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University Daily Kansan, August 31, 1981
Opinion
Please do not disturb
We're beginning to wonder what it will take to get the president of the United States out of bed.
On Aug. 19, you may recall, two U.S.
Navy F-14 jets shot down a pair of Soviet-
built Libyan fighters about 60 miles from the Libyan coast. The dogfight, which kicked up quite a bit of dust both at home and abroad, occurred about 1:20 a.m.
EDT. Most senior officials in the Reagan administration, including the defense secretary and the secretary of state, were alerted within minutes.
But President Reagan, who was vacationing in California, was not awakened by his White House counselor for another six hours. The president then went back to sleep, according to Larry Speakes, a White House spokesman.
Speakes said it was not necessary to awaken Reagan earlier because the matter already had been resolved and no presidential decisions were needed. Staff decisions, maybe, but no presidential decisions.
Less than a week later, when North
Korea fired a surface-to-air missile at a U.S. spy plane, Reagan was not told of the incident until eight and a half hours later. (That was at the decent hour of 9 a.m. PDT in California.)
Asked if Reagan was satisfied that he was informed soon enough about the Korean incident, Speakes gave an elaborate answer: "Yes." Again, the excuse was that the matter was handled routinely by the military and no top-rung decisions were required.
Funny, presidents are usually very concerned about the military. All those guns and planes and ships. Makes most people nervous, we suppose, if Reagan doesn't lose sleep over air attacks, more power to him.
It's not clear what sort of event would justify waking the president out of a sound slumber. Perhaps something really important, such as Soviet subs cruising up the Potomac or one of the family mares about to give birth or an impending strike by jellybean makers.
Those things surely would require "presidential decisions."
'Riding out storm' not easy for those out in the rain
With the first effects of President Reagan's budget cuts and last week's official announcement that double digit inflation is with us once again, it is time to ask the Reagan supporters of last November if they have seen the light yet. Or rather, the lack of it, because it will surely get darker before the star of the silver screen comes up for re-election in 1984.
In the wake of rising consumer expenses and decreasing consumer buying power
CORAL BEACH
Reagan and his supporters are still asking us to help them, but spawn our belts and storm the outcrop from here.
The only problem with the request is that the president won't be the one without electricity during that storm, and he won't have to scrounge for supplies during the bad weather. You can think that Nancy would consider macaroni and hot dogs for dinner more than once a week.
The storm worsened last week when the latest inflation figures were released. Ronnie smiled and said that they didn't mean anything and that we shouldn't worry.
But the new figures do mean something, specifically that after taxes and inflation adjustments, the earnings of an average worker with three dependents dropped by 8 percent in July. This figure alone may appear insignificant.
However, when coupled with a steadily rising Consumer Price Index, the figures add up against the consumer, Goods and services that cost Americans in 1987 now cost £2.44.
In an attempt to reassure the American people, our benevolent leader continues to insist that if we accept his plan and lower our already declining standard of living, then all Americans will live a longer time. But acceptance and adherence to Reason is not sure about our problems because the plan is not sound.
In compliance with the budget cut plan, many people have already been removed
from the social-aid roles. Yet instead of decreasing, the nation's annual inflation rate jumped to 15.2 percent in July. Obviously the plan is not working, supposedly because of congressional meddling with the president's original proposal.
Reagan and his advisers contended that too many people were receiving government handouts, so the administration slashed social programs such as Aid to Dependent Children in an attempt to save the country. The government didn't take into account the working children who could afford to work only because the government paid for their children's day care.
Many of these aid recipients were cut from the programs and are now finding it financially impossible to continue working. Consequently, such parents must resort to total government support for themselves and their families. Reagan is defeating his own purpose by placing an even greater financial burden on the government.
This is only one example of the basic flaws in the president's economic plan, but it represents the lack of logic throughout. No president is active if it works against itself as this one does.
Other social programs, including Social Security, federally subsidized school lunches and foster care, have also felt the blow of the sharpened budget knife. Similar to the ADC in foster care, outfits, especially those in foster care, will ultimately result in increased government spending.
Many foster children will become the total financial responsibility of the government and their cuts will increase the expenses of foster care, making them unable to provide foster care.
Certainly there is no easy solution to this country's economic problems, and it will understandably take some time for the situation to be corrected. It took double digit inflation more than four years to develop and it is ridiculous to think it could be effectively dealt with during one presidential term, as Reagan has suggested.
The most workable solution would be a long-term, carefully thought-out economic plan that would span several presidential terms. Such a plan would avoid drastic moves and the possibility of them backfiring, as many of Reagan's proposals may.
Scaled-down MX program best bet
On the threshold of his second year of administration, Ronald Reagan is learning the hard way how difficult a task he has assigned himself: balance the federal budget by 1984 while decreasing taxes and increasing defense spending.
His tax cuts have been approved by Congress and Reagan himself has said he considered a tax cut to be necessary.
Thus, any cuts still to be made to ensure the success of his economic program must come from the Department of Defense. Between $20-40 cents must be trimmed, according to recent estimates.
Such defense cuts may require that Reagan renge on campaign to increase the number of government loans.
Such a change of position seems justified. Reagan is in a far better position to judge economic and defense conditions as president than he was while campaigning for office.
Far less justifiable is the alternative to making defense cuts—an unbalanced budget.
If defense expenditures are not trimmed, a White House aide told Newsweek recently. We're not going to be able to balance the budget without making it more visible, and we can always blame it on Congress."
