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Wednesday, October 21, 1992
OPINION
一
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
IN OUR OPINION
Administration needs to rethink legal policy
One of the many unknown services sponsored by Student Senate is KU Legal Services. This free legal advice office for students is located in Burge Union and is financed exclusively by student fees. This service employs three full-time attorneys and five law school interns. Its mission is to provide advice for students who might otherwise be caught in a vicious and brutal legal system.
To the extent that it advises students on matters such as landlord/tenant law, taxation matters and traffic violations, Legal Services has been a blessing to many students. Currently, only two matters can't be advised by Legal Services: students versus students and students versus the University.
Last spring, Senate attempted to change an aspect of this policy by passing a bill that authorized Legal Services to advise students in grievance matters, which involves the University. The bill overwhelming passed, and Legal Services was prepared to implement the policy. However, the administration, in a memorandum from David Ambler, vice chancellor for student affairs, to Student Body President Brad Garlinghouse, announced that the administration would not allow three of the four points passed in the Senate bill.
The three points not allowed would have authorized attorneys to counsel students on University hearings and grievances, attend meetings and hearings, and engage in informal discussions with University officials involved in disputes with students. To not allow this was a shortsighted and dangerous precedent for the University.
The administration claims that introducing an attorney into these University processes would legalize them. This statement is contemptible if not an outright lie. Administrators would be hard pressed to find one hearing or procedure of an adversarial nature involving themselves where they don't consult with an attorney. That is the whole point behind having general counsel. The administration isn't seeking to keep attorneys out of the process, it is seeking to limit what students can get with their own money.
In light of the recent hearing concerning the removal of Professor Emil Tonkovich, the Senate bill makes perfect sense. Whether Professor Tonkovich is guilty or innocent, his hearing emphasizes the need for a forum where students can express their concerns and receive qualified advice. According to the administration, Tonkovich's accuser would not have been allowed to speak with a Legal Services attorney or receive any legal advice when she filed the complaint.
Whether it's sexual harassment or grade appeals, students deserve better. Senate did its best to be proactive and expand services. The administration did its best to deny students these important improvements. The administration acted selfishly and without regard to how an impersonal University bureaucracy affects students.
Senate should continue to press for this needed change in the way KU Legal Services can operate. Providing students with the best services for their money should be Senate's concern. The administration seriously should reconsider its prior stance. Many students would benefit from a policy change that seeks to place everyone on a level playing field.
STEPHEN MARTINO FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
ERIC NELSON
Editor
GREG FARMER
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
BILL SKEET, Technology coordinator
SCOTT HANNA
Business manager
BILLLEIBENGOOD
Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES
Sales and marketing adviser
Aast. Managing ... Alimee Brainard
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Editorial ... Stephen Martino
Campus ... Gayle Osterberg
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Campus sales mgr    Angela Clevenger
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Kim Claxton
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Valerie Spicher
Classified mgrs    Judith Standley
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Americans should pay fair share with gas tax
Try to imagine Bill Clinton or George Bush saying: "And if I'm elected, you'll pay 10 cents more for a gallon of gas. That's an extra $2 for a fillup. And I'll add 10 cents every year for the next four years."
Sure, that's about as likely as either of them telling dirty traveling-salesman jokes during the next debate
No mainstream politician would even consider telling voters that in five years they will be paying an extra $10 for a full tank. It would be political suicide.
And that's one of the advantages Ross Perot has. Since he's such a long shot anyway, he can be fearless and toss out a sensible idea.
It was fun watching the reaction of Clinton and Bush after Perot said, yes, he would push for a 50-cents-a-gallon tax over five years. The billions it would bring in would pay for so much of the rebuilding that this country needs.
Both acted as if someone had put a dead snake on their dinner plates. They couldn't get away from it fast enough.
And my guess is that millions of people who weren't already familiar with Perot's proposal said: "Is that guy nuts? He wants to jack up the price of gas?"
But why not? Why should we fuel for our cars be so much cheaper than other things we buy?
Yes, it is cheaper. In fact, very few consumer objects or services have fought off inflation as well as gas.
For those who like numbers: In 1932, you could buy a new Ford for less than $500. The lowest-priced model, a roadster, was about $410.
That year, a gallon of gas was 18 cents.
Today, the cheapest stripped-down Ford, that company says, is the Festiva L hatchback at $6,941.
MIKE ROYKO
And today the average cost of a gallon of gas is about $1.12.
After 60 years, you are paying about 17 times as much for the cheapest Ford. But you're paying only about six times as much for a gallon of gas.
In 1932, the average price of a three-bedroom house was a little more than $3,000. Today, almost $100,000. So the house is 33 times more expensive.
The average income in 1932 was about $1,300. Today, it's more than $30,000.
