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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Friday. Jan. 24, 1986
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wrong place for cuts
Congress and President Reagan are learning what college students have known for a long time: Living within a budget demands choices.
Washington has grown accustomed to the luxury of living beyond its means. Deficit spending means never having to say no to defense contractors or hungry children.
Congress can offer more equitable reductions or allow the automatic provision to take effect. But cuts will be made.
This explains the appeal of the new Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction law. If Congress can't choose, the law says, then cuts are made automatically.
All federal programs should be scrutinized for waste and extravagance. But the culprits are more likely to be found in the Pentagon than in college
Reagan has already promised about a 3 percent increase in defense spending, which would mean disproportionate cuts in his favorite targets: Amtrak subsidies and student aid, mass transportation and school lunch programs.
financial aid offices.
A mere $9 billion goes to help college students pay for their education — small change in the enormous federal budget.
Although insignificant in trimming the deficit, this aid makes the difference in many students' ability to afford college.
The working poor are the most vulnerable. They can not afford the rising costs of college, but earn too much to qualify for diminishing financial aid.
No one doubts the need to balance the government's books. Deficit spending, at one time a helpful spur to the economy, has become a monster.
But cutting college financial aid will not diminish this monster. It's fed by a bloated defense establishment and the compound interest on the debt itself.
Congress needs to trim its fat there, and invest instead in the future wage-earning — and taxpaying — college students of today.
The city needs to decide whether unique or historical houses are worth the extra effort and money to restore or should simply be demolished.
Develop or demolish?
Lawrence's policy on community development needs drastic revision
As it stands, community development funds can be used to tear down structures deemed blighted, regardless of the owners' financial status. Those who receive CD funds to develop their property, however, must be below certain income guidelines.
The reason that demolition doesn't require income guidelines is because it benefits the whole neighborhood, the CD director says.
Many Lawrence residents argue that the demolition of potentially beautiful homes to make room for slick, pack-'em-in apartment buildings does not benefit a neighborhood.
Despite what CD officials may think, preserving Lawrence's heritage benefits more than individual property owners. The whole city wins when a neighborhood restores its unique old homes.
Since 1983, the CD program has financed the demolition of eight houses. Two more are set to be torn down, one of them an Italianate-style house that the Lawrence Preservation Alliance says could be restored.
In fact, several people who are interested in restoring the house at 915 Ohio St. have contacted the Alliance.
If a chance exists that the building can be restored, using tax dollars to tear it down is senseless.
If a structure is unquestionably beyond repair, the city should condemn it and require the owner to have it demolished. But community development funds should be reserved for community development.
The Big Flush
It's been dubbed the Big Flush.
A spokesman at NBC said the empty minute was a "new production technique; something that's never been tried before."
NBC-TV, the Super Bowl network, has devoted an entire minute during the Super Bowl pregame show to . . . nothing. A clock on the screen will tick off 60 seconds.
The purpose, he says, is to give people a chance "to tend to personal business" without missing the show. Whether he means the Super Bowl or the commercial breaks is not clear.
If, as the network hopes, everyone watching the show decides to tend to "personal business" at the same time, serious consequences may result.
We in Lawrence seem to be safe, however. The director of utilities said that 50,000 toilet flushing at once probably wouldn't create any undue problems.
But, "we'll be watching to see," he said.
The empty minute may have the opposite effect. As the network takes a several-hundred thousand dollar loss on a minute of the best commercial air space, many people will probably stay glued to their screens, witnessing this historic event.
That means they will still have to tend to their business during the commercials, defeating the purpose of the empty minute.
For future Super Bowls, this may mean that the empty minute idea will end up in the can.
News staff
Michael Totty ... Editor
Lauretta McMillen ... Managing editor
Chris Barber ... Editorial editor
Cindy McCurry ... Campus editor
David Giles ... Sports editor
Brice Waddill ... Photo editor
Susanne Shaw ... General manager, news adviser
**Business staff**
Brett McCabe ... Business manager
David Nixon ... Retail sales manager
Jim Williamson ... Campus manager
Lori Eckert ... Classified manager
Caroline Innes ... Production manager
Pallen Lee ... National manager
John Oberzan ... Sales and marketing adviser
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words and should include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affiliated with a university or institution, include its name.
