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toy
Education would benefit
by tax-break incentives
College and university groups are
on the right track in urging President
Ronald Reagan's administration to
provide tax incentives for donations
to institutions of higher education.
In support of this request, the
groups have pointed to several nag
ging economical aches causing pain
to most American industries and to
the business of higher education as
well.
As is true with most, if not all,
major industries, inflation has taken
its toll on education. Inflation has
been a double-edged sword piercing
the resources colleges and universi
ties have been relying upon for their
livelihood.
Students who work traditionally
hold down lower paying jobs than
full-time workers who are able to
generate more energy to their jobs or
already are employed in their career
area. Therefore, the amount of
money students are able to channel
toward education is limited because
of the rapidly rising cost of living.
On the other side of the educa
tional coin, faculty salaries have not
kept pace with inflation, capital im
provements have lagged and equip
ment is deteriorating.
It's a vicious cycle. Students are
being asked to make a greater sacri
fice to pursue an education while the
institutions are not able to sustain
the level of education that has been
available.
Reagan promised during his cam
paign for the presidency that he
would seek legislation offering tax
breaks for all taxpayers who make
charitable contributions. Currently,
only those taxpayers who itemize
their deductions qualify for these tax
breaks.
These incentives should be extend
ed, as the president has pledged, but
they should be extended even
further to include colleges and uni
versities. Donations to colleges and univer
sities are methods of providing neces
sary resources to help meet the needs
of students and faculty. Providing
incentives, such as the tax breaks for
educational donations, should be
encouraged to help these institutions
meet their goals and responsibilities.
V
Still not dead?
35
Reagan may not dare
Washington-At 9 pjn. EST, April
30, 1970, Richard Nixon announced
that U.S. ground forces had crossed into
Cambodia to strike at the sanctuaries of
the North Vietnamese. A few days later,
four students at Kent State University
were shot to death by the Ohio National
Guard. A hundred universities closed
their doors. A firestorm of protest be
came a conflagration.
Even though a majority of Americans
supported the operation, an unsettled
president hastily announced that all
Cambodian operations would end in 60
days, that U.S. forces would not pene
trate more than 23 miles inside enemy
occupied Cambodia.
That pledge, a chagrined Nixon
would concede later, was among the
major errors of his presidency. Having
already taken the shower of slander for
allegedly "widening the war," the presi
dent denied himself the military bene-
i r'
l j I J "
7
bycEianan
fits of his command decision. It was a
pristine example of "Courage and Hesi
tation," the title of a volume on the
early Nixon years by novelist Allen
Drury.
In the Great Budget War of 1981,
there are straws in the wind that Ronald
Reagan is about to repeat the error.
Following Reagan's 44-state sweep,
the administration organized a budget
blitzkrieg that scattered and confused
the opposition. An estimated $50
billion is to be cut-or attempted to be
cut-from Jimmy Carter's 1982 budget.
Scores of programs, many heretofore
"untouchables," are scheduled for
severe cuts: food stamps, CETA jobs,
public broadcasting, the National En
dowment for the Arts, to name a few.
Yet, coupled with the audacity re
vealed in one day's inside story is in
variably a reported climb-down in the
next.
When State leaked David Stockman's
proposed cuts in foreign aid to the
Washington Post, the administration
according to most reports -beat a hasty
retreat to a position of compromise.
When anticipated voices arose in pro
test against "balancing the budget on
the backs of the poor," the White I louse
press office listed the sacrosanct seven,
S210 billion in social programs, off
limits to Stockman's axmen.
Among the seven were veterans bene
fits and Social Security. But why should
retirees be given a 14 percent increase in
benefits, tax-free, in 1980, while the
young workers, who support Social
Security, were asked to settle for 9 per
cent pay hikes, subject to progressive
state and federal taxes? Is this equitable,
just, fair?
But the most disquieting decision of
the week was the President's own. He
has, apparently, backed off from the
idea of reducing from 70 percent to 50
percent the maximum tax on "unearned
income"-i.e., interest on savings
accounts and dividends from stock
investments.
The President's men are fearful of
attacks from Tip O'Neill's remnant that,
while cutting "food stamps for the
needy," they are giving windfall tax
breaks for the boys at the 19th hole at
Burning Tree.
