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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 26, 1991)
GARY LONGSINE America, Bush need your help We desperately need a funda mental re-evaluation and reorganization of national security policy. We must stop, think and change. We must do it today. We can no longer view national security strictly in terms of military threats from outside. We must con sider the economy, the environment, the health of our people and the scourge of world poverty and hunger to be vital to the security and well-being of our nation. President Bush would prefer that you view these issues as a dichotomy: domestic vs. security issues, or mili tary vs. humanitarian. That way, he can blame Congress for inactivity on the very issues he ignores and can continue to play with foreign policy in his Cold War ways and golf on his domestic time. Bush has had his chance to lead this country and the world into his new world order. So far he has done nothing new, except name it in speeches that now have a hollow ring. We must realize, because Bush won’t, that the true threats to our nation’s security come from problems that were ig nored or created in the frenzy of the Cold War and greatly exacerbated by a decade of Ronald Reagan and Bush. Absent presidential action, Con gress cannot be expected to provide a coherent and visionary leadership. However, it should be expected to provide clear legislation in response torcal problems. The new world order needs to begin at home. We can lead the world, but only if we lead our selves first. One big obstacle to our self-lead ership is a practice the courts have adopted as a response to confusing legislation from Congress. We should put an immediate stop to the use of legislative history to interpret the wishy-washy laws passed by a timid and divided Congress. Legislative history is the record of debate on a bill. Courts use it to determine the intent of Congress when the intent, apparently, is not discern ible from the text of the law. The record often contains hundreds of pages of explanatory remarks dropped into the record. Much of it is never actu ally read in the debate. The record is generally so exten sive that virtually any interpretation of a legislative bill can be supported. This moves the courts to the center of policy making. I say move them back out. If Congress can’t pass clear leg islation on an issue, then it shouldn’t pass any at all. Bill GL-1: “The courts of this land Bush has had his chance tg lead this. country and the world into his new world order, So {gr he has, done, nothing. new, except name, it in meshes, that mm have a hollow ring. shall not use the legislative record of Congress to interpret the laws of the land as passed by Congress. The text of the law shall be sufficient to deter mine its meaning. If the text has no meaning, then the law has no mean ing. No guessing and no peeking al lowed.” With that done, Congress should strive to pass clear legislation directed at our nation’s very real problems. It is not enough to say that we must stop spending hundreds of billions of dollars on our military when we have homeless people,children in poverty, more than $2.5 trillion in the federal debt and death by stray bullets in our inner cities. Bill GL-2: ‘‘Congress hereby di rects the president to submit within one year a budget with military spend ing reduced by half. Furthermore, all procurement of nuclcafr weapons and their delivery systems shall cease immediately.” With the military monster under control. Congress can make some headway into salvaging the economy. It needs help. It sags under the tre mendous weight of a variety of debt related problems. The recent scrap over credit card interest rates points to one of the widely ignored aspects of these problems. You, as a credit card-using con sumer, are paying interest rates far in excess of the interest that would nor mally be associated with your lend ing risk. The tremendous profits milked fofrom credit card holders are being used to prop up ailing banks. You are paying banks for making bad loans to developing nations. You are also paying for loans to wealthy developers, who made more money in one year in the 1980s than you will in the rest of your life. These develop ers built tremendous office complexes in cities such as Houston. Poking through the skylines of several major cities in the Southwest are giant of fice towers sitting empty or uncom pleted. Most of the developers paid them selves handsomely — and legally — for the entrepreneurial talent required to convince a banker that yet another empty tower in a Southwestern state would be a sound investment. Billions of dollars of these and other bad loans are being written off by banks such as Citibank, Chase Manhattan and Chemical Bank. You probably have a credit card from one of these banks and you are probably paying from 17 to 20 percent interest. A decade ago, a legal monopoly affectionately called Ma Bell was disbanded for doing exactly the same thing the major banks are doing now. Ma Bell was charging long-distance