Monday, November 18, 1985
Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
tawonaui
errey's bluffs,
policy changes
threaten state
G1 ov. Bob Kerrey's inability to take and maintain a
I stance on state issues raises questions about his
T ability to lead Nebraska.
J The most blatant example of Kerrey's question
able leadership occurred Friday.
When the Legislature refused to pass the income tax bill,
Kerrey said he would use his line-item veto power to cut $9
million more from the university's budget bringing NU's total
state fund reduction to $12.3 million.
Using the university as a pawn for political purposes was an
expensive threat. If senators had called Kerrey's budget bluff,
the university would be reduced to a glorified state college,
and the state would have lost valuable resources.
True, Kerrey is a lame-duck governor since he declined to
seek re-election. But no leader should resort to bluffs that
threaten the well-being of the state.
Kerrey's leadership problems began long before Friday's
power play.
During his 1982 campaign for governor, Kerrey said the
university was not receiving the financial support it needed to
be a "superior institution." Last month, however, he said the
state's poor economy made it impossible to fund the university
properly.
In the same campaign, Kerrey promised that if elected
governor, he would tell Nebraska residents what the cost of an
excellent university should be, in the belief that "Nebraskans
are willing to support the development of a superior university."
Kerrey apparently has abandoned his belief. In the last
month, Kerrey has pushed the NU Board of Regents to narrow
the university's scope and cut $5 million from the budget.
Another example of Kerrey's faltering leadership is LB662, a
bill calling for school consolidation.
Traditionally, the state has left control of local education in
local hands and allowed the state to support the university.
But with LB662, Kerrey wanted to take local education into
state hands. At the same time, he advocated cutting the
Legislature's obligation to the university.
In April, Kerrey praised the merits of local Class I schools
and said he didn't like the doubling of state aid to schools. Yet
he signed the bill.
Another recent example of wavering leadership was Kerrey's
refusal to expand the Legislature's special session to include
an income tax increase unless senators passed the bill first.
Yet only hours later, Kerrey expanded the call to include
income tax.
Although Kerrey's term officially ends in January 1987, the
state appears to be without a leader now.
State legislators and Nebraskans must speak for their needs
ind the future of the state until an effective state leader is
elected.
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1G"3 DAILY HEERASKAN
VI BBS
CHARLES, IF VOU WANT MORE ATWOAJ FROM THE
eiMite spending snnieMal
Committee pads defense budget despite deficit
Congress has a hard time getting
anything done these days, but
when it does get around to appro
priating funds, one would think it
would be stingy, considering the deficit.
But the Senate Appropriations Com
mittee must have been in a generous
mood when it started adding a few
knicks and knacks onto the defense
spending bill awaiting Senate passage.
Chris
Welsch
The committee added a "mariner
fund" for the construction of a few
commercial ships that could be used in
wartime, a little extra ammo for the
Army, some general funding for Nati
onal Guardsmen and some other stuff.
The funny thing is the Defense Depart
ment did not request any of those
things, which added $2 billion to the
defense expenditure.
I never thought I'd say anything nice
about Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., but he's
leading the drive to delete the unneeded
extras. Goldwater's aides say that
among other problems, there are pro
cedural difficulties in appropriating
funds for items Congress didn't autho
rize when the overall defense budget
was approved, The Wall Street Journal
reports.
The Senate committee's measure
appropriates $288 billion, $12 billion
more than the House's defense bill.
Some of those billions were tossed in to
be used in bargaining with the House
in hopes of achieving a higher defense
appropriation.
But, the Journal reports, some of the
items are more than bargaining chips
among them the items I listed. The
"mariner fund" would provide $862 bil
lion for the Navy. Commercial ships
would be built, then leased to private
companies.
The only problem, according to a
Goldwater aide, is that there is already
excess shipping capacity and the ships
would have to be leased at subsidized
rates or left idle, the Journal reported.
The extra ammunition for the army,
$400 billion worth, might be too much
for the Army to accommodate in addi
tion to the regular request, said aides
to the Senate Armed Services panel.
