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Daily Nebraskan
Tuesday, January 11, 1983
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Decision making:
A process as wild
as the end results
As vacationing students, most of us
probably spent the week before Christmas
sitting around watching presents pile up
under the tree. In Washington, however,
tilings were not quite so placid.
The lame-duck Congress was finishing
up its session and the situation was a bit
tense as bargaining went on over the bud
get for the next fiscal year. An examina
tion of that bargaining process may give us
a clue why the problems of the country
are not ironing themselves out quite as
fast as we would like.
As outsiders to the Washington wrestl
ing match, it is convenient for us to blame
Congress and the Reagan administration
for our economic woes. Put the recent
bustle that resulted in the passage of the
infamous gas tax demonstrates that the
blame is not so easily pinned.
Our own Sen. Edward Zorinsky didn't
even hang around for the final vote on the
bill. He split for Omaha instead. He told
the World-Herald that he left "when it
became apparent that the inmates had
taken over the asylum." The fact that a
senator is having problems unraveling the
tangle of the legislative process doesn't
exactly fill one with confidence in the
system by which we govern ourselves.
Could it be that our problem is not
only the economy but also the methods
by which economic decisions are made?
If the inmates have indeed taken over,
that may be the case.
It is normal for items to be juggled in
and out of the spending bill before it
resembles the budget that Reagan will
present later this month. The jobs pro
gram got knocked out, as did the funds for
basing and deploying the MX in Wyoming.
Then, however, came the nickel-a-gallon
gas tax proposal. Reagan supported it,
claiming it would provide jobs and re
vitalize America's highway and interstate
system. But four Republican senators -Jesse
Helms, Donald Nickles, Gordon
Humphrey and John East - ganged up
in opposition to the tax. Together they
managed to filibuster for 10 days, stalling
a vote on the bill. East held the floor un
til after midnight Dec. 18, determined to
keep the tax from being passed.
According to Time magazine, cots were
set up in the cloak rooms of the Senate
for the senators to take catnaps on while
they waited for the filibustering to end so
the vote could take place.
When the confusion finally did subside,
the tax was included in the spending bill.
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'Ke&rey-
Kemnmedy
A new era was ushered into Nebraska
politics Thursday afternoon: The Robert
Kerrey era. Never in state history has a
governor ever received such phenomenal
amounts of national attention.
Newsweek and the New Yorker printed
paragraph after paragraph of platitudes
i
Mike
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on the new chief executive. MacNeil and
Lehrer gave him a whole segment (the PBS
equivalent to the Congressional Medal of
Honor) on Kerrey's burgeoning political
dynasty.- In the eyes of many, Robert
Kerrey has arrived as a national political
figure.
While quite a bit of media attention has
been paid to Kerrey's rise from political
obscurity, considerable space has also been
given to the notion that Kerrey, in the
words of Newsweek . .reminds (one) of
young John Kennedy."
The Kerrey-Kennedy similarities are
many indeed. Now, Ripley's Believe It or
Not, the same people who gave us the
The bill, however, was 300 pages long.
"There is no way anyone can under
stand what is in there," Sen. J. James
Exon said when the World Herald asked
him about it.
Furthermore, before the Senate fili
bustering ever started and the bill came to
the House for a vote, there were only 35
copies of the bill to be distributed among
the 435 members of the House of Re
presentatives, according to Darwin Olof
son of the World-Herald's Washington
bureau. How can a legislative body be
expected to effectively examine the pros
and cons of budget proposals when they
cannot even teview the material
thoroughly?
How can an inclusive, coherent, effec
tive budget be drawn up in the midst of
a flurry of filibustering and feisty senators?
What is important here is not whether
or not the gas tax should have been in
cluded in the spending bill, but whether
Congress even had the chance to make
that or any other decision effectively.
It is scary to think that decisions with
potentially vast impact were made in the
circus that went on at the close of the
97th Congress.
In her column in Newsweek magazine,
Meg Greenfield wrote that the problem is
chilling Kennedy-Lincoln connection, now
are issuing the Kerrey-Kennedy correlation.
