OPfN^lDN Nebraskan
V^X M 1 I V/l Wednesday, March 3, 1993
Editorial Board
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Chris Hopfensperger.Editor, 472-1766
Jeremy Fitzpatrick.Opinion Page Editor
Alan Phelps.Managing Editor
Brian Shellito.Cartoonist
Susie Arth. Senior Reporter
Kim Spurlock.Diversions Editor
Sam Kepfield ...Columnist
Learn from past
Reduce spending first, then increase taxes
Now that the initial euphoria over President Clinton's call
for sacrifice to reduce the national debt and curb the
deficit is beginning to fade, it is time to take a realistic
look at Clinton’s proposals. More importantly, it is important that
his legislative strategy come under scrutiny.
The first part of Clinton’s plan calls for Congress to vote on a
$30 billion stimulus package by April 2. However, revised figures
showing the Gross National Product growing at a rate of 4.8
percent in the final quarter of 1992 might mean such a package
isn’t appropriate.
Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen has called the program
“psychological.” Labor Secretary Robert Reich told CNN on
Monday that the package could be more than $30 billion. Faced
1,.... I, ..-.. ■ - —— J
David Badders/DN
wiui reducing me uencu,
Clinton could find some money
in waiting on pushing a stimulus
package.
The next step in Clinton’s plan
will come in the late summer,
when his tax increases and
spending cuts will be debated in
Congress. Conservative Demo
crats, such as Rep. Jim Slattery
of Kansas, arc insisting that the
spending cuts and tax increases
be tied closely together.
Nebraska Sen. James Exon
stated that “in a budget, spend
ing cannot exceed revenue.”
Leon Panetta, Office of Manage
ment and Budget director,
conceded that passage of the
program will be difficult, and a
compromise with fiscally
necessary.
Some Republicans, left out of the budget process so far, are
suggesting that the spending cuts be voted on first, to be followed
by the tax increases. It is a proposal that is worth consideration.
History demands that spending cuts come first. In 1982,
Ronald Reagan signed TEFRA, the largest tax increase in history.
Reagan did so with the express understanding that for every dollar
in tax increases, Congress would vole $1.59 in spending cuts. The
tax increases sailed through Congress, but the cuts were conve
niently forgotten.
In 1990, George Bush broke his “no new taxes” pledge, but
again with the promise that Congress would pass spending cuts.
Once again, the tax increases passed first, but the spending cuts
never surfaced. As a result, the deficit went from $160 billion in
1990 to $300 billion in 1991, and the economy slid into a reces
sion.
If President Clinton is truly serious about reducing the deficit,
he should insist on having the spending cuts first. Then the tax
increase package should be submitted to Congress, and should not
exceed the limit of the total spending cuts approved. Republicans
say the package as is includes $1.75 to $18 in taxes for every $1
in cuts; Democrats say it is balanced, which means that the deficit
will not be reduced.
It is time to stop the rhetoric about the budget. Cut first, tax
second and wait for the deficit to come down. If it does, then
Ginton can claim to have made a difference. If it does not, then
he may learn the hard lesson about taxes that George Bush did.
Staff editorial* represent the official policy of the Fall 1992 Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by
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Government’s job not parenting
1 blame Macauley Culkin for all
this.
To my list of phrases I’m
sick of hearing, I add two words —
“home alone. The child-savers that
populate our social service agencies
and district attorney’s offices are in
danger of exceeding their powers,
propelled by images of an insuffer
abl te tyke.
weekend here in Lincoln, a
19-year-old mother left her three-year
old daughter alone in her apartment
while sne went out for the night. A
neighbor heard the child crying, en
tered the apartment and called the
police.
The little girl is now in a foster
home, and the mother is in jail on
charges of felony child endangermcnL
The state may take custody perma
nent! ~ * parenting? Yes. Crimi
nal?
Look beyond the obvious feel-good
rhetoric about having “saved” the chi Id
from a possible horrible fate while left
alone by an obviously uncaring mother
and what you see is a dangerous
overintrusion by the state into family
privacy.
When a similar event happened in
Chicago, the media circus at O’Hare
Airport when David and Sharon Schoo
were arrested on their return from
Acapulco was a sight to boggle the
mind. There were more cops and re
porters present than is usual for serial
killers.
