Step right up
Budget crisis may be best show on earth
I can only imagine what’s been
going on during the budget negotia
tions in Washington.
Newt glowers in a corner. He’s
still smarting from the snub of being
forced to sit way at the back of Air
Force One. He wants the budget
done his way or no way. Compro
mise not only annoys him, it tends to
diminish his status in the eyes of the
freshman class of Republicans in the
House of Representatives. Newt
thinks they’ve been unusually
restless lately, too aggressive and
unable to concentrate. Perhaps his
job would be easier if he put them
all on Ritalin.
Bob Dole glowers in another
corner. (Newt knows it’s nothing
personal, Dole always looks like
that.) Dole certainly wants the
balanced budget. His press releases
have been telling him that for years.
But he’s also smitten with the idea
of being called “Mr. President.”
This year’s election may represent
the last real chance he’ll have to call
the Oval Office his own. Budget
agreements aside, he’d really like to
best Clinton in this skirmish.
Clinton sits across the room, in a
self-reflective mood. He’s trying not
to gaze out the window, trying not to
think about his golf game, and trying
not to imagine Dole and Gingrich
both with shaved heads and black
eyes. He fights them more out of
habit than conviction. He also
knows that he can well afford to
annoy the congressional leaders at
this point in the election year. An
aide told him that the polls said the
public liked him better than Con
gress anyway.
I am an equal-opportunity cynic
when it comes to politics. By that I
mean that all politicians, regardless
of party affiliation or ideological
stance, are equally subject to my
suspicion and contempt. Theoreti
cally, they also have an equal
chance to earn my respect, but it
doesn’t seem likely.
Sometimes I think that the U.S.
government is the greatest show on
Jennifer Mapes
“The question for me is
not whether the budget
should be balanced, but
whether we should be
letting this particular
collection of buffoons do
the job for us. ”
earth. And with the budget talks, it
has been in rare form: lots of high
drama, partisan bickering and
election-year posturing.
The warring factions agree on a
lot of things. Yes, the budget
should be balanced. No, social
programs like Medicare and
Medicaid should not be gutted.
But their disagreements have
stolen the center ring in this
circus. Should the budget be
balanced in seven years or 10
years? And what exactly consti
tutes an unconscionable cut in our
social safety net programs? And
here’s another bright idea. Be
cause we need to bring in more
money and spend less, let’s cut
taxes!
Sometimes 1 get the feeling that
my country is governed by the
world’s oldest junior high kids.
Think about it. In the last few
months, the president and congres
sional leaders have not been able to
produce a budget at all, let alone a
balanced one. Meanwhile, thousands
of government workers have gone
without pay or work, because
there’s no money to keep the
government going.
Incidentally, there is enough
money to pay the president, the
senators, and the House of Repre
sentatives (the Senate suggested that
they and their colleagues should
share the nation’s pain by foregoing
their own paychecks during the
shutdown, but the House decided it
was a bad idea.)
Balancing the budget is an
admirable goal. But I’m beginning
to wonder if it’s such a good idea
right now.
I’d like to see a few other things
happen with government before the
budget is balanced. First of all, I’d
like to sec Congress reform itself.
The few attempts it has made at
things like campaign finance reform
haven’t gone far enough to earn the
trust of this voter. If we the people
have to do without government
money for mohair and beehives,
then they the representatives should
at least try to wean themselves off
money from special-interest groups.
I’d also like to sec the govern
ment bureaucracy trimmed. Cut
some of the fat and waste out of the
federal bureaucracy, and see how
much it costs to run it then. I’m sure
the legions of federal lint inspectors
will be sorely missed, but if we pull
together as a nation, I’m sure we can
cope.
The question for me is not
whether the budget should be
balanced, but whether we should be
letting this particular collection of
buffoons do the job for us. Thus far,
they’ve managed to exchange a lot
of accusations and dirty looks, but
not a lot of ideas about how to
compromise or produce a budget.
Any budget.
If they can’t learn to play nice
with each other, I think we should
send them home.
Mapes is a senior advertising and his
tory major and a Dally Nebraskan colum
nist.
Wake up |
Your educational alarm clock is rinoinQ
Question: How does the aca
demic structure of a university help
define its students?
Answer: Whether it’s personal
identity, athletic achievement, social
activity or some other reason, the
primary benefit universities offer is
an education in a specific discipline.
The Golden Carrot dangled in
front of students, regardless of their
program of choice, is the degree that
proclaims to friends and family and
the rest of the world that the last
four or six or 10 years have not been
a wasted effort on the part of the
individual.
In short, the means do justify the
ends.
The means for students today are
changing, to say the least.
Gone are the days when the G.I.
home from the war could expect a
fully-funded government education
and a job waiting for this self
created niche out in the real world.
Gone, too, are the times when
university students could put off
deciding how their education should
be managed from Day One.
