Page 4 University Daily Kansan, February 22, 1982 Opinion Senate bill, now brewing, would aid alcoholics Senate Bill 592 proposes to buck up the state's alcoholism treatment program with a little help from the beer industry. The plan would increase the sales tax on beer by 10 million and enmark the $3.2 million collected and restructured the alcoholism prevention and fund treatm In other words, it would help people who drink too much by taxing the people who buy beer. It seems like a perfectly simple solution to cut the revenue, but budget-cutting at every level of government. But actually, the plan is not as simple as it seems and it's not perfect. But it is a solution. Created by the Citizens Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, the bill would allow alcohol prevention and treatment programs administered by the division of alcohol and drug abuse. The division could lose up to $7.7 million in federal and state funds from an assortment of sources in the next 18 months, according to division commissioner Loren Phillips. A beer tax increase could save the division's alcohol abuse programs relatively misstimeless. Predictably, the beer distributors of Kansas oppose the tax increase. More specifically, they oppose earmarking for farmers from the increase for pigment treatment. Wholesalers now pay an 18-cent-a-gallon tax, which goes to the general fund. The alcohol abuse division must compete for funding with more concern-provoking causes. Phillips noted during the hearings on the tax, "the image of an alcohol does not evoke the same response as does the image of a handicapped child." Ten percent of the $2.50-a-gallon-tax on wine and other hard liquor already is earmarked for alcohol abuse programs. But alcoholics don't just guzzle cheap wine from paper-bag-shredded bottles or have a few too many every night after work. Lobbyists for beer retailers and wholesalers say their 18-cent tax is already too high compared to the states surrounding Kansas. They drink beer, too. Beer sellers can't sell alcohol and not simply a steep up from soft drink. Those states, however, are licensed to brew beer because of the a lower rate "because of the volume they produce." Lobbys also warn that state residents who live in the suburban order will drive to the next street. At the consumer's level, the tax would raise LISA BOLTON the price of a six-pack by slightly less than six cents. Considering that it costs about a nickel to start the average car, most consumers wouldn't save enough money to justify a trip across the border. But refusing to pay for treatment of those who do abuse alcohol will not make them go away. One lesson children learn early in life is that a few often spoil things for everybody Lobbists also protest that taxing all beer drinker is unnecessary, since out of 10 of them "you can't buy a bottle of it." At least there is a pleasing logic in alcohol consumers paying taxes to take care of alcohols, much as Kansas couples pay higher marriage license fees to take care of the children of couples who abuse their children. Bob Storey, lobbyist for the retailers' association and member of the National Council on Alcoholism, says that private and local programs can deal with alcoholism better than can the Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services, which would distribute the $5.2 million. He says the money would be squandered on a few more staff members and a few more typewriters, though only 10 percent of the money can cover administrative costs. He also points out that about 45 percent of alcoholics treated by the alcohol abuse division's detoxification program, one of a variety of programs for different kinds and degrees of alcoholism, return for treatment again and again. But just as some victims of diseases die from getting better, some alcoholics do not. Those alcoholics are a burden that the responsible residents of the state must bear, as they do the aged, the mentally ill, the poor and the elderly. The law doesn't just disappear when their fundin is cut. George Heckman, chairman of the citizens' commission sponsoring the bill, says that the state cannot escape dealing with alcohols. Those who can't afford treatment at private institutions are treated at public expense. If the public isn't buying, they are left to navigate the highways in greater numbers than they already do, to take up space in hospitals and to hurt themselves and their families. Some will die, if they have no place to dry out between liquor binges. That's a solution, too, but not one that caring, responsible people will suggest. At the bottom of the cacophony of committee members and lobbyists and legislators trying to decide how to finance alcohol abuse programs are the alcohol abusers themselves. They are the Kansans who will be hurt if the bill fails. Compromise gives jump start to stalled auto industry talks Last summer, Douglas Fraser, president of the United Auto Workers, stood firm on the position that his union would not agree to salary concealment and General Motors as a taker of talks ahead. "there is no Chrysler agreement in Ford's" "future, he told UAW delegates at a convention" "last week." But last week, he stood smiling in front of the Ford logo with UAW Vice President Donald Ephin and Ford Vice President Peter Pestillo. It was clear that the fact that Ford really did have a better idea. The recent UAW concessions, which still must be approved by the union's 170,000 Ford- DAN BOWERS employed members, represent an abrupt about-face in labor negotiations and could set a precedent for many other struggling U.S. industries. In reaching an agreement, both sides of the bargaining table have looked ahead as well as backward in determining the new contract's terms. The framework was set for this agreement when Ford announced earlier this month that it would begin the development. Already, Ford has been forced to lay off about 54,000 workers indefinitely. Just since October, six plants have been closed and 11,000 workers laid off. The reason for these layoffs? Union workers refused to make salary concessions, and at the going cost of labor, Ford simply could not afford to keep the plants open. The recent, and remarkably quick, agreement shows that the union has come to accept the fact that further wage increases would price the workers right out of their jobs. Granted, the union has a right to scratch and claw for every penny it can get, but as workers take bigger and bigger bites of the hand that feeds them, they may soon find themselves unfed. It's hard to sympathize with a group whose average compensation amounts to $21.56 an hour per week. This figure is more than double that of assemblers in Japan who do the same kind of work. It is these exorbitant labor costs (along with poor management) that allow the Japanese to underster American autos by an average of $1,650, even