflation."
The president dwelled on the nation's economic condition in the nationally televised address, which had only a few paragraphs on it. He did not speak much and the quest for peace in the Middle East.
"For too many of our fellow citizens — farmers, steelworkers and autoworkers, lumbermen, black teenagers and working mothers — this is a painful period," the president said.
See REAGAN page 5
Reactions to address differ
Bv United Press International
policy
Sen. Bob Dole, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said America "may be on the mend but we've got a long way to go."
WASHINGTON — President Reagan's apparently conciliatory approach to Congress was welcomed by members of both parties last night, although some said he offered little change in policy.
"It TWAS A good speech ... conciliatory in the sense he cited Social Security as an area where we had made compromise. It's important we do more of that this year." Dole said.
House Speaker Thomas O'Neill said Reagan's statement that "we in government must take the lead in restoring the economy" was "a historic political reversal."
Two years ago, before the current recession had even begun, President Reagan said that 'government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem,' "" O'Neill recalled.
Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-DOhio, said, "As usual, the president spoke well, but missed the
"Unemployment is our number one challenge and yet only two short paragraphs in 11 lengthy pages were devoted to the tragedy which affects more than 12 million families today."
In a half hour program scheduled for after the president's speech, the Democrats presented their own program for long-range economic recovery, a strong defense, nuclear arms reduction and energy independence.
"We think, frankly, it's time we put up or shut up," Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said in introducing the Democratic response to the president's State of the Union address.
THE DEMOCRATS paraded a carpenter, a housewife, a college student, two farmers, an unemployed factory worker, two high school students, a union leader, a retired businessman and a score of House and Senate members to present their programs and their hopes for the nation.
The Democrats proposed lower interest rates and a new federal board to regulate them; tax reform through adoption of a proposal by Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., for a "air tax law" that includes elimination of loopholes and an across-the-board reduction of tax rates; and control of federal spending, in part through cutting the defense budget.
The Democrats also proposed heavy investment in research and development, training of the nation's work force, rebuilding the nation's highways and other public facilities, energy self-sufficiency by 2009 and a strong military capability and veritable reduction in nuclear weapons.
THEY CALLED for a "tough" trade policy, but not protectionism against foreign goods, putting Americans back to work, but no massive public works jobs program, mutual arms treaties, and mutual freezes.
TAs suffer from job insecurity at KU
The slickly produced Democratic response cost the party $120,000, compared with $75,000.
See REACTION page 5
By DARRELL PRESTON
Staff Reporter
When last semester ended, Sandra Tilman wondered whether she would have a job as a teaching assistant in the German department. On Jan 7, a week before classes were to start, she learned that funds for her job were unavailable.
"I felt let down. I was aggravated and worried," Tilman said. "I thought I was going to be out with the masses searching for a job."
Three days later she learned that there would be enough money for her job.
would depend on approval. In a sample at random among the more than 5,000 graduate students at KU, some expressed concerns about whether the University of Kansas would support graduate students if budgets reductions continued. Although concerns were expressed about the quality and availability of computers, libraries and laboratories, financial security was the primary concern for most.
"NOT ALL graduate students may be aware of it, but many of the ones I talked to feel a little insecure about staying here," said Tilman, Rolla, Mo., graduate student. "If I can't be supported here, I don't know if I am going to stay around."
Tilman knew when she signed the one-semester fall contract that a spring contract would depend on approval of funding.
concern for the German department, said insecurity was a disadvantage of semester contracts.
"THEY CANNOT be sure from one semester to the next if their positions will still be available." Watkins said.
He said that although two teaching assistants had just resigned-from the department, a
last-minute transfer of funds had made it possible to offer Tilman a job. The resignations created an opening, but he could not hire replacements with the money originally budgeted for the jobs.
"After the teaching assistants resigned, the big problem was that the money was immediately frozen and I could not assume that the money would be returned for hiring replacements." Watkins said.
He said the money was put up for grabs among various departments, and each department had to apply for funds to fill its positions.
Watkins said departments had hired fewer teaching assistants than planned after Gov. John Carlin asked the Kansas Board of Regents to make budget cuts last summer.
"THE DEPARTMENT got the bad news in August," Watkins said. "There's not much flexibility in budgets, not much to cut besides TA funds, so that is where many departments made cuts."
Robert Adams, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said most budget cuts were for telephones, travel and office supplies rather than teaching assistants.
Rather than teach the lesson, "We discussed with each department how it could best make budget cuts, and all the hiring of graduate students occurred before the recession." Adams said, "We honored every teaching contract that was signed.
"There's always insecurity, unless you have tenure."
"THEWAY THE budget system works now, we're unprotected," Berger said. "Our salaries are a discretionary budget factor that could easily be cut if further reductions are needed."
Tom Berger, graduate student council executive coordinator, said salaries for graduate students would be vulnerable to future budget reductions.
Berger said he knew of several graduate students who left KU recently because of financial insecurity. Most graduate students who left after last semester and who were contacted recently refused to comment because they did not want to jeopardize their new positions.
Valerie Hedquist, Proctor, Minn., graduate student, said she was considering leaving KU after this year because her job as a clerk didn't pay enough.
"I am working for $3.35 an hour and am limited to 15 hours a week," said Hedquist, an art history student. "You can't pay room, board and out-of-state tuition on $3.35 an hour. I had to accept the fact that I have to borrow money."