If the Reaganites can be stampeded
by this political prospect, then, the
game is already up. For the charge that
Ronald Reagan is the Rich Man's Presi
dent, the Benefactor of Bohemian
Grove, is coming in any event. It is the
political price the President must pay
now if he is to win the economic pro
gress promised for 1982, 1983 and
1984.
If Reagan's supply-side economics
succeeds, all the demagoguery about
"welfare for the rich" will not matter.
If, however, the President makes his tax
reductions so modest, so timid, that
they cannot produce an economic take
off, none of his eloquence will spare
him the consequences of failure in 1982
and 1984.
In short, there is no substitute for
audacity; and there are no tax reduc
tions that will bring the President more
"bang for the buck" than cutting the
tax on unearned income from 70 per
cent to 50 percent and chopping the
capital gains tax from 28 percent to the
lowest level possible.
While the first beneficiaries of any
tax cuts will be, primarily, those with
interest and dividend income and capi
tal gains, that is not the primary pru
pose of the cuts. The purpose: to con
vince the most productive and affluent
Americans-who control discretionary
capital-to stop spending their hours
searching for tax shelters, "business
vacations" and tax-deductible BMWs,
and to start putting their capital to
work, in savings and investments that
lead to productivity growth and jobs.
If John F. Kennedy could argue for
a tax cut from 90 percent to 70 per
cent on interest and dividends as an in
centive to growth-a tax cut that work-ed-why
cannot Ronald Reagan sell the
same idea? The great trepidation of
Ronald Reagan's admirers is not that he
will dare greatly and fall short, but that
he will not dare at all, that the New
Conservatism will be judged by its ene
mies a failure without having been
attempted by its believers.
(c) 1981 By PJB Enterprises. Inc.
Distributed by The Chicago Tribune N.Y.
News Syndicate, Inc.
Regents' actions lack concern for NU students
The NU Board of Regents has proven once again that it
really doesn't care about students attending the University
of Nebraska or the opinions of those students. Represent
tatives of the students and two campus newspapers asked
the regents not to discontinue pay for the student reg
ents. The NU attorney told the regents that student reg
ents were paid as presidents not as NU regents. But as
usual, the regents ignored the voice of the students and
outside advice. The board took away the pay for student
regents.
ricSiardson
The recent action, plus the board's failure to include a
student on its own executive committee, are vindictive
moves against ASUN president and student regent Re
nee Wessels. The regents not only have called Wessels im
mature and abrasive, as well as other names, but they have
also insulted her several times in public.
While Wessels tried to let the regents know what the
students wanted, she was continually confronted with a
wall. If the regents would have listened to Wessels, they
would have found that students were concerned and still
are concerned about the university's underpaid faculty,
control of student fees, affirmative action, the university
libraries and laboratory fees.
Perhaps Wessels upset the regents by criticizing their
actions. But Regent Robert Prokop and other board
members who get upset about criticism should keep in
mind that the essence of democracy is the ability to dis
agree and criticize. But the students of the university are
being punished because they and their representatives
disagreed with the regents.
In all fairness, who is being immature? The regents are
essentially saying immaturity is disagreeing with their
way of doing things. The future of the university should
not be treated like a game. If the regents insist upon
making important university business a game, they should
take their marbles home and let someone else play the
game, preferably the students.
The regents owe Wessels an apology for all of their
insults. And in the future they should make a more
concrete effort to deal with the major problems of the
university, instead of attacking the voice of the students.
A review of the regents business done last year proves
the board members are making a game out of a serious
job. While the regents debated for several months the fate
of student football tickets, faculty members continued
to be paid salaries that did not keep up with inflation or
were not competitive enough to attract new and qualified
professors.
While the regents talked about a magnificent regional
veterinary college, Bessey and Architecture Halls contin
ued to crumble.
The regents last month refused to reaffirm their com
mitment to an 18 percent budget request, while the
Business and Engineering Colleges overflowed with
students.
The same board that refuses to listen to the voice of
students continues to increase tuition and more recently
started a policy to charge laboratory fees. Keep in mind
this also is the same university system where the president
has a maid and chauffeur and the students have
graduate assistants whom the students cannot under
stand. The students are the reason the university exists.
Without students, no school system can operate. Because
students mean so much to a university, they should be
involved in policy decisions. The students should have
a vote on the NU Board of Regents and they should be
allowed to determine if they want their student body
president to receive a salary.
There's one way to bring the importance of students
in perspective for the regents. Without students, there
would be no football team. And without a football team
the regents would not receive 10 free season tickets.
