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State has legal obligation to Commonwealth depositors
Gov. Bob Kerrey and two of his
predecessors agree that the state has a
moral obligation to the depositors who
lost their savings when Commonwealth
Savings Co. collapsed. Only Gov. Ker
rey rightly said the state has a legal
obligation.
Kerrey based his argument on two
things: The state loused up on regulat
ing Commonwealth and the Nebraska
Depository Institutions Guaranty Corp.,
a state agency, did not have enough
money to live up to its $30,000 deposi
tors' insurance.
Former state Banking Director Paul
Amen disagreed. Amen said the NDIGC
is not a state agency but a private institu
tion. Therefore, the state had little
control over the NDIGC, purging it of
any legal responsibilities to Common
wealth depositors.
But if the depositors are paid back
soon, it may shorten that legal fight.
True, criminal cases will continue, and
should. But by performing its legal and
moral obligations now, the state and
its taxpayers could avoid some legal
cost.
Kerrey pointed out another reason
to reimburse depositors as quickly as
possibly. The longer the state waits,
the more interest depositors will claim
on their lost savings.
Critics also argue that taxpayers
should not have to foot the bill for the
state's mismanagement and depositors'
misinformation. After all, this is a $68
million claim.
Kerrey's philosophy . and it is
a wise one is pay now, save later.
Legal bills for civU and criminal cases
connected with Commonwealth have
amounted to more than $450,000 since
'they began seven months ago. And the
bills are expected to keep coming in.
Who pays those bills? Depositors and
taxpayers.
According to figures published in
Thursday's Lincoln Star, at least
$450,000 alone will pay for legal bills
from remaining Commonwealth assets.
More than $320,000 of state tax funds
and the Nebraska Banking Department
budget will go to Commonwealth cases.
Of that, $44,263 alone went to Attor
ney General Paul Douglas' impeach
ment trial.
That's not all. About $120,000 of
Lincoln tax funds will go to Common
wealth legal bills, as will $100,000 each
from Lancaster County funds tax and
federal tax funds.
Legal fights will continue whether or
not the depositors are reimbursed by
the state now or in the next few years.
The longer the state waits, the more
expensive it will be to help the deposi
tors. But an even better reason exists:
humanity. If Nebraskans feel they
are Improving humanity and its cul
ture by giving $7 million of their tax
money for the proposed Lied Arts Cen
ter or $1 million for the new training
table for UNL athletes, surely that
humanist instinct will prevail in the
Commonwealth case.
rarie sweeps Was!
"l W .
4 A U s
Jose Napol(bn Duarte has left Washington gaga.
He met and impressed President Reagan. He
mmuemmmmmm&ummwtmim&MKmmmv lawman a w
Richard Cohen
met and impressed the Congress. He asked for
aid; he'll get it. He. asked for no strings; he'll get no
strings. Washington has not seen such a perfor
mance since the Shah of Iran or was it Anwar
Sadat?
Duarte is evidently quite a man, but he is only that
a man. Nevertheless, Washington a town more
obsessed with personalities than Hollywood has
accepted him as if he were El Salvador itself. He says
he will expand Salvadoran democracy. Washing
ton applaudes. He says he will end the death squads.
Washington swoons. Washington may be a sophisti
cated city, but when it comes to "moderate" foreign
leaders it's forever wearing bobby socks.
There are reasons to be skeptical of Duarte. He
was part of the government when the death squads
went on a rampage and there are some who say his
lusi for the presidency overrides all other consider
ations. Time will tell about that. But the fact remains
that no man no matter how skilled can lead a
country where it will not go.
Washington is forever losing sight of that. It is
hoplessly addicted to the cult of personality. The
late Shah, for instance, became the personification
of Iran. Through him, we saw an emerging nation, a
Western nation, one that gave swell parties at the
Lower teen-age wage discriminatory
President Reagan's proposal for a submini
mum teen wage is another action that shows
the administration's substandard quality.
The bill was introduced in both houses of
Congress by Republicans (who else?). In the
Senate, it was Orrin Hatch and Charles Percy.
Liz Burden
In the House, it was Ron Packard and Steve
Barlett. It is touted as a bill that would provide
up to 400,000 new jobs for unemployed youth.
This is their cure for a 20 percent overall
teen-age unemployment rate. The rate for
black teen-agers is 50 percent.
