Daily Ncbraskan
Wednesday, January 22, 1986
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University of Nebraska-Lincoln
33
Lottery can help NU
Wanted: An inexpensive way
to support NU without huge
tax increases. Possible
solution: A statewide lottsry.
Sen. John DeCamp of Nelih, a
long-time advocate of lotteries,
again has introduced a constitu
tional amendment to establish a
lottery. If senators approve the
idea, they should set up the lot
tery so that NU can reap part of
the benefits. One-third of the
state's would-be lottery proceeds
could translate into hundreds of
thousands of dollars for NU.
In the last three years, NU
budgets have been cut 3 percent,
2.5 percent and 2 percent. Those
cuts have caused serious prob
lems. O Last year's budget cuts
forced UNL to cancel more than
40 class sections.
O UNL's Love Library was
ranked last among 1 1 peer-group
schools. The low rating was
caused by sagging budgets for
staff and materials.
O Nearly 40 administrative
jobs have been eliminated be
cause of budget cuts.
A lottery could help NU reverse
the downward trend.
More and more states have
turned to lotteries. About 20 of
them have or are planning a lot
tery. Most of the lotteries are
highly successful.
Larger-Populated states, such
as New Jersey and New York,
have raised nearly $800 million
in previous lotteries, a News
week article said. Even smaller
states, such as Colorado, have
made more than $100 million.
The idea of using a lottery to
finance education is not new. In
colonial days, states used money
Si
foirces cute
Gramm-Rudman may actually work
The determination of Con
gress and the U.S. people to
balance the budget will soon
be tested. Unless ruled uncon
stitutional, the Gramm-Rudman
balanced budget bill automati
cally will cut $11.7 billion from
the 1986 federal budget March 1.
While Gramm-Rudman seems
to be the only way that Congress
can realistically circumvent the
myriad of special interest groups
out to protect their "piece of the
pie" (leading to greater and
greater deficits), many com
mentators lament the necessary
cut in congressional decision
making power.
The bill gave the General
Accounting Office the final say
on the budget cuts that must be
made if the year's deficit ceiling,
as set by the bill, is exceeded by
$20 billion or more. This year's
target is $172 billion meaning
that $48 billion must be cut from
the budget for fiscal year 1986.
The bill requires smaller deficits
each succeeding year until 1991,
when the budget is required to
be balanced.
The bill is a classic case of
passing the buck. But if it just
happens to work over the next
five years, and the budget actu-
Vicki Ruhga, Editor, 472,1766
Thorn Gabrukiewia, Managing Editor
Ad Hudler, Editorial Page Editor
James Rogers, Editorial Associate
Chris Welsch, Copy Desk Chief
mniiniw?
from lotteries to help build some
of the country's first universi
ties. Lottery proceeds today often
are earmarked to specific pro
grams, such as the arts and
conservation.
Opponents say they don't like
lotteries because they reflect
state support of legalized gam
bling. Some even say lotteries
provoke big gambling operations.
Newsweek reported that in some
eastern states, operators use
numbers identical to the state
sponsored lotteries, but tie larger
purses to the winnings.
Lottery opponents also claim
a lottery would provoke people
to spend money they don't have.
But some studies show that
lotteries don't prey on the poor.
A state-sponsored study in Ariz
ona shows that lottery players in
that state predominantly are
white, 36-year-old men with a
household income of about
$20,000. Not exactly a poverty
stricken group.
Timing is right for a lottery.
Nebraska senators can look east
to Iowa for an example of how to
set up a lottery in a Midwestern
state. Carol Custer of the Iowa
Lottery Office says senators had
trouble estimating lottery sales
because it was the first smaller
populated state to start a lottery.
A lottery is a form of voluntary
taxation in which only those who
want to participate have to pay.
When someone buys a ticket,
while part of that money will go
toward paying the large cash
prizes and operation of the lot
tery, a big part of it will benefit
the buyer through improved parks
or improved education.
ally is balanced as a result, the
public undoubtedly will see a
long line of Congressmen claim
ing responsibility for the success.
On the other hand, the bill
protects Congress from the strong
political fallout that is expected
to follow any implementation of
the law. At the least, the next
few years may be some of the
most politically interesting in a
long time. If Congress doesn't
raise taxes to decrease the deficit,
Gramm-Rudman will accomplish
the most significant governmen
tal restructuring since the New
Deal.
