VvVvVYt'ft tyfJV"V ?-' 10,.
editorial p5fe(ni pgs
Deficit dump
If events continue true to recent form, it
appears that students will soon be getting the
short end of the stick once again.
This time it looks like students may be
asked to foot all or part of a $1.4 million
dollar deficit incurred by some miraculous
means or other by the administration.
How the deficit was brought about is not
exactly clear. All that has been advanced as a
reason thus far is avague mumbling about
lower-than-anticipated enrollment,
less-than-expected registration hours, and an
unexpected drop in residency requirements.
It seems hard to believe, somehow, that the
University under normal operations would
not be able to estimate within a million
dollars what its budget need be.
On the other hand, it does not seem too
farfetched that the University would try to
pin that deficit on the students. As the single
interest group in the issue among state
citizens, faculty, administration and
legislators-which has the least political
power, it is not hard to see why a tuition hike
and scholarship cuts are being perused as
solutions to the deficit.
Admittedly the tuition hike and
scholarship slashes are just two of five ways
suggested to defray the red ink. The other
three ways asking the legislature for more
money, using excess grant funds and
reduction of spending seem less likely as
courses of action, sadly enough.
It seems fairly certain that the Board of
Regents would not go to the Legislature to
ask for more funds only months before the
University budget for next year comes before
that group.
The regents never have had much backbone
in confronting the Legislature in budgetary
matters. Often where a few, well-chosen
words to the Unicameral would have secured
funds to improve the Univetsity, the regents
have chosen a deafening silence as their mode
of operation.
Nor is it likely that the regents would use
grant funds for immediate budgetary help.
Too many of the regents view the grant as an
untouchable item, not to be handled by
human hands. And it would provide only
temporary help.
Possible, but still unlikely is that the
regents would find the funds in an area where
most of the deficit probably began in
academic and administrative spending. Few
will begrudge the University its spending in
the former area.
There is little data to support the idea that
the University has misused any academic
funding. The latter area, however, would seem
to be the ideal .place tor some hatcheting at
this time. Even though the Crasap
Management Report claims the University is
not "over administrated", it seems likely to us
that if the money must be found within the
University, the administrative areas are the
most likely prospects for budget-slicing.
To postpone roofing jobs, curtail
mimeograph costs and dismiss even a few
teachers would be entirely against the goals of
an advancing educational system. Throwing
away some red tape, on the other hand, might
even be an improvement.
This, certainly should be a last resort,
however, And the regents will probably see it
as such.
Which means one thing-most likely
students will, quite wrongfully, have to pay
for a deficit incurred by administrative
mis-estimation. And once again students will
have to pay more money to get the same or
less. Some things never change.
Jim Gray
Agnew heir apparent for 76
Now that campaign 72 is behind us, it is certainly
not premature to begin speculation about who will be
challenging whom come 1976. Even though the next
Presidential election is not for a seemingly infinite
four more years, the jockeying for partisan position
has already begun in earnest.
Starting with the victorious Republican Party,
Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, as of now anyway,
must be regarded as the leader of the GOP pack to .
succeed Richard Nixon. Voters saw in the "new'
Agnew of 1972 a much more moderate, mellow,
restrained and independent veep compared to the
harsh and divisive 1968 and 1970 model. This change
was obviously anticipated as needed by the vice
president in order to bolster his chances of winning
the White House.
On the negative side, however, are Agnew's
lingering image as a bumbling bigot and political
polemist of polarization, the fact that GOP moderates
will be out to cut him down, and the unavoidable
reality of some 20-odd primaries in which he will
have to take his case to the people.
Still, Agnew, as part of a competent and highly
popular national administration, his immense
adoration among the party rank and file developed
from his constant cultivation of them while stumping
john vihstodt
the country for lesser GOP candidates, and the
basically moderate to conservative ideology of the
Republican Party will make him difficult to beat for
the 1976 nomination.