Congress will appreciate that
Reagan has said he will not announce any final decisions until mid-Mep September, but White House officials have indicated throughout the pest week that defense cuts are likely and that a prime candidate for the cutbacks is the controversial MX missile program.
The original MX missile system, developed by the Ford administration and recommended by Carter's, included 200 missiles to be shuttled from the deserts of Nevada and Utah among 4,600 sites.
According to the plan, the Soviets would be forced to play Russian roulette in deciding which silos might house a missile. According to proponents of the system, any attack on the silos would require far more firepower than the United States would lose even if a hit were made.
So much for the advantages. Yet careful examination of the facts indicates that of all the available alternatives, Reagan's best choice, budgetary and otherwise, may be reversing another campaign position and approving a scaled-down MX program.
By cutting the number of missiles in halo by the number of silos by nearly 80 percent, tremendous savings over the original plan are possible.
Although this "compromise" would leave factions on both sides of the issue angry and
REBECCA
CHANEY
dissatisfied, evidence distinguishes the scaled-
reasonable alternative in an unreasonable situat
ion.
It's a little late to be wishing that nuclear warheads had never been invented. And contrary to popular belief, scrapping the MX would not encourage detente.
In fact, nuclear escalation would probably be encouraged by dropping the MX program.
Secretary of Defense Defense Weinberger has already announced that if the MX is scrapped, it will be replaced by another nuclear warhead program featuring smaller, allegedly less costly D-5 "common missiles" and new Trident submarines.
Although appearing more palatable—the D-5s would require no special missile carriers or desert roads, would weigh only two-thirds as much as MX missiles and would be more easily adaptable to existing silo bases—the substitute program has hidden barbs.
First, these new missiles incorporate the very flaw the MX was designed to eliminate: the "sitting duck" vulnerability of stationary land-based missiles.
Second, the D-6s are still three years of research and development (R and D) away. Aside from the fact that they may be just as unworkable as the MX is popularly thought to be, experience also suggests that projected costs are likely to spiral during those three years.
In addition, the president and the Department of Defense have already decided the amount of firepower they are determined to add to present nuclear capabilities.
Because the D-6s would carry three to four fewer nuclear warheads than the MXs, considerably more of the "common missiles" would be built, adding more cost.
Fourth, although three years of R and D would delay the expense of full-scale production of D-5s until after the 1984 budget deadline and the next presidential election, someone will pay the price.
Either this administration pays for wasted R and D on a D-5 program that is eventually the next administration assumes the financial burdens to cut more B-5. Both reduce budget cuts to mere illusion.
Research and development is far more costly than critics of the MX seem to acknowledge, whether used for a D-5 program already known or effective for or a further delay in the MX program.
A recently published article in the Los Angeles Times even went so far as to suggest that the MX "can and should remain under study—preferably forever."
That is insane. A decision must be made.
But rest assured that nuclear weapons are not going to suddenly disappear from the scenario. Delaying the MX or scrapping it altogether can only lead to more vehement demands by defense officials and citizens for alternative weapons, perhaps more costly or dangerous.
If defense officials believe it is so critically important that the United States have an operational missile program as soon as possible, they should consider that a smaller MX program could be ready far sooner than the expanded version, D-5s or new submarines.
Indeed, it would be foolish to continue the grandiose, full-scale plans recommended by Carter, somewhat like buying a car that is of being a lemon before taking it for a test drive.
If Nevada and Utah residents are worried about environmental impact, the smaller vener
Why do we need to be capable of a first strike, of initiating nuclear war, at all? No answer can be given.
Also of importance, European allies who are now being pressured by the United States to allow deployment of tactical nuclear weapons and cruise missiles on their soil have made it known they will protest any U.S. retreat from the ground-based MX.
in a situation that is clearly bad, a closely trimmed MX program is clearly the best answer.
Letters to the Editor
Mayor gives mixed reviews
Thanks for including me in your back-to-school issue (Aug. 20); the press can provide a good way to introduce new faculty and students to Lawrence. But as I read the articles, I was disappointed to find so much inaccurate reporting of old news.
To the Editor:
I do understand the necessity for a summer deadline, and didn't expect the reporter to know that my front porch has been jacked up, or that I am no longer teaching in the School of Architecture. But the article about "Opposition, animosity plague Macron Francisco's job" seemed full of parable and speculative language about controversies that took place long before the commission elected me as mayor last April.
I read with interest your goal of a superb, responsible publication. I hope you reach it. Good communication can help us build a better community.
There have been disagreements on the commission, just as there are different points of view in town. I hope that these disagreements will be resolved promptly, and we should misunderstandings reinforced by bad reporting.
Marci Francisco
Mayor, City of Lawrence
Thanks, KU students
One for you, KU students! You are so nice.
This is my first time here, and you have been
so helpful. I will be very grateful.
To the Editor:
helpful during registration and gladly answered my inquiries. I am glad to be part of KU.
Already we are a couple of days into the semester. I look around and I see that everybody is so bubbly and cheerful; but there are the zingy types, too. Apparently some of the boredom that goes with a long term like this one has yet to set in. However, I know that behind all the exuberance, you have all made the resolve to make this academically your best semester ever. I capably agree with you. Don't let anything wing your determination.
Good luck to you and keep on being your brother's keeper.
Abiriba, Nigeria, graduate student
KANSAN
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