But then, the whole experie
ment might be cut short by chal
lenges to the provision's consti
tutionality. The legal question
revolves around whether the
accounting office is part of the
legislative or executive branch
of the federal government.
If the accounting office is part
of the legislative branch, then its
"final" list of specific cuts can't
bind Congress. But if it is part of
the executive branch, then its
final decisions would be binding.
A ruling on the law probably
will be out before the first man
datory cuts on March 1. In the
meantime, stay tuned...
: - i - - nR f n fl B
Unborn need oenevii ov lowm
Failure to protect
I'll just have to save him.
Because, after all, a person's a
person no matter how small
Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who
Deliver those who are being
taken away to death, And those
who are staggering to slaughter,
0 hold them back.
If you say, "See, we did not
know this, "Docs not He consider
it who weighs the hearts? And
will He not render to man accord
ing to his work?
Proverbs 24:11-12
Today is the 13th anniversary of the
Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade
decision that resulted in the wide
spread legalization of abortion.
At the heart of the pro-life position is
a fundamental claim of justice: That
innocents should be protected from
aggression. To the extent that the state
doesn't prohibit attacks upon innocents,
to that extent it doesn't adequately
discharge its fundamental reason for
existence and is, thus, a perverse and
deformed state.
Some deny that the claims of justice
reach into the womb to protect the
innocent within from an abortion-inflicted
death. I used to be one of those
persons.
But now I think, the weight of the
argument is on the side of those who
oppose legalized abortion on demand.
If contrary thinkers will reflect more
closely upon the arguments of the
matter, they too will realize that only
the pro-life position is consistent with
any civilized notion of justice. Below
are some of the more popular arguments
in favor of legalized abortion.
Argument One: Since we don't
know when a fetus becomes a person, it
is premature to make killing of a fetus
illegal.
This is a popular and important
argument. In a recent Newsweek
editorial, Professor Charles Kelbley
argued that any doubt as to whether
the fetus is a person means that we
should resolve the issue against the
fetus and permit abortions. This is
Whether to prevent illness or hell,
proposed excise taxes are sin taxes
There was a time when we used to
call them "sin taxes." In that
earlier and moralistic age, the
government was encouraged to punish
smokers and drinkers for their sins by
slapping them with a stiff excise tax.
This national pay-as-you-go-to-hell
program lasted well into the mid-20th
century with time out for Prohibition.
Then, gradually, sin began to go out of
fashion. Today, smoking is no longer
the hallmark of a loose woman except
in retrospective Virginia Slims ads. Not
even the Salvation Army describes
alcoholics as sinners anymore.
But there is a movement in the land
to raise up the excise taxes from the
half-dead. One coalition of groups is
lobbying to tax cigarettes at a higher
rate, and now another wants to up the
federal ante on alcohol.
This time they aren't crusading to
tax people for the sake of their souls.
They are campaigning to save their
bodies. Last week, the National Alcohol
Tax Coalition one part Women's
Christian Temperance Union, 10 parts
medical establishment introduced
its plan. It is not, they insist, the same
"old-fashioned 'sin taxes.' " Their hopes
are labeled "health taxes."
The coalition makes a good case for
an alcohol tax increase on purely
economic grounds. Doubling the tax on
hard alcohol would restore it to 1974
levels, when you adjust the value of the
dollar. Their other proposal would tax
the alcoholic content of beer and wine
so that it would be on par with hard
liquor. They estimate that the whole
thing would bring in $12 billion a year
to cut the deficit.
But the motive is more subtle than
the price tag. The modern demon in
rum is its health effects. The alcohol
innocents shows lack of civilization
essentially the same argument that
Justice Harry Blackmun used in the
Roe v. Wade decision.
But common sense tells us that,
given the magnitude of the error if we
are in fact wrong (namely about 1.5
million deaths every year at current
rates), we should give the fetus the
benefit of the doubt. Civilized society
certainly makes similar presumptions
in other contexts.
Our doubts about the fetus can only
be resolved in favor of the fetus. Cer
tainly if we wait long enough to see
what appears in the end, we view a
person. The fetus deserves the benefit
of the doubt.
Beyond this, it is obvious that all
homo sapiens should be considered
legal persons. And there is no question
that a fetus is in fact a homo sapien.
Jim
Rogers
For law to stand logically in the end,
as Berkeley Law Professor John Noonan
points out, all members of the human
species must enjoy the protection of
law.
Argument Two: Abortion is a
matter of choice for women.