The most promising potential rival for Agnew is
the moderate senior senator from Illinois, 53-year-old
Charles Harting Percy. Polling a landslide 62.5 per
cent of the vote in his re-election bid last week,
higher than that of the president in Illinois, Percy
represents the best hope for party moderates, liberals
and disenchanted conservatives to deny Agnew the
nomination. Looking towards 76, the senator is
building on "people concerns"-fashioning programs
in the areas of care for the elderly, consumerism, and
tax reform, for example-programs to which the GOP
must address itself if it wishes to elect another
president.
Handsome and inspirational, Percy's re-election
ads proclaimed that "He is his own man . . . free to
vote for you," while his blue and white buttons
stated simply "proudly for Percy." To be sure, the
big winner from Illinois has several liabilities. His
progressive and independent voting record has not
endeared him to party regulars, he occasionally
appears wishy-washy and indecisive, and he will have
a lot of catching up to do to build up needed contacts
with the Republican organizations throughout the
country.
While it looks like an Agnew-Percy clash for the
GOP nod as of now, there are hosts' of possible
candidates' in both wings' of the party should either
the' vice presldeKtVr'trie'rhfrf fVom Illinois fail.
If Agnew stumbles or decides not to run (the latter
a not too improbable proposition since the veep it
known to have no burning ambition to become
President), fellow conservatives may turn to freshman
Sen. Bill Brock of Tennessee, 41, tough and bright
originator and director of the gigantic Republican
youth arm-the Young Voters for the President
(YVP); California Gov. Ronald Regan, who by the
next election would be a rather ripe 65; Conservative
Sen. James Buckley of New York, perhaps a bit too
bland and ideologically oriented; GOP National
Chairperson Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas; Florida Sen.
Robert Gurney; or Sen. John Tower of Texas.
Should the candidacy of Percy somehow
dematerialize as a positive moderate alternative to
Agnew, there are more than enough dark horses in
reserve to take up the slack. Liberal Sen. Edward
Brooke of Massachusetts, the Senate's only black and
fresh from a landslide re-election triumph in the only
state George McGovern was able to carry, is keeping
the option open, as is moderate Sen. Howard Baker
of Tennessee, . probably the most progressive
Republican senator from the South. t
Forty-year-old Richard Lugar of Indianapolis,
often heralded as Nixon's favorite mayor, is
encouraging speculation by both his comments ("I'm
hopeful I'll be considered for President of the U.S. in
this decade." Newsweek, September 4, 1972) and his
actions (He came to Miami Beach with a publicity
bankroll of over $100,000, and his staff is mailing
fancy multi-color brochures touting his background
and qualifications to GOP hierarchy in every state.
Furthermore, he is accepting speaking engagements at
GOP rallies all around the country, one of them a
GOP rally here in Lincoln before the spring primary.)
Other possibilities include Cost of Living Council
Director (and former Illinois Congressman) Donald
Rumsfeld, young, charismatic, and from a strategic
state; 40-year-old Oregon Sen. Bob Packwood, who
upset incumbent Wayne Morse back in 1963;
Michigan Gov. William Midi ken; Sen. Robert Taft, Jr.
of Ohio; Connecticut Gov. Thomas Me j kill; Interior
Secretary Rogers Morton; and Nelson Rockefeller of
New York, who is likely to shoot for a record fifth
term as the Empire State's governor in 1974.
Representatives John Ashbrook and Paul McCloskey,
while both winning convincing re-election victories
this year, are unlikely to figure in future Presidential
odds.
YBE OUR
LITTLE 30Y SPIBO UIU-
6Pou op spmePAYTD be.
PReSlOEIOT OF THE"
MATTER. OF FACT,
Well. Vc. OF A6E
in
Then, of course, there is John Connally, former
treasury secretary and more recently National
Director of Democrats for Nixon. Chances are that he
will be back in the administration next year, perhaps
as Secretary of State or Defense. If he is to obtain the
GOP nomination in 1976, the script would have it
that he formally switch his party registration in late
1973 or early 1974, campaign diligently for fellow
Republicans in the 1974 mid-term elections to fortify
his new party credentials, and then run all out for the
nomination.
So while Spiro Agnew must be cautiously regarded
as the favorite right now, the plethora of other
conceivable candidates hardly make the 1976 fight
for the GOP Presidential nomination a foregone
conclusion. j
page 4
daily nebraskan
Wednesday, november 15, 1972