Included in this list are the following
coincidences:
1 . Both Kerrey and Kennedy start with
the letters "Ke" and end with "y."
2. Both were war veterans.
3. Both had their younger brothers
manage their election campaigns; both
younger brothers then became key
members of their older brothers' staffs.
4. Bch came from large families.
5. Both were Democrats, elected to
seats previously held, by a Republican.
6. Kerrey comes from Nebraska,
Kennedy from Massachusetts. Both are
states.
7. Kennedy was born in 1917. Kerrey
was born in 1943. 19 17 is 36, and
19 43 is 62. Both 36 and 62 are divisible
by two.
8. Both Kennedy and Kerrey took their
inaugural oaths in suits. Additionally,
both raised their right hands during their
oaths.
9. Bob Kerrey is divorced, while his
youngest brother isn't. John F. Kennedy
that our representatives are shirking their
responsibilities as legislators. She is right
when she says that they spend more time
arguing than they do reaching decisions.
But perhaps that is the fault of the legis
lative process rather than the legislators.
A system more closely aimed at reach
ing agreement would suit us much better
than a menagerie of flustered senators
finally conceding to compromise in the
wee hours of the morning. Our economy
is having problems because it is unprepared
to deal with the changes it is undergoing,
and it could be that our legislative system
is suffering from the same malady.
David Thompson
Editoral Policy
Unsigned editorials represent the policy
of the 1983 Daily Nebraskan but do not
necessarily reflect the views of the Uni
versity of Nebraska, its employees or the
NU Board of Regents.
The Daily Nebraskan 's publishers are
the regents, who have established a pub
lication board to supervise the daily pro
duction of the newspaper. According to
policy set by the regents, the content of
the UNL students newspaper lies solely
in the hands of its student editors.
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Letters
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many
was never divorced, but his youngest brothe
Edward is getting one.
10. President Kennedy loved to sail.
Governor Kerrey loves to go to sales.
11. Kennedy's secretary's name was
Lincoln. Kerrey lives in Lincoln and has
driven a Lincoln as well.
12. While President, John Kennedy
awarded many deserving Americans medals
of honor. While governor, Bob Kerrey will
probably make several people honorary
members of the Nebraska Navy.
13. Both Kerrey and Kennedy were
members of the Bo Diddley Fan Club.
14. President Kennedy was assassinated
in Dallas. Occasionally, Governor Kerrey
views the TV show "Dallas."
Yes, the coincidences are uncanny.
One would expect Kerrey to use such
similarities to catapult him into national
office.
His inaugural address, stressing such
Nebraska issues as nuclear defense, federal
budget deficits and the computer age,
clearly illustrated his mind is only on
state government. However, it will be
interesting to see if the New John Kennedy
can be happy with Mel Mains after he's
had MacNeil-Lehrer.
A fire on every TV
I have a modest suggestion for the
natural gas companies that serve us. It
wouldn't cost them very much 'and should
help natural gas users especially the
middle- and low-income users.
I can well appreciate the need for gas
companies to have price increases so that
they can make investments to find new gas
supplies. By paying our gas bills, we con
sumers can "keep a good thing going" as
the gas company ads say. Natural gas is
a clean, efficient way to cook our food and
heat our homes.
I must confess, though, that many gas
users are having difficulty during these
hard times in paying their gas bills. I have
an idea that just might work. But the gas
companies have to do their part so we
could have an alternative source of energy
to warm up our chilly homes.
I suggest that InterNorth, the Omaha
Metropolitan Utilities District and Minne
gasco sponsor a new 24-hour cable TV
channel. The channel's TV camera would
be aimed at a big roaring fireplace during
the cold winter months, so for very low
cost, all of us could experience a fireplace
in every room that had a TV. Also there
wouldn't be a pollution problem of burn
ing wood.
We could then afford to pi.y our gas
bills and conserve gas by watching what I
propose we call the "Fireplace Channel."
Please send your letters of" support to the
gas companies and your cable TV
company. If we all work together we
should be able to solve our heating problems.
Ron Kurtenbach
Letter
Policy
The Phil
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