n
thursday, november 5, 1981
lincoln, nebraska vol. 107 no. 52
Copyright Daily Nebraskan 1981
O
vy
Legislature squabbles over budget cut motions
By Leslie Kendrick
The Nebraska Legislature Wednesday defeated two
amendments to Gov. Charles Thone's proposed budget
cuts and adopted amendments concerning aid to depend
ent children, deferment of cigarette tax revenues and
Commission on Aging funds.
Thone has called for the special session to cut the
state's budget by $25 million. Existing state tax rates will
leave the state short by that amount.
Defeated was Waverly Sen. Jerome Warner's amend
ment which proposed a 1 percent increase in state income
tax and a $6 million cut in the state budget.
Sen. Rex Haberman of Imperial said he opposed an in
crease in state income tax at a time when there were
1,000 people in Omaha lining up for 200 jobs. Haberman
said the Legislature ought to study other states methods
of increasing state revenue without adopting an increase
or not," DeCamp said.
DeCamp said the amendment would be interpreted
by the media as simply a tax increase, and the Legislature
should approve Thone's budget proposal intact.
The Warner amendment is a compromise, said Sen.
Elroy Hefner of Coleridge.
"If we don't realize this is a compromise we may need
2 to 5 percent in taxes next year," Hefner said.
Warner compared the adoption of Thone's budget pro
posal to the U.S. Senate's approval of the sale of AWACs
to Saudi Arabia.
"What ever happened to your own judgment? If you
believe it's wrong then vote that way," Warner said.
An amendment proposed by Lincoln Sen. Chris
Beutler, Dave Landis and Don Wesley also was defeated.
The amendment proposed a 1 percent cut in state support
of local governments and a 1 percent cut for state agenc
ies. Many of Nebraska's local governments are able to get
by with a 1 percent reduction in state aid, Wesley said.
The amendment says the state will hold taxes down with
out singling out state agencies for reductions, he said.
Landis said the effect on local governments would be
negligible and would equal less than one-tenth of 1 per
cent of the city's total budget.
Omaha Sen. Carol Pirsch likened the state's relation
ship to local governments as a parent-child relationship.
Pirsch. said local governments should not have to sacrifice
for the parents.
Landis said he objected to the attitude that the state
shouldn't break promises made to the local governments.
"We can break our promises to the university students,
we can break our promises to the mentally retarded, but
God forbid we should break our promises to the cities,"
Landis said.
Warner's amendment concerning the budget of the
State Commission on Aging passed. Warner said the
amendment will force the commission to accept the cuts
proposed by Thone but require the commission to take all
cuts in their operational costs. This will guarantee that aid
given by the commission will not be reduced.
Continued on Page 7
Priest says Guatemalan rebels 'not communists'
By Mary Louise Knapp
A self-imposed obligation to inform Americans of
mounting terrorism and poverty in Guatemala has
prompted The Rev. Fernando Lopez, a Guatemalan
Catholic priest, to speak on the issue in the United States.
Lopez, who said he left Guatemala in July of 1980 be
cause of repeated threats on his life by the country's
army, visited Lincoln Wednesday to address a Free Uni
versity course on Guatemala. He spoke Wednesday even
ing in the Nebraska Union.
Lopez' visit and travel expenses were paid by Nebra
skans for Peace.
"I don't like to remember it (the problems in Guate
mala) but I have to do it," Lopez said in a Wednesday
interview. "Americans don't have the information that
they need about the situation."
Lopez had been working with Indian peasants in the
Quiche province of Guatemala to help them establish agri
cultural cooperatives and better living conditions when
the political climate forced him to flee, he said.
Two of his fellow priests in the province had already
been killed when he left, he said.
The bishop of the archdiocese of the Quiche province
and church workers in the area decided to close down all
church activity and leave the area.
Lopez said church workers are being persecuted be
cause of their efforts to improve the lives of the Guate
malan peasants, most of whom live on two-and-a-half
acres of land. In order to supplement their income, the
peasants must work on coffee or cotton plantations in the
tropic lowlands of the country for a salary of about $2.50
for 14 hours of work, he said.
The illiteracy rate in Guatemala's country of 7.5
million people, is 72 percent. Less government funds are
going toward education every year, Lopez said.
'The government is encouraging illiteracy by killing
university professors and students," Lopez said.
Students endangered
'To be a student in Guatemala is dangerous, and to be
a professor is even more so," he said.
More than 100 university professors have been killed
by the army's death squads in the past few years and
population of Guatemala universities has fallen from
30,000 to 7, 000, he said.