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The Kansan reserves the right to reject or edit letters and guest shots. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stuart-Flint Hall.
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Money won't put end to U.S. poverty
Last year, NBC News broadcast a story about a very old woman who was waiting to die. The woman, in her late 80s, had no friends to talk to, could hardly walk and had little money.
An American tragedy
She was entirely dependent upon welfare checks. Most of that money went to medicine. She had no savings.
She had no radio, television or telephone. In fact, she had no contact with the outside world.
To live in years of utter loneliness, waiting for death is the ultimate American tragedy.
A nurse visits every few weeks to check up on her. But that's it.
As the world rushes on with its seemingly infinite number of problems, this old woman is in her own little universe, waiting to die.
Victor Goodpasture Staff columnist
Has our nation become so involved with rock stars, television and whether the old Coke is better than the new Coke, that it has become negligent of the plight of its citizens?
This is a supposedly Christian nation where the Golden Rule and "love thy neighbor" are taught.
We live in the wealthiest nation in the world yet have citizens living in poverty and loneliness. Something is very wrong here.
Washington bureaucrats believe that throwing money at the situation is the answer. So did Lyndon Johnson when he launched his "Great Society," consisting mainly of extensive welfare programs. It was the wrong answer.
It tried to substitute money where people ought to have been.
With all the hundreds of billions of dollars poured into welfare, poverty did not decline. In fact, in the 70s, the number of checks, the size of checks and the number of beneficiaries all increased. Yet poverty increased as well.
Is this what Washington calls success?
He says, "Progress (against poverty) stopped coincidentally with the implementation of the Great Society's social welfare reforms." Huge increases in expenditures coincided with an end to progress."
One of the most significant works concerning welfare programs is Charles Murray's book, "Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980." In his book, Murray proves why social welfare legislation has been such a dismal failure.
Here's why. There are two ways to measure poverty, latent poverty and official poverty. Latent poverty is poverty before government handouts while official poverty includes
government handouts.
In 1968, latent poverty was at 18.2 percent of the population, official poverty at 12.7 percent. By 1880, latent poverty rose to 22 percent while official poverty rose to 13.4 percent.
What this means is that the government has created a permanent class of poor people. No matter how much the government spends, the poverty rate keeps climbing, even after handouts. And all of this occurred before the Reagan administration took office.
Yet Congress continues to spend
billions on programs that are proven failures and which, in fact, do the opposite of what they're supposed to do.
But how does all of this help the old woman whose whole universe is bare walls, a bed. a table and a chair?
It doesn't. Because the answer isn't money alone. It's human compassion.
Local communities, rather than the federal government, are much better adept at knowing who needs help. Yet because we spend so much money on welfare, Washington bureaucrats have us convinced the
problem is being solved.
Some Indian tribes used to send the elderly out into the wilderness to fend for themselves once they had become a burden upon the tribe. This may sound cruel but it was the only way the tribe could survive.
We shouldn't judge. We've done the same thing with the elderly by sending them monthly checks saying, "Here, now feed for yourself."
Right now, as you read this, there's an old woman sitting in a chair, starring at a white wall, waiting for death. And nobody gives a damn.
Weinberger, Shultz take different stands
Officials split on handling terrorism
President Reagan's top Cabinet officials are squabbling over how to deal with terrorism. Ironically, the man who is supposed to advocate diplomacy is hanging tough for a hard line while the official who runs the military establishment is urging caution.
Reagan, it appears, is leaving them fight it out.
To hear Larry, Speaks, deputy press secretary, tell it there is no riff on the proper use of a military response by the two officials.
Clearly, if you take their words, Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who rarely agree on anything, have a new feud going on the terrorism question.
No one denies the frustration on all sides with dealing with mindless, senseless terrorism and the victimiz-
Helen Thomas
United Press International White House correspondent
ing of innocent people.