To be sure, an intensive investiga
tion has revealed that the Schoos may
have done more than leave their two
daughters home by themselves. Pros
ecutors brought 63 counts against
them, and to their credit, the Schoos
told the district attorney that they
were fighting the charges.
I applaud their decision. Someone
in the DA’s office ought to be dis
barred for the way this matter has
been handled, beginning with the leaks
about the arrest itself, making it big
ger news than the Israelis hauling in
Adolf Eichmann.
The prosecutors arc engaging in
It summarizes
perfectly the whole
problem with the
child-protection
system in this
country today.
These people
obviously have their
priorities screwed
up.
more than “creative charging” —
where you indict someone for every
thing possible no matter how tenuous,
and get them to plead guilty to the real
charge if you’re so kind as to kick the
other charges. I know how it’s played
— I’ve done it myself. The words
“malicious prosecution” spring to
mind.
In Texas and Minnesota, courts
have held women liable for monetary
damages to their children. The theory
of recovery is that the women knew,
or should have known, that their
spouses were abusing the children
and should have stopped it.
If you winced during the ’92 cam
paign when some alleged that Hillary
Clinton wanted children to be able to
sue their parents, here you have the
end result. In the Minnesota and Texas
cases, Aids are going after mom’s
homeowners insurance policy —
which covers negligence — for a fat
sum.
Howard Davidson, director of the
American Bar Association’s Center
on Children and the Law, said “It*s
creative lawyering for the benefit of
the kid.”
It is, and that Davidson would ad
mit as much worries me. It summa
rizes perfectly the whole problem with
the child-protection system in this
country today. These people obvi
ously have their priorities screwed up.
When conducting witch hunts for
mothers who leave their kids home
alone becomes priority No. 1, the real
and tragic problem of parents who
horribly abuse their children is ig
nored. By ignoring the real abuse, and
focusing on what may properly be
termed bad parenting, the child-sav
ers are trivializing the whole issue.
Maybe they get frustrated about
not being able to save children of poor
parents from physical abuse, because
it’s such a numbing problem. In their
angst, the child-savers turn to the
controversial cases, those with well
off parents so callous as to leave their
children alone while jetting to Mexico,
to whip up public outrage. This, too,
will get tiresome, and then what?
Prosecutions for letting kids eat too
much junk food?
The parents leaving their children
home and the mothers unable to stop
abuse may not be candidates for saint
hood, but are they criminals? Is jail
the answer for bad parenting?
Wouldn’t the children be better off
with their real parents, rather than
shuttled around a foster-care system
that can do more harm than good?
Isn’t it time to cut down on the
activist role of child-savers, and pro
tect families, however imperfect, from
this assault on their integrity? With
government trying to supplant the
traditional parental role, it’s small
wonder that our children seem as lost
as they do.
Leave parenting to the parents, and
governing to the government.
Kepfldd is a graduate student in history,
an alumnus of the UNL College of Law and a
Daily Nebraskan columnist
India .
I was very upset by the article
“Sewer aromas smell in India” (Di
versions, Feb. 25, 1993), written by
Mark Baldridge, the Daily
Nebraskan’s Arts and Entertainment
editor. The article was supposed to
broaden the views of our students on
international travel, but with sentences
like,“Butlndia stinks "itonly showed
how ignorant our Arts and Entertain
ment editor remained.
If he wanted to experience “the
Third-World smells,” he did not have
to travel far; ghettos of the big Ameri
can cities have the right samples. Only
/
he would not dare go there.
Vesna Kilibarda
graduate student
mathematics
Mark Baldridge
(DN, Feb. 25.1993):
If you traveled to some of the
bigger cities in the United States like
Chicago, New York, Los Angeles,
etc., you would know the filth and
squalor that you associate with Third
World countries exist in abundance
here.
In several places in Chicago we
observed sewage oozing out ofpipes
and flowing into the streets. There
was slinking garbage strewn all over
the place. People were indiscrimi
nately throwing trash out of their apart
ment windows onto the streets below.
And there were people openly urinat
ing in public on the sidewalks.
Is this much different from what
you saw in India? If we went home
anjJ described the United Stales to our
friends there, solely based upon our
experiences in the big U.S. cities,
would they not get a distorted impres
sion of this country?
Sanjay Shenoy
senior
electrical engineering
