friday, October 30, 1931
page 4
daily nebraskan
Thone plan may harm state
If Gov. Charles Thone gets his way, Nebra
skans will witness no raise in state sales and in
come tax rates for the rest of this year.
Ordinarily, that would present no problem,
because tax rates for the year were set much
earlier.
But the state now stares at a $22 million to
S24 million deficit in appropriations that is ex
pected to increase to $30 million by July. The
deficit is blamed on a recessionary economy
that has thrown off projections of the amount
of taxes that would be collected.
Thone has called a special session of the Ne
braska Legislature, which convenes today, to
introduce his proposal to cut $25.4 million
from this year's state appropriations rather
than raise taxes.
That would mean a savings of $8.7 million
through a 3 percent across the board cut for
state agencies, $5.6 million in deferred con
struction projects, $5 million in program cuts
greater than 3 percent and other decreases.
Nebraskans may be ecstatic or apathetic that
Thone is pushing to keep taxes stable. Govern
ment has grown so much in Nebraska that it
has become a major part of Lincoln's economy,
making the trend in tax rates anything but
downward.
Federal, and more recently, state govern
ments have taken on roles as protectors of
social welfare. They promote our future by en
hancing such concerns as education, Social
Security and ecology, to name a few.
But the mentality of the Reagan administrat
ion has been to wipe out those concerns by
lowering federal income taxes and lopping fed
eral programs.
The Reagan administration has created a
dangerous illusion that we can go back to pre
Great Depression times and function without
the auspices of big government.
Times have changed. For more than a
decade, the nation has suffered through high
inflation and high unemployment. The market
forces that produced this engima cannot be
expected to reverse it.
The same mentality of reducing government
at the federal level may be filtering to the state
level in Nebraska.
A major part of the state's deficit - $10
million - is directly related to cuts in federal
income taxes, because state income taxes,
collected at a rate of 15 percent of the federal
rate, are automatically being reduced with the
federal cuts.
Wasteful government should not be equated
with big government. Thone is correct in his
bid to lower funding for programs that may
not use their appropriations this year, such as
the grasshopper fund and the governor's emer
gency fund.
However, the Legislature must consider, in
its seven-day minimum task, whether lowering
state funds and possibly impeding welfare, is
in our interest.
Budget cuts, in the long run, may cost tax
payers more in terms of crippled, lost or never
started programs than would a simple tax rate
increase.
Alice Hrhicek
Broker's sexual interest rate wanes
In a desperate attempt to shore up a sagging economy,
the president's economic advisers are now considering
supplying the nation's stockbrokers with satin sheets,
powdered rhinoceros horn and free subscriptions to
"Lust," the magazine of meaningful interviews.
What stimulated this imaginative proposal was the re
cent discovery by psychologists of a direct correlation be
tween sex and the Dow Jones industrial average.
"When the market goes down," explained one, "memb
ers of the financial community feel tense, dispirited and
inadequate - scarcely the mood in which sexual interest
might flourish."
For proof of this theory, one need look no further
than to Felicia Frisbee and her husband, Fred, once an
ebullient and ambitious young broker.
"When Mr. Reagan was elected," said Felicia, dabbing
at her mascara with a Kleenex, "our marriage seemed
made in heaven. Fred would come home every evening
with candy or flowers, take me in his arms and murmur
sweet nothings in my ear like: 'I find you and the high
tech glamour issues irresistible, dearest.'
"Oh, I can still remember the night the Dow Jones
O
D
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industrials hit 1000! Fred hadn't been that bullish since
our honeymoon. In fact, for the entire following week,
every time E.F. Hutton talked, I got a headache."
Then the market plummeted 150 points. The spark,
needless to say, went out of Fred and Felicia's marriage.
"I did everything I could," sobbed Felicia. "I would
greet him at the door in my black lace baby-dolls with a
cold martini in my hand. He'd take the martini, look at
me as though 1 were ten shares of Pan-Am and turn on
'Laverne and Shirley.'
"During our candlelit dinners, I'd pour him a glass of
wine, put on a Montovani record and whisper encouraging
little tidbits in his ear, such as, 'Louis Rukeyser says many
attractive assets are now within reach.'
"But he'd merely mutter, 'Down! Down! Down!