The nature of law is to restrict unjust
choices. The law says that I cannot
choose to rob, shout "fire" in a crowded
theater or take someone's life.
The majority opinion in Roe v. Wade
similarly granted that if "the fetus is a
'person' within the language and
meaning of the Fourteenth Amend
ment," then the "case" in favor of
legalized abortion "collapses, for the
fetus' right to life is then guaranteed
specifically by the (Fourteenth)
Amendment."
We cannot justly choose death for an
innocent person. Regardless of the
attempts to rhetorically cleanse the
abortion procedure, it is nonetheless a
taxers hope, as do the cigarette taxers,
that raising the costs will lower the
consumption, especially by the young.
As Michael Jacobson, head of the
Center for Science in the Public
Interest, says up-front: "We're interest
ed in reducing drinking, not stopping
drinking. We're not teetotalers, but we
want to promote the public health
while raising tax revenues."
Ellen
Goodman
Well, I support this argument and
these new taxes. But I can't help
noticing the shifting grounds on which
the new argument rests. Today we are
less likely to apply a moral measure to
human behavior than a health measure.
We have switched from damnation
prevention programs to sickness
prevention.
It is particularly true of smoking and
drinking, but not exclusively. When
was the last time that anyone accused
an overweight friend of the sin of
gluttony? We may talk about willpower,
the bakery may name its best-selling
dessert "Chocolate Sin," but it's the
rare person who says that being fat is
being bad. We say, albeit piously, that
it's bad for you.
Nor is sloth any longer a sin against
God. It has become a crime against
your heart vessels. We no longer win or
lose points for the life in the hereafter
but for extending the here and now.
The new chosen people are those who
rate high on the cardiovascular fit-
W
Si
form of homocide.
Argument Three: Unaborted
children will be forced upon unwilling
parents, who consequently will abuse
them.
First, no statistical relationship
exists between desire for a child dur
ing pregnancy and behavior toward the
child after birth. Many who want child
ren end up abusing them, and many
who initially didn't want children but
have them anyway end up being excel
lent, loving parents.
Second, the numbers of abortions
and the instances of child abuse both
have increased during the last decade,
a decade of legalized abortion. Given
the huge number of abortions per
formed during this period, people would
have expected that if abortion propo
nents' claims were true, the destruc
tion of so many would-be abused child
ren would have significantly decreased
the rate of child abuse.
Third, and most obviously, the argu
ment is utterly absurd given a moment's
reflection.
If a man were to be hauled into court
on the charge of murdering his wife, he
would be laughed to a conviction if he
defended his action on the basis that
"If I hadn't killed her, I might have
abused her."
When people use that defense to jus
tify abortions, it is scarcely less
ludicrous.
Argument Four Laws restricting
abortion violate the principle of the
separation of church and state.
In the case of Harris v. McRae, which
upholds the legality of the Hyde Amend
ment's limit on federal funding for
abortions under Medicaid, the Supreme
Court squarely and reasonably put this
argument to rest
The court rejected the claim that the
Hyde Amendment be struck down for
violating the Establishment Clause
because "it incorporates into law the
doctrines of the Roman Catholic
Church."
See ROGERS on 5
parade charts.
Even premarital sex has undergone
a slight shift. Once we believed that
God would punish those who com
mitted the act. Now many Americans
are less anxious about the immorality
than about catching a" sexually trans
mitted diseased
I suppose that some of this is the
fallout of psychology. As good modern
pyschobabblers, we talk less about
right and wrong and more about healthy
and sick behavior. If some acts are
condemned on public-health grounds,
others are justified as "good for you."
Screaming, for example, has been
described as a "healthy outlet" for
anger. Marrying a younger (presumably,
second) wife, was identified by one
researeher as an aid to a longer
(presumably, male) life.
I have strayed a bit from smoking
and drinking, but not onto altogether
foreign turf. By all means, we should
raise the taxes on smoking. Raise them
on drinking. If the young get hit in the
purse or pocketbook, they may not get
hit later in the liver or lung. Let the
heaviest users make their contribution
to the national debt on the way to the
doctor.
But don't try to change the name of
the tax. Smoking may be described as
an addiction and alcoholism as a
disease. But these are still "sin taxes."
It's just that we've changed the nature
of sin. The unforgivable misbehavior of
contemporary life is whatever makes us
sick. In the modern United States,
illness is hell.
1986, The Boston Globe Newspaper
CompanyWashington Post Writers
Group
Goodman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning
columnist for the Boston Globe.
