4
Thursday, October 3.1974
University Daily Kansan
OPINION
Business must fund inflation fight
President Gerald R. Ford should think twice about putting a 20-cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline.
Such a tax would hit poor people and middle-
income groups, but it would least afford to take another kick in the pants.
In the same period, consumer prices were up 16 per cent, resulting in an eight per cent drop in purchasing power.
Average weekly wages, after federal taxes, for about 52 million workers in private industry rose eight per cent from the third quarter of 1972 to the second quarter of 1974.
Meanwhile corporate profits were up 54 per cent.
Besides the tax on gasoline, Ford is con-
sidering that it could add a new tax on
gasoline could wipe out that relief.
The last time a recession slowed the economy in 1971, President Richard M. Nixon instituted wage and price controls.
After a 90-day freeze on wages and prices, a
Pay Board and a Price Commission were set up to control wage and price increases.
During Phase Two it became clear that the controling wages controlling wages rather than the controlling prices.
As the controls came off, prices surged and so did profits.
When the last of the wage controls disappeared
the number of strikes which she met the largest
number of, strikes in, decade.
The Pay Board received 10,000 requests for wage increases and held most to the 5.5 per cent guideline, but 94 per cent of all price increases were approved.
But the strikes didn't do anything for unorganized workers, old people and welfare recipients. They now suffer without relief from an annual rate of inflation of 16 per cent.
The essential question in developing a plan to fight inflation is who can afford to pay for it.
The American people can't; business can.
Contributing Writer
Gas tax would cut 'automobility'
The automobile has been called the greatest disaster to overwhelm the human race since the flood. Or, for those of you whose religion is non-Biblical, one scholar recently estimated that more calories go up in useless heat and smoke during a single day of traffic jams in the United States than is wasted by all the sacred cows of India during an entire year.
Soon, however, "slow down and live" will be the new American way of life. Our standard of living, at least in terms of the gas-guzzling automobile, has peaked and will continue to decline in the foreseeable future. A further improvement is that more cars are over in the Ford Administration's serious consideration of an additional 10 cent to 20 cent汽油 tax.
Such a tax increase would not be popular, but it would be a farsighted move to help mudge those wasteful monsters off the road. A 20-cent additional tax would be best if the additional billions of dollars in government revenue were used to relieve the plight of those at the bottom
of our economic ladder. The additional revenue could be used to finance public service jobs and to make a tax cut practical for those hit hardest by inflation.
A positive result of more expensive gasoline is a drop in gas consumption, which in turn should help us decrease our international balance of debt. The United States has lost much oil from the Mideast robber barons.
If the Ford Administration is sincere about conserving energy, it should push for an additional 20-cent tax. The tax must be tough if we are to impress upon high school "gut draggers" and others of similar mentality that wasting energy is a crime against humanity.
We can use foresight now to begin changing our wasteful lifestyle, or we can wait until reality forces us to become efficient energy users. The advantages of planning our decline are obvious.
—Steven Lewis Contributing Writer
Vote offers chance for change
FACT: The Student Senate has about $400,000 of
organization and activities each group.
FACT: Last year the Senate allocated most of that money in what Mike Steinmetz, former Senate treasurer, called "a sorta railroaded" manner.
FACT: The price of student athletic tickets rose this year, partly because the Senate cut its subsidy to the Kansas University Athletic Corporation (KUAC).
FACT: Many organizations other than the KUAC received budget cuts or weren't funded at all while the salaries for the student body president, vice president and treasurer were increased.
FACT: Few senators both bother to attend meetings. None were removed from office for absenteeism.
FACT: Year during fall election, 39
candidates were elected. This fall,
53 candidates have filed for 12 seats.
So, if you are tired of watching what the Senate does with your money and think that you have nobody to hold responsible for the Senate's actions, then do something about it. Today is the Senate's day and you need to be held accountable. Senate until the spring. If you don't vote today, when you have a greater choice, then please don't write to the Kansan beemoining the Senate's actions.
—Jeffrey Stinson
Associate Editor
LET HIM GET A LITTLE DRUNKER.
Pursuit of profit in Bicentennial
By RICHARD PAXSON Contributing Writer
KANSAN comment
there's bound to be some disagreement about an appropriate observance.
How did this bill manage to marshal such impressive support? One reason, based on the fact that Senate and Senate are that many members of the House and Senate hadn't found the time to read the bill carefully or to think soberly on it, was that they were mesmerized by such enchanting
It seems that both the national and the local bicentennial commissions are having problems deciding how our birthday should be celebrated, which country as diverse as ours
One group, the People's
Council, Commission,
(PBC) in Washington,
dissenters. The commission,
whose headquarters are in
Washington, D.C., says it is
concerned with the commercialization of the
Industry ideals falter
By refusing to close off debate, the Senate on Sept. 19 killed a consumer protection bill for this session of Congress. That is cause for rejoicing.
But it isn't cause for much rejoicing. This very bad bill will be back at the next session of Congress and it will be far more difficult to defeat the measure again.
The object of the bill is to create a New Agency for Consumer Advocacy, headed by an administrator with sweeping powers to intervene in both the formal and informal proceedings of every other federal agency. The administration ratiated, mythical, hypothetical, being known as "the consumer." By his own fiat, the administrator would define the consumer interest. Whatever the name of the actual administrator might be, the administrator would be Rabbi said. This is the prospect that has to be faced.
words as "consumer"
"protection" and "Advocacy"
The expedient thing to do was
to get on the side of the angels.
such phrases as "the manufacturer will be the sole judge of whether the part is defective." Is it any wonder, I would ask my business friends, that many a disgruntled customer urges his
But there is another reason and it ought to be faced squarely by my friends in the
By James Kilpatrick
business community. Let me talk like a Dutch uncle to them. If business leaders had channeled one-tenth of the energy used by businesses into improving their products and services instead, they wouldn't find themselves in this fix. Too many retailers and museums have lost too much of their confidence they once enjoyed.