Everything's going down! I mean he's been a real bear."
Whether Fred and Felicia's marriage can survive is one
question. Whether the economy can survive is another.
For if a sinking stock market can depress sexual interest,
the converse is equally true.
Each morning across the land, stockbrokers get out of
bed feeling tense, dispirited and inadequate. When they
arrive at the office in this mood, do they optimistically
buy? No, they pessimistically sell. And down the market
plunges further. It's a vicious cycle.
Now we see the ingenuity behind the plan proposed by
the president's economic advisers. It is not the high
interest rate in lending that is causing our woes; it is the
low interest rate in sex.
One adviser frankly admitted that his major concern in
this hour of national economic crisis was whether powder
ed rhinoceros horn would work.
"But look at it this way," he said. "You got anything
better?"
(c) Chronicle Publishing Co.
Editorial
policy
Editorial published in the Daily Nebraskan without a
byline are written by Tom Prentiss, editor for the fall
1981 semester. The name of any other staff member who
may write the lead editorial will be printed at the end of
the article.
Editorials printed in the Daily Nebraskan represent the
policy of the fall, 1981 Daily Nebraskan, but do not nec
essarily reflect the views of the University of Nebraska, its
employees or the NU Board of Regents.
The Daily Nebraskan's publishers are the members of
the Board of Regents, who have established a Publications
Board to supervise the daily production of the newspaper
According to the policy set by the regents, the content of
the UNL student newspaper lies solely in the hands of its
student editors.
State control can
maintain quality of
non-public schools
John DeCamp should call out "Bingo" on this one. He
finally hit the mark.
DeCamp, the state senator from Neligh, pointed out
that it's time the stage get involved in the growing battle
of public vs. private education. He's absolutely right.
For months now - ever since the Nebraska Supreme
Court ordered the doors of Louisville's Faith Christian
School closed - the private school sector has had its way
about the rights of their schools and teachers. Good for
them. But now, it's the state's turn.
The state can take that turn in Legislative Resolution
108. The resolution calls for a study of how much state
regulation and supervision is needed in private schools.
Most importantly, the resolution will try to answer this:
Should our private school teachers and curriculum be
state-accredited?
LR108 was discussed Wednesday at the Capitol where
DeCamp made his remarks. While EteCamp argued that the
state should start talking about and providing solutions
for the public-private school conflict, a UNL education
professor did just that.
Don McCurdy, professor of curriculum and instruction
said 'he state accreditation is vital, according to the
Lincoln Journal. He was quoted as saying that teachers
should be certified to protect students from incompetent
instructors and inadequate schools.
McCurdy's solution to the problem from the Journal:
"Schools and teachers cannot be allowed to function
without guidance from the state."
The professor offers the most clear, concise and
straightforward solution I've heard to date. He doesn't get
tangled up in whether education of children is parent's
God-given right.
He doesn't question whether Christian schools are
better than non-Christian ones. In fact, McCurdy totally
discounts that the issue has anything to do with religion.
McCurdy is partially wrong. Private schools, by and
large, have a great deal to do with religion. That is why
they are private - so they can implant religious beliefs
and values in their students.
But McCurdy is right that being private is no excuse for
being bad, that being private is no reason for hiring un
licensed teachers or teaching unapproved curriculae.
From personal experience - I attended 12 years of pri
vate school - good teachers are about the only thing pri
vate schools can brag about. They have few of the facilit
ies, the supplies and the programs supplied to public
schools. They get none of the state's money.
But they do have good teachers dedicated to providing
good education. In fact, they are probably more dedicat
ed than public school teachers because they work for such
low wages and with such dilapidated supplies.
To give private schools free reign by removing any state
control, is to perhaps remove their only redeeming
features.
Without state law, the private schools currently hiring
teachers without certification will continue to do so. The
result is discriminatory education: students attending pri
vate schools just aren't getting the same caliber of educat
ion as are public school students.
Yes, allow, even encourage private education to con
tinue. But as McCurdy said, be sure the state stands firm
in requiring that this nation's children are adequately educated.
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The Daily Nebraskan encourages brief letters to
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Letters will be selected for publication on the
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Readers are also welcome to submit material as
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Submit all material to the Dairy Nebraskan.
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