Thursday, March 14, 10S5
Daily Ncbraskan
Pago 5
Of
On
- - . o -j
teas
line
Irives in New lA
ft Is spring-training time In Erccklp and the
phencm b taking batting practice, smacking
line drives eff the fences. Mario Cuomo Is a
former miner-league eenterfieldcr, currently is a
mrjor-te-T.ie governor, and (according to the
beys In the press box) is a can't-miss candidate
for the politician's Cooperstcwn.
George
Will
Today he i3 In the Brooklyn Supreme Court
building seated beneath a sign that says "Vox
Pepuii." Evidently Latin Is big in Erocklyn.
Cuomo certainly is.
He is takhg questions from the bleachers ar.d
tha natives tzz net restless. The questions are
what bsscbsU people call meatballs soft
tosses crccvcd ever the heart cf the plate,
kite rs-Ugh. Such questions ("I want to begin by
thanking you, governor, for all you have don
for . . . ") do net give Cuomo a chance to be
impressive, hii the questions say something
impressive aboutkia governance.
EL-:ts Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers
brfcra Los Angeles' larceny, was never a garden
of sbiiddfcg violets. Drocklynites, even more
than normal New Yorkers, are vocal about their
griev ances. But the only serious grievance voiced
in two and a half hours of Cucmo's open meeting
is that Brooklyn deserves a new stadium and a
team to romp in it.
The main argument between Cuomo and New
York Republicans is how big the tax cut should
be. Republicans want it bigger than Cuomo's
proposal. They say he is underestimating reve
nues. Cuomo promises that the cut in personal
income taxes is just the start of a "pattern" of
cuts that will include business taxes. This, in
the Peoples Republic of New York? Yep, and it i3
like many other states: The two most popular
politicians are the President, a Republican, and
the governor, a Democrat.
Cuomo came to the nation's attention at the
1934 Democratic National Convention with the
keynote speech that proclaimed: "We can do it
again." The antecedent cf the pronoun "it" was
approximately this: We can use energetic govern
ment to engineer a mere egalitarian society.
But William Schneider, a fellow at the Ameri
can Enterprise Institute, understands the Demo
crat's problem. Their ambitious social agenda
depends, he says, on sustained and rapid eco
nomic growth to produce the economic surplus
for egalitarian social engineering. However, such
growth dilutes the sense of urgency for re dis
tributive policies.
It i3 possible that God and national jour
nalism willing Americans can come to find
governors interesting. Governors have many more
direct responsibilities than legislators have, and
inevitably have more interesting records. It is
hard to be ideologically monochrome when
administering education and health systems,
settling strikes and prison riots, and balancing
budgets as governors are required to do.
Schneider notes that recent Democratic nom
ination contests have not been left-versus-right
contests, or young-versus-old contests. Rather,
they have been "insiders" versus "outsiders."
The modern history (and the decline) of the
Democratic Party began in 1968, in Chicago.
There, Hubert Humphrey (assisted by a protege
named Walter Mondale) defeated forces outside
the party establishment actually outside the
convention hall, in the streets. In 1872 and 1976,
the nominations went to outsiders George
McGovern over Ed Muskie and others, Jimmy
Carter over Scoop Jackson and ethers. In 1834
Mondale, the insider's revenge, defeated Gary
Hart, whose new idea was that insiders are
burnt-out cases.
A governor, especially of New York, is an
interesting biend, being outside the federal pub
licity machine but inside the game of gover
nance. Eat Cuomo does not ve the impression
of wanting a presidential nomination in the con-
brie
sumlng way that one must want it if one b going
to get it. He says that the wrong question, con
stantly asked, is: Are you going to run for presi
dent in 193S? The correct question is: Are you
going to seek re-election in 1988? He says that if
his answer to the latter is "yes," (and it almost
certainly will be), then the answer to the former
must be "no." It must be, because he could not,
practically or properly, begin, simultaneously, a
second term as governor and a presidential
campaign.
He often rises early, sometimes to write his
diary, and occasionally he tunes in C-Span. He
watches can you imagine? reruns of con
gressional proceedings. Is he inoculating him
self against Potomac Fever, or measuring the
opposition. Whicheer, he ha3 been warned.
When a New York reporter at the Brooklyn
meeting asks Cuomo about the presidency,
Cuomo groans. He is required to do that. Tha
audience also groans. This is optional and inter
esting. They like him where ha is, and will
become more lik New Yorkers surly if he
starts acting like a presidential candidate. When
he arrived ia Erocklyn for hi3 batting practice, a
female consitituent semi-swooned: "You're not
as ugly in person as on TV." That was a New
Yorker trying to be nice.
1SC5, WftMxigtxrci Post Wrfcsra Croc?
Hi J
3 'I
..I
Letters
Official says budget cut
mean t no extra dollars
The article headlined "$100,000 More Pro
gram Suspension Fills Research Coffer" on the
front pags of the March 5 Daily Nebraskan gives
a false impression. In the article I was quoted as
saying that the faculty research leave program
was suspended because it was "too expensive"
and that this meant an "extra $100,000 in
research funds for the university in the 1883-84
school year..."
There is no way elimination of a program can
generate extra money. The program was sus
pended because the Research Council budget
had become inadequate to support the several
long-term functions of the council. It was with
great reluctance that the council, in 1983, sus
pended the research leave of absence program in
order that the money might be spent instead on
the remaining programs cf the council. Those
programs allow the purchase of equipment for
research, the paying of hourly help for students
helping in research, travel to obtain access, to
facilities unavailable afcUNl, travel to scholarly
meetings and paying expenses for visiting lec
turers to come to UNL In the last two years
before suspension of the Faculty Research Leave
program, the fraction of proposals funded in
these other categories had become so low that
some action had to be taken. To imply that this
bad filled UNL's research coffer is to twist the
meaning of words and presents a false picture of
affluence.
It is correct, as stated in the first paragraph of
the story, that the State of Nebraska contribu
tion to the research council budget decreased by
$16,000 this year. In my interview we did not
discuss budgets before the 1983-84 year, but it is
worth mentioning that the state contribution to
Research Council budget is down about $53,000
from the 1981-82 academic year and down about
$141,000 frcm the 1976-77 academic year. It was
budget cuts like this that made it necessary for
the council to suspend the Leave of Absence
program in order to fund more adequately our
other obligations.
It may seem like a quibble to object to the
phrase "too expensive" when describing the
suspended Leave of Absence program. It would
be more correct to say that the Research Council
budget no longer allows us to afford the legiti
mate costs of such a desirable project.
. V James D. Carr
UNL Research Council
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