Daily Nebraskan
Wednesday, March 5, 1986
Tl O n O
Page 4
Il if
Unwcrsity Of Nbli-LirCOrt
Rate increase
L
ike many states, Nebraska's
income tax rate is legisla
tively tied to the federal
income tax rate.
Duringthe last several decades,
this relationship bore good news
for state revenues as the federal
income tax rate gradually rose. A
double bonus occurred for govern
ment revenues with the rapidly
increasing wage rates resulting
from spiraling inflation.
Consequently, states tied to
the federal income tax rate
recently have been faced with a
double crunch: the federal in
come tax rate was cut and infla
tion has greatly moderated. State
revenues have suffered greatly.
Of course, the obvious solu
tion is for states like Nebraska to
increase the rate of their income
tax. This is what Nebraska did
last year, increasing the 1985 tax
rate from 19 to 20 percent of the
federal liability. But the increase
was for 1985 only. The rate
declined to 19 percent on Jan. 1.
The problem with regaining
lost revenue through rate in
creases is that it takes overt pol
itical action by state legislators
and overt action by legisla
jeair budgets
Law can help long
On Monday, Gov. Bob Kerrey
signed into law a bill creat
ing a biennial budgetary
plan for Nebraska. It's a change
that could benefit the NU system.
Under LB258, senators will no
longer prepare the budget annu
ally, but once every two years.
The idea has great potential
to improve the Legislature's effi
ciency. In tight economic times
like today, every state's legisla
ture spends more time debating
the budget than any other issue.
Nebraska's senators even had
to schedule a special session
last year just to work on addi
tional budget cuts. It took time,
and senators couldn't discuss
several other important bills.
The new law also will help
state-funded agencies plan for
the future.
For example, under the old
law, UNL administrators had to
plan everything around three bud
gets the current one and
budgets for the following two
years. The new law will give them
more time to plan allocations
and cuts. It won't be done so
frantically, and irrationally, as
has been the case in the past
sometimes.
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials represent
official policy of the spring 1986
Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by the ,
Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. Its
members are Vicki Ruhga, editor;
Ad Hudler, editorial page editor;
Thorn Gabrukiewicz, managing edi
Vlckl Ruhgt, Editor, 4721766
Thorn Gabruklewici, Managing Editor
Ad Hudler, Editorial Page Editor
Junes Rogers, Editorial Associate
Chris Welsch, Copy Desk Chief
Cd2
needed
tors always takes backbone. The
increase in revenues during the
1960s and 70s was relatively
"silent," coming as a result of
policies set far away from Ne
braska. Nonetheless, it is obvious that
Nebraska desperately needs in
creased revenues. As State Sen.
David Landis of Lincoln recently
complained, "We have made tax
rate increases so politically dif
ficult that we have paid a heavy
price in government services and
meeting human needs."
The most responsible action
is .for Nebraska legislators to
plan ahead in order to avoid the
revenue shortfall that will result
without increased taxes. Citizens
must understand that increasing
the tax rate simply makes up for
real tax reductions in recent
years.
A tax increase is desperately
needed. The theory behind Pres
ident Reagan's "New Federalism"
policy is that the states will take
up the slack left by the reduc
tion in federal programs. For
this, state revenue is needed.
Needed as well are legislators
with the backbone to make the
necessary decision.
- term planning
The new budget plan also will
help the Legislature more accu
rately anticipate incoming re
venue, thus avoiding revenue
shortfalls like the one this year.
But there are some problems
with the new budgeting process
especially for NU. Adminis
trators plan much of their budget
around enrollment figures. It will
be hprd to guess enrollment
trends. The danger, of course, is
that officials might at times
underestimate future enrollment
figures and then would come out
short-handed in the end.
Inflation also must be consi
dered. NU administrators, as well
as senators, will need to monitor
the economy and take it into
consideration when making up
future budgets.
In an interview earlier this
week for a different story, T.E.
Hartung, dean of the College of
Agriculture, jokingly said he
didn't have much time to plan
programs for the future because
he was so preoccupied with the
budget problems of today.
Maybe now Hartung and other
NU officials can buckle down
and start working on something
NU needs long-term planning.
tor, James Rogers, editorial asso
ciate and Chris Welsch, copy desk
chief.
Editorials do not necessarily re
flect the views of the university, its
employees, the students or the NU
Board of Regents.
Mlif'P
I,
Am
V
Contact shouldn't! be SdeaBozed
Right thinkers should put contract in a limited niche
The concept of contract is predom
inant within modern conservative
thought. Its broad appeal is easy
to understand.
The process of contracting gives
vent to the deeply respected American
idea of voluntariness in human rela
tions. And, after all, it seems preferable
that relevant actors in a situation agree
rather than be forced into some course
of action.
This contract ideal, or "paradigm,"
spread pervasively in the 19th century.
It obscured the earlier, more duty
oriented, conservative tradition es
poused, toward the end, most notably
by Edmund Burke. But the roots of the
world view extend back to St. Augus
tine and before.
The overshadowing of the earlier
conservative tradition by conservative
contractarianism is most lamentable.