So why do we believe that we are already being clipped when we pay more than $1 for a gallon of gas and that it would be an outrage to tack on an extra dime for the next five years?
We believe that because for so many years gas was cheap. As recently as 1972, you could buy a gallon for only 32 cents. It hadn't even doubled in price in 40 years.
But it is still cheaper than most other things we buy. During the '50s and '60s, when we were paying about 30 cents a gallon, we were driving gas hogs. Those big V-8 engines drank it almost as fast as you put it in. Even the so-called economy models didn't get more than 15 miles to the gallon on the highway.
We took cheap gas as our birthright.
rat $1,000 house was up to $40,000.
The cheapest car was about $2,000.
then the Arabs wised up, hoisted the price and created a crisis, and gas started to catch up with everything else.
Now, thanks to the Arabs and their oil crisis, even Detroit's biggest models provide better mileage than the
old economy.iobs
Nobody expects a stein of beer to cost a dime. But we still believe that we should be paying 30 cents a gallon for gas.
Europeans don't think that way, nor do Canadians or hardly anyone else in the world. As Perot says, they're accustomed to $3- and $4-a-gallon fuel. That's why they've always been ahead of us in developing efficient cars, and why they don't believe that God ordained that man should use a car for any trip longer than one block.
Clinton knows that the idea make sense, so does Bush and so do most economists. If not a dime, then a nickel. If not spread over five years, then over 10.
The only flaw in the idea isn't economic, it's political. It's a tax that everybody would have to pay — rich, poor, young or old. "Shared sacrifice," as Perot says.
That's the political flaw. Everybody in this country believes in sacrifice. It's sharing that's troublesome.
Which is why Clinton is smart enough to talk about raising the income taxes only on those making more than $200,000. Since about 99 percent of voters don't make over $200,000, they think it's a great idea to sock it to those who do.
And if he said that he wants to spread the tax hike to those making $150,000 and up, he would still be safe because most people make less than that, and they'd cheer.
So if Perot is really serious about getting elected, he'll change his gas-tax proposal.
If the says that it would apply only to owners of cars costing $75,000 or more, especially those who snub the self-serve pumps, he might get Clinton's support.
I'm not sure about Bush, though. He might say it would be a hardship on rich, old widows.
Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune.
STAFF COLUMNIST
KEVIN BARTELS
Third-party candidates add spark to debates
Little Ross took on both candidates in the last debate, calling on the American voters to send him to Washington to "clean house." After the debates, Perot screeched and stumped at the press, telling them that "you hate the fact I'm in this race . . . go ahead — raise hell!"
Yet, for all the hype and one-liners, something positive emerged from the three debates: The candidates were forced to address, however peripherally, some of the concerns that have been voiced about their respective platforms. Too often, candidates for political office are allowed to define themselves through negative comparisons to their opponents.
Loco Locals
"I'd say I could run a small grocery store on the corner and extrapolate that and say I'm qualified to run Wal-Mart." -Ross Perot, on Clinton's experience
Hmu. Sound like anyone we know? George Bush got elected in 1988 through negative comparisons to his opponent, Michael Dukakis, and he is trying to do it again with Bill Clinton by labeling Clinton as another Jimmy Carter. Monday night's performance was Bush's strongest showing yet; he seemed more like the mean-spirited hopeful of '88 than the defeated and world-weary George of 1992.
Bush's efforts at negative campaigning and posturing during the debates have been cut short, though, by a growing dissatisfaction among the voters with mud-slinging and by the presence of Little Ross, who alternately mentioned the "issues" and then hammered Bush for lying and dodging the facts on Iraq-gate on Monday night.
But the most positive format of the debates was certainly the "town-hall" meeting that was used for the second debate. Some credit must be given to Clinton for suggesting the format, although it was obvious that he reaped the greatest reward from it as well.
in all of the debates, all of the candidates were asked some hard questions. Possibly the most damaging for Bush was when he was asked about his support for the North American Free Trade Agreement — a widely unpopular agreement that Perot, among others, charges will cost U.S. jobs. Bush tried to duck the issue by repeating "free trade, fair trade" like some sort of mantra while fervently hoping the subject would change. There were also charges, once again from Perot, that Bush had not released all of the papers regarding the Bush administration's pre-Gulf War romance with Saddam Hussein.
But the debates are in need of reform. Candidates from other political parties, such as the Libertarian party, must be allowed to become involved in the process. With the involvement of Ross Perot and his "United We Stand" organization in the debates, the tired old wisdom that says only the two "major" presidential candidates — meaning Democrats and Republicans — should be ignored has been laid to rest. It is time for the media and both major political parties to acknowledge that there are other forms of political expression than voting for white elephants or jackasses.
Kevin Martin is a la Louville, Ky. graduate student majoring in English.
By Tom Michaud