Clearly Shultz and Weinberger have a different approach on when to use force and when to withhold the overwhelming firepower of the United States.
Weinberger recently warned that military force should not be used indiscriminately but advocated such attacks if there is an appropriate target.
of Shultz.
"I think there are a lot of people who would get instant gratification from some kind of a bombing attack somewhere without being too worried about details," he said, in what appeared to be an oblique criticism
Saultz, a former Marine officer, is feeling the heat and has been put on the spot more because of his flamboyant rhetoric and threats. For that reason he appears to be failing out against the unseen enemy.
Shultz, who is more prone to want to invoke the use of the military, said the "ambiguities of the terrorist threat should not create impotence" and a policy filled with "so many qualifications and conditions" would lead to paralysis.
Weinberger has said, "I don't think there's any doubt that if we find a very good, appropriate target for response to terrorist actions that anybody would have hesitancy about dealing with it."
cent people for the sake of flexing U.S. military muscle.
The secretary of state, who is supposed to be searching for ways to mediate problems peacefully and to search for possible negotiation, appears to want to abandon that route.
There are unconfirmed reports that administration officials are considering kidnapping terrorists and bringing them to trial in the United States. Such a move would be a defiance of international law and scraps some extradition treaties the United States has with other nations
The United States tried retaliation in terms of the 16-inch guns on the battleship USS New Jersey after the tragedy of the terrorist attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut. While satisfying to those who wanted to strike back, it did not defeat terrorism.
Mailbox
Friends through King
What does Martin Luther King Jr. mean to me? I'm an affluent, Anglo Christian, middle-class American.
The Lump.
That is what he means. My best friend in birth control. Abloh
Thanks for the Lump, man. I hope we're both characters in your dream.
Leavenworth freshman
Before Martin, there never would have been a Lump in my life.
inalienable rights
When the press begins to advocate restricting First-Amendment rights, we should all begin to worry. In the unsigned Jan. 21 editorial "Time to draw the line," the Kansan editor takes the position that by its actions the Ku Klux Klan has somehow destroyed its members' rights of free speech and peaceable assembly. Viewpoint aside, this position is a
preposterous one for a future journalist to take.
I strongly oppose the views of the KKK, as most rational persons undoubtedly do, and believe that any message of race supremacy or hatred is inherently destructive. Nonetheless, I strongly believe that its members' rights of free speech and assembly must be preserved in order for ours to remain an open and vibrant society.
The Kansan position necessarily creates the need for someone to decide whose free speech and assembly rights should be revoked. I inevitably, that power would be used only against those whose views the holder opposed, and the First Amendment would be reduced to idealistic prose, completely void of effect. Far from a playground for short-term reactionism, the Constitution is the firm foundation upon which our legal order must rest.
Craig Hunt
If the Kansan writer is unable to accept the obligation of tolerating opposing viewpoints, perhaps he or she
Lyons third-year law student
attach this particular editorial to their resume and apply for a job at Pravda.
Words spoil the music
The letter in the Jan. 20 Kansey by Don Dorsey is wrong in lauding KANU's announcers and bemoaning the loss of "Jazz in the Afternoon." This show was excellent only as an example of a style of presentation that makes me run to change stations.
Each song was preceded by a long introduction listing the artist, his sidemen, the situation when recorded, the record label, and the quality or rarity of the recording, all delivered by a person so close to the microphone that each breath reverberates through my speaker.
Following each song, the announcer repeats the introduction, fills us in on the "happiness about town" or the upcoming songs, and
then begins to introduce the next number. Although KANU's jazz announcers are particularly fond of this style, the classical announcers, both from KANU and its networks, employ it as well.
I use the radio as background while I write, read, grade papers or converse. The words of the announcers intrude into my thoughts or conversations and distract me with information for which I have little use. I like the current emphasis on classical music because the pieces are longer and the announcers breathe less frequently.
Dorsey may be right that problems exist at KANU, though his gratuitous attack on Howard Hill is not likely to solve them. I suggest that any problems would be solved by adhering to a simple maxim; shut up and play good music.
Anthony W. Walton associate professor of geology