after shipping costs. And recent trends have shown that U.S. automakers can no longer claim that their cars cost more because they are made better. That was spent out with 30-cents-a-gallon gasoline. In recent years, the Japanese have doubled their share of the U.S. auto market to 22 percent, and there are no indications that the trend will ston. But the recent Ford-UAW agreement might help slow the Japanese automakers' invasion. The primary trade-off in the auto talks has been the union's agreement to a 31-month salary from the company. Ford has promised not to close any plants for petroleum and will stop purchasing parts from manufacturers. In reaching this agreement, each party has stuck its neck out for the other. The worker must tighten the belts on their family budgets (the agreement also includes a nine-month freeze on the $2.63 hour cost-of-living allowance, which is based on increased sales and chon awn of bloated inventories. Last summer, leaders from the UAW and Ford traveled to Japan to watch that country's automobile plants churn out cars. No doubt, the U.S. officials received an eye-opening lesson in efficient management, labor-management relations and worker productivity. The promise not to close plants will surely keep the company with even more virgin autos alters. Last week's agreement shows signs that the two groups just may have learned something. 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Postmaster: Send changes of address to the University Daily Kansas, First Hall, The University of Kansas KANSAN The University Daily Editor Business Manager Vanessa Herron Natalie Jolie Managing Editor Tracey Hamilton Editorial Editor Karen Schuster Associate Editor Jen George Campus Editor John Needell Associate Campus Editor Joe Needell Assistant Campus Editors Joe Reibel, Rebecca Chaney Assignment Editor Steve Rubrain Sport Editor Ron Haugemann Associate Sports Editor Corea Beach Entertainment Editor Lisa Massoth, Liliana Diva, Sharpe Appleburn Wire Editors Ellen Markey, Teresa Hourdan, Lisa Maschot Photos员 Jon Harkerty, John Haskammer, John Eskie Photographers Bob Greenman, Tracey Thompson, Mark McDonald Retail Sales Manager Ame Hern伯米德 National Sales Manager Howard Shalimkir Campus Sales Manager Perry Bajer Classified Manager Savoy Bolin Production Manager Larry Leibengood Tearnables Manager John Egan Sales and Marketing Adviser John Oberman Sales and Marketing Adviser John Oberman Some who shine too brightly burn out he always was the over-achiever, the person others in the office would call on to get the tough jobs done. Since the day he joined the company, he had been the Golden Boy. Suddenly, he changed. He began showing up late for work. When he arrived, he was irritable and couldn't get along with the other workers. He began to drink more, first after work and then at He talked of being "burned out", of not being happy with his job or life. He was in the middle of a fight with a doctor. A midlife crisis at 28? In the past, professionals began to doubt the DAN TORCHIA of the work only after 20 or 30 years. Now, the doubts come after only five or 10 years. According to Richard Berry, a psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley, more 20- to 35-year-old professionals are seeking counseling for midlife crises. "behavior Today," a behavioral psychology newsletter, Berry said these professionals were unhappy because they had made it to the top and had found that they didn't like it there. We pay a high price for our ambitions and our upward mobility. Midlife crises are a larger manifestation of everyday stress. Uncontrolled stress can lead to many problems, including heart disease, high blood pressure, alcoholism and rocky relationships. The villain is our attitude that college is less of an opportunity for education than a job-kills ability. Use it. Most of us concentrate on the economic advantage of college instead of on getting an education. This is obvious in the trend away from the liberal arts and into the professional schools. Students are not asking their students trying to cover their economic bases, but there is a danger in thinking only about money. Generally, according to Berry, college students in the 1960s and early 1970s looked only at what interested them, and not what would get them interested in the two coincided. Sometimes they didn't. A cartoon from an early 1970s Mad magazine illustrated this. An unemployed young man sat on a park bench, dressed in rags. An older man walked by and asked why he didn't have a job. Now we have the opposite situation. Many people look only at the economic gains of occupations. That is just as bad as looking only at the income gains that has to be a middle ground between the two. Berry told the story of a college freshman who came in to see him because he couldn't decide on a career. He couldn't decide between computer science, law, medicine, business or engineering. "I wasted a lot of time," he said. "I went to college." "The choices we are so diverse that it was clear what was happening," Berry said. "He was looking for income, prestige and job market demand, and giving no thought to his own This attitude is not limited to freshmen. Many graduating seniors also have it, though it may be different. Most students probably have friends who say they won't accept less than $15,000 for their first job; are planning to go to graduate school for the future economy advantage, even though they don't want to start snickering because they haven't lined up a job yet. There is a problem in always looking to the future, to the time when the hard work and unhappiness will pay off, and one can finally relax. It usually never comes. There is so much dissatisfaction in the working world that it is important to be satisfied with an occupation. Recent studies show that most workers are unenthusiastic about their jobs, without the help of midlife crises. A 1979 study by the American Academy of Family Physicians showed that 82 percent of business executives had significant work stress. And in 1977, the University of Michigan Survey Research Center found that 40 percent of people surveyed thought that time dragged at work. Thirty-six percent felt their skills were underused, and 32 percent felt they were overeducated for the work they did. This dissatisfaction can add up to stress. And a possible midlife crisis. What can be done? Mainly being aware of the situation. The possibility of having a midlife crises 20 years early is a frightening possibility and it should be avoided at any age. There is nothing wrong with ambition when it is tempered with realism. We all can't be a chairman of the board or a corporate president or the publisher of the New York Times. Realistic goals will help pace a career and avoid crises and burnout. Being a Golden Boy in your twenties isn't worth it if it turns your golden years into a shell.