1st District House race picks up speed
Congressional
hopefuls debate
economic plans
By Andy Raun
Staff Reporter
Both candidates for Nebraska’s 1 st
District congressional scat said Thurs
day that their top priprity was reduc
ing the federal deficit.
Doug Bcrcutcr, the seven-term Re
publican incumbent, and his chal
lenger, Lincoln
businessman Gerry
Finnegan, agreed
that economic
growth was the key
to solving the
nation’s fiscal
woes, and that al
most nothing in the
federal budget could be spared from
consideration for budget cuts.
Thecandidatcs made their remarks
during an hour-long debate sponsored
by the League of Women Voters. The
debate was at the studios of the Ne
braska Educational Television Net
work in Lincoln and broadcast live
statewide on public television sta
tions.
Finnegan said he opposed increas
ing tax rates because doing so would
stifle economic growth.
“We need to grow the tax base” to
increase federal revenues, he said.
A coherent national economic
policy and simplification of the fed
eral tax code are needed to solve the
country’s economic problems,
Finnegan said.
Bercutcr said Congress needed to
“attack directly” the deficit by imple
menting a constitutional amendment
requiring a balanced federal budget.
Bereuter also said the president
should be given line-item veto power
so that members of Congress would
be more accountable for their spend
ing choices.
Even legislation granting the line
item veto for a 10-ycar trial period
would be acceptable if that were the
only way to get line-item veto power
approved, Bercutcr said.
In light of changes in the interna
tional arena, Congress should not fund
new B-2 bombers or Scawolf subma
rines, Bercutcr said. Additional cuts
of U.S. troop strength in western Eu
rope could also be made, he said.
“We ought to place our dollars
where we can be most effective,”
Bercutcr said.
Both candidates said Social Secu
rity payments should not be subject to
cuts. But Finnegan said savings in the
Social Security program could be
achieved by raising the retirement'
age to 70 or 72 over a numberof years.
Bercutcr said he opposed such a
move because it would not give lower
income citizens enough time to make
changes in their retirement savings
plans.
Both candidates said reforming
national health care policy would be
critical in the next congressional ses
sion. And both said they were not
ready to accept a nationalized health
care system, but changes in the status
quo were needed and wanted badly by
constituents.
Finnegan said he supported fed
eral funding of genetic research, and
other areas in which the United States
was supdrior, to jump-start the
economy.
Bercuter said he would support
speeding up the timetable for paying
federal public works development
grants. He also said he supported re
viving lax credits to spur economic
growth.
Bercuter said the United States
needed to expand domestic uses of
agricultural products, aggressively
pursue foreign markets for agricul
tural goods and make sure foreign
import regulations were fair to the
United States.
Finnegan said the United States
needed to change its policy of flood
ing the world market with grain in an
attempt to gain an upper hand in the
export trade.
Bercuter said U. S. export policy
did not provide for flooding world
markets.
Bereuter wants
election to end
Democratic rule
By Todd Burger
Staff Reporter
U.S. Rep. Doug Bereuter said
Wednesday that the best change for
the country in the upcoming election
would be the narrowing of the D6mo
cratic majority in
TlCongress.
I A Republican
from Nebraska’s
1st District running
for his eighth term,
Bereuter spoke to
about 250 people at
Union College’s
Academic Convocation about why
the Republican Party would serve the
country better than the Democrats
would.
“This is the most politically ex
treme Congress I’ve servcd5 in,” he
said.
The Democrats in Congress, he
said, have deliberately provoked and
piled up vetoes to the advantage of
Gov. Bill Clinton.
Democrats now enjoy a 102-votc
advantage in the U.S. House of Rep
resentatives and have controlled the
House for 38 years.
“That’s longer than Castro’s con
trol over Cuba. I won’t take that anal
ogy any further,” he said, followed by
the audience’s laughter.
Bercutcr said he hoped for a 25- to
30-seat net gain in the House for the
Republicans.
In contrast, Republicans have held
control of the presidency for 84 years
since Abraham Lincoln’s electoral
victory, compared to the Democrats’
48 years of control.
Although the media portrays the
1992 Republican platform differently,
Bercutcr said he did not find the plat
form divisive. Republicans would
propose legislation on issues includ
ing family values, health care, con
gressional staff cuts, the line-item
veto and the environment, he said.
One of the health care issues Re
publicans would like to address is
making the intentional transmission
of AIDS a criminal act, he said.;
Bercutcr said Republicans also
were concerned about the environ
ment, but that environmental issues
should be paired with economic
growth.
Republicans would require that a
proposed recovery act of an endan
gered species be worked through and
approved by Congress,and not merely
“rubber-stamped,” he said.