If black teens were to get 200,000 of those
jobs (half), their unemployment rate would go
down to a 'mere' 25 percent.
The Washington folks believe that this is a
step in the right direction, and for them, it is.
For the true effect of this bill will not be the one
that they publicize getting black youths jobs
but the one they desire another racist
policy that discriminates not only against
black teens, but low- to middle-income black
adults and some college students as well. For
people of color, this proposal is just another
step in the direction that the Reagan adminis
tration has always been leading us back
wards. The proposal discriminates in these ways:
Those few teens who did manage to find a
job would be working for, after taxes and
transportation costs, only pennies an hour.
Many of the business that would employ youths
don't operate in the black community. Black
teens would have to commute, the cost of
which could equal a couple of hours wages per
day after taxes. More than likely, employers
would hire non-black teens that reside closer
to the business, rather than others who have to
travel a distance.
Those teens who need jobs all year would
take a pay cut each summer. Some teens need
to work for more than extra spending cash.
Students who are working, including col
lege students under 20 years of age to s&ve up
tuition for college, will have less funds to spend
on college. They will have less federal financial
aid and will have to work longer to earn tuition
money. This, of course, makes it harder for
non-white students to attend college.
Businesses may displace workers who earn
minimum or a little above minimum wage and
replace them with the low-cost workers Rea
gan would create. The Labor Department's
statistics show that most of the workers earn
ing the minimum wage (semi-skilled or un
skilled) are non-white. A vast number of these
are black female heads of households. If this is
true, this group will suffer an increase in
unemployment.
Reagan's own words best tell what he thinks:
"...the cruel truth is, while everyone must be
assured a fair wage, there's no compassion in
mandating $3.35 an hour for jobs that simply
aren't worth thai much in the marketplace."
This is a country that judges people's worth
by their market value. Obviously, Reagan
thinks black youth are net worth very much.
TO A
Embassy, that rewarded the fawning and the un
skeptical with tins of caviar and an occasional rug.
The Shah skied. The Shah danced. The Shah was a
guy just like us. i ... s
Below the surface though, the Shah's country
simmered. Instead of being prepared for a lunge
into the future, Iran was ready to take one giant step
into the past. Back then we heard almost nothing
about mullahs, about seething anti-modernism to
which anti-Americanism was soon to be affixed. At
the Embassy parties the Ayatoliah's name was never
whispered.
The same holds for Sadat. Whatever his personal
characteristics and some were magnificent he
was not Egypt. He was Richard Nixon's buddy and
Jimmy Carter's too. But he was not the buddy of the
average Egyptian. When he was killed, Egypt mostly
reacted with a shrug and then distinctly cooleo! the
peace Sadat had aranged with Israel. Barbara Wal
ters cared; Walter Cronkite cared. Egypt, by and
large, did not.
Duarte, of course, is different from either the
Shah or Sadat. He was elected and ostensibly he
speaks for 54 percent of the electorate. It's difficult
to say exactly what this means, because while voting
in El Salvador is mandatory, real political involve
ment manifestly is not. Mandate or not, after the
election the governing of El Salvador may revert to
the relatively few who actually run the country
the military, the oligarchy and, in certain areas, the
guerrillas.
No person can personify a country. That is partic
ularly true where political involvement is limited to
an obligatory trek to the polls. Duarte or no Duarte,
El Salvador remains a desperately poor country
where the disparites in wealth are extreme, where
true power is possessed by a tiny elite where a
couple of hundred years of history has ignited a civil
war.
Whatever his abilities, Duarte has yet to prove he
can check the forces at work in his country. He was
unable to do that when he was head of the civilian
military junta and there is no certainty he can do it
now. The trial of five former national quardsmen for
the murder of four American churchwomen came
only after intense and persistent American pres
sure. When Duarte asks that American aid not be
conditioned on improvement in the human-rights
situation, he is saying, "trust me." But the issue is not
his personal integrity or courage, but the reality of
his country it's history, its economy,. its sociology.
By and large, Washington wants to hear none of
that. Having met Duarte, it was smitten, and he left
town with his back sore from friendly slaps. Quite a
guy, this Jose Napoleon Duarte "impressive,
courageous, an honest leader " congressional lead
ers said of him. Yes, quite a man. But only a man.
1 tZi, Wfthhtsten Pott Writers Group
Friday. Juno 1, 1984
Pcao 4
Dally Nebraska!