Now, it's not that I find no proper role
for contract in society clearly I do.
Rather, I find the idealization of the
contract objectionable. It is a meta
phor for understanding social relation
ships that has captured and continues
to hold the imaginations of many fellow
conservatives.
Contracting is an expression of free
activity, and within a number of realms
and within a large number of circum
stances this process can continue
without distrust. Yet circumstances
also exist in which the contracting
process reduces individual liberty; t hus,
it must be questioned as an appropriate
social construct for conservative
thought.
State acquisition of UNO to blame
for deterioration of quality at UNL
A
fter reading Chris Welsch's column
on how boring the ASUN cam-
paign is (Daily Nebraskan. March
3) and Gerard Heating's guest opinion
on the university budget, (DN, March
3), I think it is time to give UNL stu
dents a history lesson a lesson ASUN
candidates can use for an exciting
platform and something that ASUN
should use in its legislative lobbying.
Guest Opinion
Let me begin by citing my authority
on the university budget. I was a UNL
student from 1971 to 1977. 1 served on
the Government Liaison Committee,
the Fees Allocation Board, the Council
on Student Life and was ASUN second
vice-president in 1975-76.
In the early '70s the University of
Omaha was having financial trouble
and the state was convinced that it
should take control of the failing insti
The question revolves around the
notion of power: how people get power
over other people, and what are the
limits to this power. The addition of
power makes the idea of contract a lot
more sticky.
For example, in this winter's edition
of the Harvard Journal of Law and Pub
lic Policy, USC law professor Maurice
Jones explicitly defends the 19th cen
tury view of contract supremacy as fol
lows: "To make a person poorer is
meant here to shrink the number of
options a person has available to improve
his or her lot in life...
James
Rogers
"Poor people tend to have fewer
choices than rich people because they
have less money. Poor people do have
free will, however. If a judge bans a
contract clause on the ostensible ground
of protecting the poor, the judge act u
ally is reducing the choices of poor
people and is therefore preventing poor
people from doing as well as they can,
given their circumstances, in the realm
of contractual choice."
On one level, Jones' analysis is OK;
after all, marketable choices should
not be taken away arbitrarily from
those who can benefit from their mar
keting. Yet behind Jones' statement is
tution and help it along. While that was
a nice gesture then, it has now become
the cause of the university's budget
problem. What happened in the ensu
ing years was renaming the University
of Omaha to UNO and the University of
Nebraska to UNL, replacing campus
presidents with chancellors and creat
ing an NU Systems Office staffed with
presidents and vice-presidents. That
was minor in relation to what was hap
pening to the budget for this university
system.
Since the acquisition of the Univer
sity of Omaha, the budget for that cam
pus has grown alarmingly, while the
budget for UNL has only had piecemeal
increases. 1 beg ASUN officials to
research the facts and see for them
selves. While they are at it, they should
look at the budget for the systems
office.
Let me explain this in terms of qual
ity of education. The systems office, its
puppet regents and a powerful Omaha
lobby have taken a little community
THE UAD PART,
MRS AQUINO
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..... -a. 3 ' X.
that the "choice" of the poor person
always is the result of "arms-length
bargaining."
Yet there is a slippery slope in Jones'
analysis, as well as the lack of recogni
tion that people can be taken advan
tage of sometimes very easily. Har
vard philosopher Robert Nozick, using
identical analysis to that of Jones,
argues in the name of freedom of con
tract that people should be allowed to
sell themselves into slavery.
The above objection to conservative
"contractarianism" is not as socially
irrelevant as may first appear. The
power of company towns over their
inhabitants was largely one based upon
"voluntarily agreed upon" contracts. In
the workplace, workers could easily be
made to "contract" away any right of
recovery for work-related accidents.
How the conservative reacts to these
phenomena is determined by how he
thinks of them.
In a phrase, a despotism could arise
"justly" given a purely contractarian
approach to social relationships. Yet
despotism is never justified. Eighteenth
century property rights theorist John
Locke opposed the legitimacy of so
called "voluntary" submission to des
potism. Such a notion obviously under
girds the thirteenth amendment to the
U.S. constitution. It is to this tradition
that conservatives (as well as all other
right thinking individuals) should turn,
and simply place contract in its proper,
limited, economic niche.
Rogers is a graduate student, a law stu
dent and DN editorial asociate.
college and turned it into a major insti
tution of higher education. Again, a
nice gesture, but just think if the sys
tems office had only maintained the
University of Omaha as it was when the
state acquired it and pumped all that
money into UNL.
Just think of it: UNL could have had
the highest-paid instructors in the Big
Eight, if not in the entire Midwest. The
state could have had a quality institu
tion of higher education. Instead, it has
two mediocre institutions.
Does the state need such duplica
tion of effort only 60 miles apart? Can
the state afford such duplication of
effort?
Obviously not. So what is the solu
tion? You can begin by controlling the
flow of money to UNO. And for you joke
parties, here's my solution: Sell UNO
back to Omaha, eliminate the systems
office and replace the campus chancel
lors with presidents.
Paul R. Morrison
University of Nebraska alumnus
