Thursday, October 21, 1982
Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
Editorial
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Koefoot receives
DN endorsement
It's hard to find many measurable differences between
the two candidates running for the 5th District seat on
the NU Board of Regents.
Robert Koefoot, the incumbent from Grand Island,
believes the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Re
sources is vital to the university. James Norton, the
challenger from David City, says the "Ag College should
be as number one as . . . (the) football team."
Koefoot said in a recent Daily Nebraskan interview
that "faculty salaries are key to a quality university."
Norton said about the same thing.
Norton, in an interview before the May primary
election, said he favored requiring some sort of admis
sions standards, an issue raised last semester by the
board. Koefoot said the same.
Both said the NU budget is inadequate but have
indicated they are not willing to fight for more.
On what, then, do Koefoot, the doctor, and Norton,
the lawyer, disagree? A few key issues. Among them:
- Pay for student presidentsregents. Norton said he
agrees with the current policy of denying student presi
dentsregents a salary. He believes students should run
for the dual-role office as a "service," hot to collect
a salary.
Koefoot has consistently said the student president
regent should collect a salary 'for his or her duties as
president.
- Student regent vote: Koefoot is flatly against it.
Because student regents serve on the board only one
year (the length of their presidential term), they don't
have time to learn enough to vote, he has said.
Earlier Norton had no opinion on the vote.
- Budget appropriations. Koefoot supports asking
the Nebraska Legislature for a lump-sum budget. Nor
ton opposes that idea, saying the "Legislature is en
titled to know where the university, intends to spend
it (money)."
s Alcohol w campus: In their pre-primary interviews,
the' candidates were asked about the Residence Hall
Association proposal to allow liquor in the halls. Nor
ton said he would support such a policy. Koefoot op
posed it, saying the policy is "too liberal the way it
is."
Because Koefoot is in his second six-year term on
the board, we know better where he stands than we do
his opponent. Although he has not been an especially
vocal regent, he has voted surprisingly pro-student in a
few important instances.
He voted for a $26.8 million budget in the fall of
1980, saying the "board has a responsibility to edu
cate the young people of the state."
During the term of ASUN president Rick Mockler,
he supported a Mockler resolution for helping students
find financial aid.
He recently told the Daily Nebraskan that the big
gest problem facing students is finding the money for
college. And although his suggestion to find that money
(get part-time jobs - "God helps those who help them
selves") may not sound too appealing, he has shown
empathy for student concerns.
Because of that empathy - and because the board
needs members with his experience - the Daily Ne
braskan endorses Robert Koefoot for the Sth District
seat.
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Editorial
policy
Unsigned editorials re
present the opinion of the
fall 1982 Daily Nebraskan.
They are written by this
semester's editor in chief,
Patti Gallagher.
Other staff editors write
one editorial in her place
each week. Those will carry
the author's name and title
after the final sentence.
Editorials do not neces
sarily reflect the views of
the university, its employees
or the NU Board of Re
gents. The Daily Nebraskan's
publishers are the regents,
who established "the UNL
Publications Board to super
vise the daily production
of the newspaper.
Reagan's recovery theory f aile
I Am The People, The Mob
. . . When I, the People, learn to remember, when I,
the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer
forget who robbed me last .year, who played me for a
fool - then there will be no speaker in the world say the
name: "The People, " with any fleck of a sneer in his
voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob - the crowd - the mass - will arrive then.
- Carl Sandburg
"Stay the course,"
Is
ijf Jeff Allen
Two years ago when President Reagan came before
Congress he presented a theory to the representatives of
the "people." The theory would become reality he said,
you support i They did. Born of this support was the
Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA), the "Conceptual
framework of supply-side economics."
It was through this act, Reagan stated, that consumers
and businesses would receive a return of their tax dollars,
resulting in increased investment, prosperity and employ
ment. Much to the disappointment of Congress, individual
investors and corporations that received tax refunds were
not reinvesting their returned capital. Most, in fact, had
applied the windfall as partial or total payments to
existing debts. What funds, if any, that remained were
"held in balance" as investors anticipated an improved
economy where such investment dollars would yield
higher profits.
The result, therefore, was not greater productivity and
increased employment, but rocketing unemployment and
a "hemorrhaging federal budget deficit."
Reagan's response to the first-phase failure of ERTA
.was not, however, to "stay the course " Less than six
months after the ERTA package was in place, the Reagan
administration instituted the largest tax increase in the his
tory of the United States. Reagan stated that the record
$98.3 billion tax increase (House Resolution 4961) was
not a tax increase at all, but a "plan" for the improved
enforcement of existing tax law.