Why the loss of confidence?
By coincidence, on the very day
the Senate was taking its
clout vote, a House sub-
sidieu of Congress tried to
thought. The subcommittee had
analyzed the warranties of 51
leading manufacturers. Only one
of them—the Corning Corp-
lation—provided customers
hole, holes, catches, gimmicks and
take-backs. Fifty of the 51
provided warranties containing
congressman to support the Nader bill?
The business community will have to do better. For the short haul, a crash program of education has to be undertaken, with a view toward educating Congress and the public in the fight against climate change and "consumer protection" bill. It is doubtful that the people in fact are prepared to genuflect before the messianic Nader.
For the long haul, vastly more must be done. Business and labor working together, will help to purchase the old idea of American industry—to make good products and to stand behind them. We ought not to need a bureaucracy to define business interests. This is the job of business itself, and it cannot be neglected.
commemoration of the American Revolution. The June 1974 issue of their newsletter, Common Sense, presents some convincing evidence that their fears are justified.
The Avon Hill Company has released a new game that is at least as appropriate now as it was depression. Named '1776: The Game of the American Revolutionary War,' the game is praised by its manufacturer as 'a grand strategic wargame' and is now available playable, tactical resolution system—a startling advance for the true wargame devotee. Even George Washington would have liked to play this track of the many variables and manaces of play.'
The PBC also singled out Chevrolet's "Sirit of America" cars for criticism. These special edition cars, red, blue and white with matching decals, were displayed in full page ads in Newsweek, Time, Sports Evening Post until a removal by an embarrassed General Motors. "America" had been spelled "Amerca" in all the copy.
(C) 1974 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
Even this type of crass exploitation hasn't escaped government regulation. The U.S. Bicentennial Society is attempting to license all businesses that sell items. It says there is a need for a licensing program and a unifying bicentennial symbol.
Included among the items to be marketed are china plates bearing portraits of Patrick and George Franklin and others (nothing like eating your mashed potatoes off Sam Adams' face), and another copies of George Blindsong's blade by a razor blade company.
Other meaningful items still in the planning stage are jewelry, fabrics, needpoint, goods, stationery and carpets.
The PBC tirace appeared too early to catch the worst example of life, liberty and the pursuit of profit. The same company that brought you the N.C.A.R.E. license to the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet" recently has introduced a new advertising campaign that perverts America even further. Its theme, which is brought on television and radio across the repetition of a call-to-action is "Hot dogs, baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet."
NEWS ITEM:' OIL COMPANIES OVERCHARGE $300 MILLION'
Black economic leaders troubled
When President Gerald R. Ford is holding a nationwide economic meeting, you may wonder why black Americans find it necessary to hold a black economic summit meeting.
The answer is that most black Americans live in an economy
least twice that in the ghetto of some of our cities. Among black teenagers, joblessness stands at a shameful 31.4 per cent. That means 288,000 minority youngsters on the brink of despair—prime candidates for reform school, jail, prison.
By Carl Rowan
drastically different from that of white Americans.
Unemployment among white Americans is 4.8 per cent. Many anguished whites pray for the day when joblessness will go above six per cent, that magic President Ford's advisers have been using for drastic government action—like perhaps the creation of large numbers of public service jobs.
Whites are still arguing about whether the country is in a race to overcome itself, because overwhelming a long time ago that black America is in what 60 black leaders call a race of the first magnitude.
What the great mass of white Americans don't seem to know or care about is that unremembered people never go below that magic staircase cent figure. It now stands at 82 per cent nationwide and is at
So if the federal government really had a policy of giving massive help once unemployment goes above six percent, it would have begun an American black Americans long ago. But racial jealousies and political realities make that impossible.
It is perfectly okay for the government to give special assistance to industries that are in need of workers, manufacturers and shoes manufacturers. But give special help to ethnic or racial communities that are in special need. It is also condemned as racism in reverse, and people who have been rabid racists all their lives would suddenly become pious moralize us so-called crime.
Still, the grim reality is there.
Even before this most recent upward surge in prices and downward slide in the economy.
Before this depression hit black America, the normal family life — both to spend food and education for every $100 that the normal white family had to pay — had been preserved. This has widened in recent months.
42 of every 100 black youngsters under 18 in this country were living in poverty. That was almost triple the rate of white youngsters per 100) living in poverty. The situation is even worse today.
That is why these 60 black leaders—representing groups as diverse as black real estate, nonprofit organizations, seniority leaders, black elected officials, the NAACP, the Urban League, black accountants—came together to formulate recommendations and demands.
You look at those recommendations and begin to doubt that there can ever be a rapport between black America, or poor America, and the Ford administration.
This black summit called for "an immediate rollback and firm controls to keep prices from rising."
This black summit wants an excess profits tax, a surtax on upper-income recipients and the wealthy wage earners. Of these, Ford is likely to approve only a tax cut for low-income people, which will be of scant relief to those who earn too and earn too little to pay taxes.
The one thing these black leaders asked for that may not
Reserve Board and on the Domestic Council.
conflict with the Ford philosophy is a chance to participate in decision making about the economy. They want some influential blacks on the Council of Economic Advisers, in the Office of Management and Budget, on the Federal
That would seem to be the very least that Ford can extend to the 24 million Americans who are the prime victims of our economic morsar. But Ford may have another idea.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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The 1972 g be ad requil
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