customers higher rates to subsidize the losses incurred in their service to local callers. But that is just a drop in the bucket of economic problems. We need sweeping changes. Economic collapse, or even eternal stagnation, is a much greater threat to our security than Libya could ever hope to be. Bill GL-3: “Congress directs the president to submit a budget with the deficit reduced by one-third. The president shall submit a balanced budget in 1993. Thereafter, all budg ets, except in times of national emer gency as declared by the president, approved by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress, and initialed in triplicate by God, shall be submitted as balanced.” i If you want to help bring in the new world order, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope and a contribution of $25 for the complete text of 25 simple legislative GL-bills that could help save our nation. Our country needs your help. Suggested bills are welcome. Please keep them to 50 or fewer words. No words of more than three syllables. We’re dealing with Congress, you know. I^ongsine is a senior economics and inter national affairs major and a Daily Nebras kan columnist ‘Gag rule’ inaccurate name for abortion counseling decision In the editorial ‘“Gag rule’ re mains” (DN, Nov. 21), Eric Pfanner neglected to tell the whole story about this issue. Title X has recently been referred to as the “gag rule.” This is not a gag rule. Keep reading, and I’ll explain. In a statement Nov. 5, President Bush said, “Patients and doctors can talk about absolutely anything they want.” This includes abortion. The doctors can inform their patients of the costs, harms and effects or what would happen during the abortion, etc. They simply cannot refer the patients to an abortion clinic. There fore, it is only non-medical person nel, clinic counselors, for example, who are affected by this ruling. Pfanner said that counseling is not the same as advocacy, and I agree. What this ruling says is that physi cians should be the ones to discuss abortion with patients, but they should not refer them to abortion clinics once they have already conceived. This is the reason family planning clinics, such as Planned Parenthood, are so upset with this ruling. They also wanted to allow their counselors to discuss the option of abortion with their pa tients. The original intent of Title X, when it was implemented in 1970, was to deal with the issue of preventative family planning, not to deal with the issue of abortion. Once a woman becomes pregnant, she no longer falls into the pre-conceplive category. Abortion is not preventive family planning. It is post-conccptive plan ning, not to mention that it is the ending of a human life. The congressional conference report on Title X clearly states: “It is, and has been, the intent of both houses that funds authorized under this legis lation be used only to support preven tive family planning services.” Sec tion 1008 of Title X says, “None of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family plan ning.” Pfanncr’s article mentioned that the failure to override this veto will lead to Bush’s less-than-perfect rec ord on social issues. I believe he is trying to reiterate what House Speaker Thomas Foley recently said. Foley feared that if the House voted with the president, it would imperil vital so cial programs offered by these clin ics. But, in fact, none of the money would be taken away from these clin ics if these clinic counselors were not allowed to discuss abortion. Bush has said he will sign the bill with every dollar intact. Another point I feel needs to be made here is that even though abor tion is legal on demand, it docs not mean that we, ascitizensof the United States, have to subsidize it, or infor mation about it, with our tax money. As with the issue of food stamps, the government sets guidelines as to how people can use their food stamps. This is, as it should be, the same with the issue of abortion. The govern ment is giving federal money to these family planning clinics and should be able to have a say in how this money is going to be used. It would have been well-advised for Pfanner to become aware of the truths of Title X, and of Bush’s re marks, before solely relying on Planned Parenthood forces and their pro-abor tion rhetoric when writing his edito rial. Ken Kroll sophomore psychology Editor’s note: In writing the Daily Nebraskan editorial on Bush’s veto, Pfanner used articles by The Asso ciated Press and The Washington Post as his sources. 1992 BSN STUDENTS. ter the Air Force ately after gradua tion — without waiting for the results of your State Boards. You can earn great benefits as an Air Force nurse officer. And if selected during your senior year, you may qualify for a five-month internship at a major Air Force medical facili ty. To apply, you’ll need an overall 2.50 GPA. Serve your country while you serve your career. USAF HEALTH PROFESSIONS TOLL FREE 1-800-423-USAF P ■■■■■ bi ^ Affordable j Laptop Portability! PC-5541 286 I ! 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