The Council on State Governments revealed, however,
tfttfltTonly $21 bilitotf IJIicreaseii
be collected through "measures designed to gain"
compliance with existing tax law." The president failed
to mention that HR4961 contained provisions for taxing
individuals by an additional $18 billion and businesses by
an additional $50 billion. Was this the same President
Regan who reported just four months prior to HR 496 1
in his 1982 State of the Union address that: "Raising
taxes will slow economic growth, reduce production and
destroy future jobs"?
The Reagan administration has nominally recognized
the high human cost of "staying (he course." He has
warned voters to beware, however, of those who would
use the human cost of high unemployment as a stepping
stone to political office. But it is Reagan who has used the
nation's 10.1 percent unemployed as a means of dis
guising even deeper economic trouble.
Reviewing the ramifications of the ERTA collapse,
the Council of State Governments revealed that states will
be even bigger losers in Reagan's New Federalism program
than the already U-plus million unemployed.
Unfortuantely, the CSG has concluded that Nebraska
could be the biggest loser of -all.
According th the CSG, states like Nebraska that "tie"
state tax statutes to the federal tax code not only lost
revenue when federal tax rates decreased through ERTA,
but lost a considerable amount when Reagan shifted ad
ministrative responsibility of federal programs to states.
Continued on Page 5
Liberal species endangered, but not yet extinct
Somewhere in the bowels of Hamilton Hall, a biologist
has it isolated in a protective cell. Its artificial environ
ment resembles Massachusetts - snowy, desegregated, and
full of Kennedys and O'Neills.
It is the only known living Nebraska Liberal (or, as it is
scientifically known, Nebraskasus Uberalus). I'm proud to
)
J 2 Mike Frost
ii - I
say that I played a part in finding it.
Up until last week, this rare strain of creature was
thought to be extinct. Many, this writer included, had
even begun to doubt that it ever really existed. This so
called Nebraska Liberal, it was theorized, was nothing
more than a misunderstood Edward Zorinsky.
I wasn't even thinking about it that fateful day that !
walked into a local downtown retail outlet that shall re
main nameless (because the people at Penney's are too
proud to accept such cheap publicity) to buy a new pair
of tennis shoes. As I was coughing up my $25 (why I keep
my money in my esophagus, I'll never know), I said some
thing witty and insightful along the lines of "Gosh, $25
sure doesn't go as far as it used to."
"No, it doesn't," the clerk, a short, balding man in his
mid 40s replied. "Sometimes I wonder why so many are
so naive as to believe that these so-called Reaganomics are
going to have any significant effect on curbing the
nation's inflationary spiral."
My ears pcrktd. This eerily resembled liberal rhetoric. I
remembered an article I had once read in National Geo
graphic that said the Nebraska Liberal is quite an elusive
creature. I decided to make sure I wasn't mistaken.
"Boy, that senatorial race sure is something, isn't it,' I
ventured, studying the clerk out of the comer of my eye.
"You're telling me," he said, busying himself with my
shoes. "Keck vs. Zs.insky. What's the difference between
the two? It's against my conscience to vote for Zorinsky,
a Republican in Democrat's clothing. Yet, I can't vote for
Keck, a man who's so far right, he's barely pro-clcctricity,
let alone pro-equal rights."
"TTiere's always Virginia Walsh," I said, circling my
prey.
"No, her talk of bilateral disarmament and the like is
rather bland and generic. I can't see possibly helping Keck
by splintering what is potentially his opponent's
coalition."
By now, I was sure he indeed was Nebraskasus
Uberalus. But I had to make sure. "Boy, things are sure
going to be better once Bob Kerrey is elected governor.
"Certainly better than with Thone. But, still, I cani
help but be a bit suspicious of a businessman who can't
seem to commit himself to even a single Issue'
I knew then that this was, as they say, the real McCoy.
I quickly alerted the proper authorities at UNL's research
center that I had located an actual Nebraskasus Uberalus.
Hiey were skeptical at first. "Yeah, everybody thinks that
they have seen one ever since Kerrey started leading in the
polls."
I quickly related my conversation with the man. Tliey
were convinced. "We'll be there as soon as we can. Keep
him talking. Mention the Kennedys or something.'
I managed to keep Nebraskasus Uberalus occupied
until they got there. They dragged him off without much
of a struggle. Seems lie was a pacifist as well. As he was
being taken away, he mumbled something about
Keynesian economics.
I feel somewhat guilty about being the one responsible
for caging him up. But at least now he won't have to
choose between Keck, Zorinsky and Walsh.
I
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