Archeologists, scholars wrangle over Scrolls
By Neil Feldman
Staff Reporter_
The Dead Sea Scrolls will remain in the
spotlight of controversy for decades to come,
said Eric Meyers, a Jewish scholar and profes
sor of religion at Duke University at Durham,
N.C.
Meyers, who lectured Wednesday on behalf
,of,the new University of Ncbraska-Lincoln
Judaic Studies Program, said the debate over
who could rightfully claim and publish the
scrolls was a legitimate controversy that would
persist into the next century.
Scholars and archeologists have engaged in
numerous squabbles over the possession of the
scrolls since their discovery in 1947, Meyers
said, and the debate has intensified as more
scholars pursue this dilemma.
To further complicate the situation he said,
general interest magazines, such as Vanity Fair
and Time, recently have published articles on
the debate over the scrolls.
v Displaying an issue of Time that ran a story
on tfic scrolls, Meyers asked how such
unknowlcdgcablc journalists could write fea
tures on the topic.
Meyers said the articles were packed with
inaccurate and misleading information.
Such deceptive information, he said, signifi
cantly damages the process of moving forward
in this “highly complex debate.”
“It is asinine,” Meyers said, “that such a
report could be printed in a news magazine.”
The scrolls, which date back to about 200
B.C., were discovered in the late 1940s and
early 1950s by archeologists and Bedouins.
The scrolls include all of the books from the
Old Testament (with the exception of Esther,)
some fragments of the Septuagint, the earliest
Greek translation of the Old Testament and
segments of some books from the Apocryphn,
written in Aramaic, Greek and Hebrew, he said.
At this point, Meyers said, it looks as if the
debate over the scrolls will not be settled for a
long time. He added that he was pessimistic that
a resolution over whocould lawfully claim and *
publish the scrolls would be reached in the
future.
|—---POLICE REPORT
Beginning midnight Wednesday
10:27 a.m. — Two-vehicic, non
injury accident, parking lot west of
Harpcr-Schramm-Smith complex,
$400.
11:34 a.m. — Two-vehicle, non
injury accident, meter parking lot
west of Memorial Stadium, S100.
1:32 p.m.—Woman twisted ankle,
10th and T streets, transported to
University Health Center.
,
A new prescription for terror.
-si
- .*V$ 'j5£iPiCL'“f x" _^-‘T r
Paved, lit parking lot
to open for students
By Susie Arth
Senior Reporter
Starling Monday, some of the pains
of parking on campus will be tempo
rarily relieved, a UNL official said.
Michael
Cacak, interim
parking admin
istrator at the
University of
Ncbraska-Lin
coln, said a new
parking lot with
370 parking
spaces would
open Monday on
The lot, which will be used as the
parking lotforthe Beadle Center upon
the building’s completion, is paved
and well lit, Cacak said. The Beadle
Center is expected to be completed
‘ early fall of 1994.
“We’re looking forward to helping
the students out a little bit by casing
their parking problems for a while,”
he said.
Students with 1, 2 and 20 class
parking permits will be allowed to
park in the lot, Cacak said. These
permits arc issued to students who
live in the Abcl-Sando/. Complex, the
Cather-Pound-Ncihardt Complex, fra
ternities, sororities and commuters,
- a
We’re looking forward
to helping the students
out a little bit by easing
their parking problems
for a while.
— Cacak, interim parking
administrator
-ft "
he said.
The lot, Cacak said, would be es
pecially convenient for students who
live in the residence halls.
Cacak said only students would be
allowed to park in the lot for now, but
faculty will also be issued permits to
to park in it after the Beadle Center is
completed.
Cacak tfaid he had planned on us
ing the Beadle Center lot to relieve
parking pains since last year.
The original plan, Cacak said, was
to have the lot completed before the
beginning of the school year, but a
rainy summer inhibited construction.
He said he was thankful the lot was
finally completed for students to use.
“This lot will go a long ways to
ward solving the parking problem,”
he said.
Voter
Continued from Page 1
Nebraska Wesleyan University, Union
College and every grocery store in
Lincoln.
Hansen, who became election com
missioner last year, said not as many
locations had offered voter registra
tion in previous years.
She said the number of registered
voters had increased throughout
Lancaster County.
In 1988, she said, there were
111,320 registered voters by election
lime.
By Oct. 1 of this year, that number
already had been exceeded by almost
9,(XX) people, Hansen said.
Hansen said she expected about
124,(XX) people to be registered by
today at 6 p.m. — the dead line lo vote
in the Nov. 2 elections.
\