Health problems are rampant among the population,
with an average of one doctor for every 8,000 people. In
the Quiche province where Lopez worked, three doctors
serve a population of 350,000, he said.
DeCamp favors energy independence
By Melinda Norris
Nebraska will be facing a depression in the near future
if citizens don't work toward energy independence, pre
dicted state Sen. John DeCamp at the ASUN Senate meet
ing Wednesday.
With the deregulation of natural gas, dramatic increases
in prices are expected, DeCamp said. These increases com
bined with the state's dependency on natural gas will
cause energy costs to play a major role in the state's
budget and the personal income of citizens.
Nebraska imports 95 percent of its raw energy sources
and "lives and dies on natural gas," DeCamp said.
DeCamp compared the expected rise in natural gas
prices to oil prices after deregulation took effect in 1973.
In 1973, gas was 29.9 cents a gallon and that price
didn't hurt that much because personal and corporate in
come was going up at the same rate, DeCamp said.
However, in 1978 energy costs were beginning to move
ahead of income, he said.
In 1970, one out of every $5 in the state was spent for
energy, DeCamp said. By 1980, the cost for energy moved
up only a few percentage points, but the absolute amount
tripled from $ 1 billion to $3 billion.
In 1985, with the deregulation of natural gas, the cost
for gas may increase by 35 percent, considering an
approximate annual increase of 16 percent, DeCamp said.
However, DeCamp explained that in different communit
ies, annual increases could start at 35 percent, 40 percent
or 60 percent.
"If we keep going the way we are," DeCamp said, "one
out of every $3 of income will be going strictly for
energy."
DeCamp explained that as citizens start allotting more
of their income to pay fuel bills, they will spend less
money in other areas. This shift will bring a drop in retail
sales, he said.
Northeastern states experienced a depression betweei
1973 and 1980, during the deregulation of oil, because of
their 95 percent dependency, DeCamp said.
"Because of the deregulation of natural gas, it will
happen to Nebraska " DeCamp said.
DeCamp suggested Nebraska should "unhook" its de
pendency on imported fuel through efficiency and
develop its own resources.
"We need task forces in communities to get the work
going," DeCamp said. "We need to develop groups for
next year to whop the senators on the side of the head
with a two-by-four to get major energy legislation
passed,"
DeCamp said Nebraska has an unlimited solar
potential, but that the small solar companies in Nebraska
are "undercapitalized" and that the state legislature has
provided "not much to make them go, and everything to
discourage them."
Lopez said the Guatemalan "death squads," soldiers of
the Guatemalan army and police officers, are directly re
sponsible for Guatemalan president Romeo Lucas Garcia.
"He (Garcia) is reponsible for the genocide of the
Guatemalan people," Lopez said. "He is defending his
own wealth."
Lopez said that 72 percent of the land in Guatemala is
owned by wealthy bureaucrats and military oficers, with
the majority of this land owned by Garcia himself.
The landowners do not want the peasants to improve
their standard of living because they want to protect their
own interests, he said.
Lopez said that Garcia's conservative government has
long been assisted by the United States, and that support
from the Reagan administration is likely to increase
because of the administration's hard line on "communist"
governments.
Capitalism won't work
The Guatemalan resistance groups believe the capital
ism will not work in the Guatemalan government, but
they are not advocating communism, Lopez said.
"They call us communists, but I've never even known a
communist," Lopez said.
He said that there are international rumors that the
Guatemalan resistance organizations are getting financial
help from Cuba and the Soviet Union, but that he had
never seen any representatives from either country in
Guatemala.
"I've seen many Americans, though, and I know they
have military advisers in Guatemala," he said.
"Seventy-two percent of the people are illiterate,"
Lopez added. 'They don't even know who Karl Marx is.
They're not communists. What they're fighting for is their
own lives."
In 1975, the Guatemalan army appropriated land
which was being used for agricultural cooperatives for
Indian peasants because oil had been found on it, Lopez
said.
"We (the church workers and Indian families) had a
legal title to the land, but then the army came up with a
title from 1928 or 1929 that said they owned the land,"
Lopez said.
BudsE
o
tarsday
Out of the Running: Sen. Don Dworak announces he's
dropping out of a race he never was in Page 2
Stillwater Showdown: Oklahoma State football Coach
Jimmy Johnson says the Cowboys will have to play
outstanding football to stay with the Huskers Satur
day , Page 8
Sheldon Showcase: A 75-piece showing of the "works of
Thomas Hart Benton opens at Sheldon Memorial Art
Gallery , , , page 10