The whole thing has a nightmarish
quality. Spending more now is some
what suicidal.
The deficit is stacking up debts for
future generations, and it is making
the dollar strong, which is good and
bad. It has made our products expen
sive to other countries. But it has
helped keep inflation down, living
standards up and the economy expand
ing. However, the deficit is borrowing
time as well as money, and it cannot be
allowed to grow at its current pace.
Good luck to Goldwater. Budget
cutting must be applied across the
board, defense not excepted. And if
Congress and President Reagan are
determined to spend more on defense,
they had better raise taxes to do it.
We've borrowed our limit.
On birth control
It's ironic that those who kick and
scream about abortion are often the
same ones who kick and scream about
sex education in schools.
If junior and senior high school
children are made aware of the facts
about sex and birth control, they are
more likely to use birth control and
less likely to choose abortion.
I don't buy the argument that sex
education leads to a decay of morals.
Parents who neglect to teach their
children their sexual values and the
importance of responsibility are to
blame. No one else.
Abstinence is a good answer, but not
many kids take it seriously. Sex in our
society has become largely acceptable
before marriage. If abortions are to be
avoided, then from an early age child
ren must know about birth control.
About 125 people attended an Omaha
School District meeting about possible
expansion of sex education last week.
Most opposed it, saying sex education
should be left to family and church,
where values also can be taught, the
Omaha World-Herald reported.
That's a noble idea, but one that has
not seen fruition. Junior and senior
high school boys are responsible for 1.1
million pregnancies in this country
each year, Psychology Today reports. At
least 6 million teen-agers are sexually
active by age 15. This does not speak
well of the nation's sex education pro
grams, nor of sex education in churches
and homes.
Parents are most responsible for the
values of their children. By the time
children are in junior high, they usually
have a strong idea of right and wrong.
They can deal with information about
sex responsibly. If they don't hear it in
school, they'll get it on TV or from their
friends. And then it won't be delivered
responsibly.
Our children must be armed with
complete sex education in public
schools to supplement home and
church learning. They should learn
about the functions of sex, the impor
tance of responsibility and love in rela
tionships and how to avoid pregnancy,
should they choose to have sex. That
information would help ensure that all
children are wanted and will have
good, loving homes. It also will decrease
abortions used to escape responsibil
ity. Welsch is a UNL senior English and
journalism major and a Daily Nebraskan
copy desk chief.
Reagan's 'expectation exercise'
It's a little bit like getting a pre
scription for a crash fitness pro
gram. Here we are, just a day away
from the summit, and the government
wants Americans to shape up their
attitudes for the big meeting. They are
trying to convince us to lower our
expectations.
Expectations, it appears, are the
political blood pressure of the nation.
The sober pronouncements coming out
of Washington are all designed to keep
the pressure down. Schultz, McFarlane
and the rest of the Geneva Health Bri
gade are afraid that they'll return
empty-handed and send us all into a
state of shock.
In toning our attitudes for the sum
mit, one of these leaders has stolidly
pronounced that he feels "hopeful but
not optimistic" about any arms agree
ment. Another has warned that the two
leaders may not even be able to sign a
joint communique. Even the normally
ebullient, wood-chopping, muscle-flexing
president seems subdued about the
possibilities for summitry.
It doesn't take too much energy to
abide by the presidential fitness pro
gram for summit watchers. There are at
least three easy ways to lower the
expectations of the average American
in no more than a few minutes a day.
The first exercise is called Recy
cling. What you have to do is set your
stationary recycle at 20 to 25 mph and
listen to the old tapes of the president.
Hear him as he confuses one missile
with another, mixes the John Birch
Society writings with those of Lenin
and tells the British press that there is
no word for "freedom" in Russian.
Next comes Transcontinental Medi
tating. To perform this exercise, you sit
on the floor with your legs crossed,
fingers raised and eyes glued on the
book published thfc week under the
byline of Mikhail Gorbachev. You now
concentrate on any of the somnolent
Please see GOODMAN on 5