JEFF WEINBERG, associate director of financial aid, said more than 50 percent of KU's graduate students depended on government-backed loans to attend graduate school. The financial aid office can only help graduate students find loans and jobs, and does not offer the same assistance offered undergraduate students in finding grants and scholarships.
Hedquid said she had received little help in finding financial aid since coming to KU last fall.
"Often when I'd find financial aid available I either entered school the wrong year to be eligible," she said, "or I needed to be nominated by someone on the faculty or I needed to be a minority."
mimicry.
Weinberg said finding grants and scholarships had usually been left either to the student or the student's department.
"In comparison to undergraduate students, graduate students have very few options," he said. "Funds for graduate students are very limited."
"AND THE NUMBER of graduate students who are supported by their parents is not significant. Most graduate students are on their own."
Covering his face from the press camera, Eric W. Styles was assisted into court before his arraignment by corrections officer David Dillon. Styles and David Jackson Jr. were arrested Monday in connection with the robbery of the First National Bank of Lawrence. See related story page 3.
Weather
Today will be cloudy and cold with a high in the low to mid-20s, according to the National Weather Service in Topeka.
Law school increases efforts to recruit minority students
Tonight will be fair with a low in the teens.
remorrow will be partly cloudy with a bich in the low to mid-30s.
Black faces peer out from century-old pictures of the first graduating law classes hanging in Green Hall, reminding students of the School of Law's long tradition of accepting minority students.
By SALLY JOY OMUNDSON
Staff Reporter
THE LAW SCHOOL needs the diversity that minority enrollment provides, Marilyn Ainsworth, professor of law, said yesterday.
But when the present first-year law class graduates in 1985, there will be no black students in the class picture. The picture will serve to reinforce that minority school's difficulties in recruiting minority students.
The lack of black students enrolling in the law
Ainsworth, chairman of the National Law School Admission Council's minority enrollment task force, said KU's law school was accepting more minority students, but fewer were actually
scool this year may have a ripple effect, hurting future black enrollment as well, she said.
Last year the law school accepted 27 minority students, but only seven enrolled. The only black student to enroll withdrew from the school.
KU cannot compete with other schools that have more money and are recruiting minority students more aggressively, Ainsworth said.
ONE REASON for the weaker minority enrollment this year, Ainsworth said, was that
Meat processor objects to federal inspection
By DIANE LUBER
Staff Reporter
Gov. John Carlin's proposal to eliminate the state's meat and poultry inspection program will hurt small meat-processing plants, farmers, consumers and Kansas, government and industry officials said yesterday.
"The governor has been getting some bad advice from somewhere," said Tom Pyle, owner of Pyle Heat Co. in Eudora.
The House Agriculture and Livestock Committee is scheduled this morning to begin hearings on the governor's proposal to transfer the responsibility for intrastate meat and poultry inspection from the state to the federal government.
HARLEY DUNCAN, chief budget analyst for the budget division of the Department of Administration, said the transfer would save the state $1.1 million this year.
But Pyle said, "My plant physically will not pass federal inspection. My doors aren't wide enough. My racks aren't high enough. And I have some wood floors."
Nelson Buckles, secretary-treasurer of the Kansas Meat Processing Association, said the biggest problem with the transfer was that only a handful of state-inspected meat processing plants would meet the federal structure requirements.
required benefits.
But that does not mean state-inspected meat is of lower quality than federally inspected meat, he said.
Max Foster, assistant director of the state's inspection program, said most of the meat processing plants in Kansas had been in existence in 1967 when the federal government passed legislation regulating meat sold across state lines.
The law allowed existing plants to continue operation even if they did not meet the structural standards the federal act required, he said.
federal standard. I did not.
Duncan said the federal government had been flexible in applying its standards in other states.
But Pole said that was not true.
A SURVEY BY THE state division two years ago estimated it would cost state-inspected meat processing plants $12 million to remold to meet federal standards. Foster said.
BUCKLESS SAID MOST state-inspected meat processing plants would have to choose between going out of business and going into custom butchering, unless they could afford to remodel.
He had considered remodeling his plant a few years ago to meet federal standards so he could sell his products in other states, he said. But he now has accomplished diminished his plant, they "nucked up" apart." he said.
It would have cost him $250,000 to make the changes they required, he said.
Custom plants only process meat brought in by a customer for that customer's consumption. It is illegal to sell meat that has been processed at a custom plant.
a custom plant.
Most plants would lose 80 percent of their business if they became custom plants, Buckles said.
Fyle said state-inspected plants processed 51 percent of the meat consumed in Canada.
"I would have to go custom." Pyle said, "but I could still make a living."
HE DID NOT KNOW whether he could continue. Emplee needed he said. And
His farmer friends would be hurt by the program because they could no longer sell their livestock to small processing plants, he said. They would have to sell their meat at lower prices to large meat processors.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture official said the states did a better job of monitoring plants than the federal government.
Joe Blair, director of federal and state relations, at the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said the state's licensing requirements and monthly inspections of custom plants were effective enforcement tools. The federal program called for only quarterly inspections, making it more difficult to control illegal activities.
BLAIR SAID THE federal government was reluctant to take over the state's program.
"The states are in a better position to deal with the small businesses," he said. "And small plant owners have more access to a state agency."
John Stitz, a spokesman for Kansas Rural Life, said the governor's proposal called for more federal control at a time when President Reagan was calling for less.
"People say I'm biased against federal policies, and I am. They're the major factor in the demise of rural communities," he said.
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