Do not misunderstand me —
college is a time for exploration and
self-reflection. But four years of
football games and prerequisite
classes do not a well-conceived
education make. The fact is, our
society is dependent on competition
as a growth factor, both here and
abroad. The training for this
competition ideally starts with both
the student and the teacher, in the
classroom.
I can hear it now. “Well, my field
is (fill in the blank), and I won’t
have to worry about getting the job
that goes with the carrot, so as long
as I do X and Y and maybe some
Z.” That’s the type of thinking that
Fred Poyner
“'Die bottom line may be
that our society will
always have those people
who attend college only
to end up drifting to
whatever fate has in
store for them ... their
course is left to the
winds of chance and the
mercy of the automated
course registration
system. ”
recently ruined the careers of six
U.S. Naval Academy cadets caught
using LSD. Rather than focusing on
how the education of their choice
could get them ahead, they assumed
a misplaced “Untouchable” altitude
because of their status as the
military’s elite-to-be. And they paid
the price.
Learning is a two-way street.
Along with the realization that the
student must be increasingly
accountable for the outcome of the
curriculum is the need for professors
to be accountable to their students
and the instruction methods utilized.
If you are a professor and you need
to conduct outside research, fine. I
have no problem with faculty
development leave. But if it inter
feres with the initial commitment to
the student, then it becomes a
problem for the entire university.
In addition, bureaucracy, for all
its necessity, can and does interfere
with the learning process. Two
examples of this that come to mind
are the availability of some research
facilities here on UNL’s campus and
the current protests under way at
Yale University concerning the
treatment of graduate teaching
assistants by the Yale administra
tion. In the latter case, the Yale
grads want union recognition for the
work they undertake on behalf of the
university, rather than submit to
what many consider the 20th
century’s answer for indentured
servitude.
Of course, the bottom line may
be that our society always will have
those people who attend college
only to end up drifting to whatever
fate has in store for them. Like
Kierkegaard’s ship without a helm,
their course is left to the winds of
chance, and the mercy of the
automated course registration
system.
One week into the second
semester, if you have a stake in the
educational policies of a university,
how they are applied, and what you
expect from them, this is your wake
up call.
Poyner is a museum studies graduate
student and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
*
■
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Congress’ big rip-off:
land for sale — cheap
Byron Adams
An unprecedented assault on
our land is now under way in
Congress. Right now, there arc
bills pending in Congress that
threaten millions of acres of
national parks, forests, grasslands
and coastlines that are owned by
you and me.
• One bill would establish
political committees to identify
national forests and parks to be
closed or sold. If you ever wanted
your own national monument, this
could be your chance.
• Another bill would transfer
millions of acres of public land to
the states, which could then sell
them to profit-motivated interests
and restrict public access.
• Instead of getting fair,
market rates for grazing rights
and range protection on our
property, a Senate bill now
proposes to make grazing the
dominant use of federal range, to
prevent the public from influenc
ing range policy and to exempt
grazing from environmental
impact laws.
• There is no substantial effort
to reform the Mining Law of
1872, which allows huge mining
companies to claim public land
for as little as $2.50 an acre,
extract billions of dollars worth
of ore and not pay taxpayers a
single penny in royalties. In fact,
just last monin, tne New York
based mining company Asarco
bought 2.9 billion dollars’ worth
of mining rights for S1,745,
allowing for open-pit mining on
347 acres of Arizona’s Coronado
National Forest.
A quick look at those opposing
these bills suggests that it is not
only placard-waving tree spikers
who feel as if they arc getting
ripped off by the government.
Virtually every group that uses
public land for recreation, from
hunting-rights advocates and
mountain bikers to scientists and
the tourism industry, has had
something to say about how lousy
these bills are. Still, it appears
that special-interest groups have
the ears of our legislators,
especially those of the west who
have the most to gain by grabbing
up public land and putting it on
the chopping block. Nowhere,
however, is the fiscally irrespon
sible, anti-environmental pen
chant of this Congress more
blatant than in the so-called “Utah
Wilderness Bill.”
The 1964 Wilderness Act and
the 1976 Federal Land Policy and
Management Act charged our
government to find places that
offered outstanding opportunities
for solitude and protect them;
places “untrammeled by man,
where he himself is a visitor who
does not remain.” (Apparently it
was mostly men back then who
did all the “trammeling.”)
Unfortunately, the Utah
Wilderness Bill has a different
interpretation, one that defines the
value of wilderness in terms of
coal, oil, timber and other
commodities.
“In essence, the
proposed legislation
says that if land is not
called wilderness by
this bill, it can never
be wilderness again —
wording
unprecedented in the
history of wilderness
legislation. ”
The bill before Congress
would set aside a meager 1.8
million acres, of 22 million acres
of public land in Utah, as “pro
tected” wilderness. Amazingly,
this “protection” includes the
building of dams, power lines,
communication towers, roads and
pipelines. Also unique to this
“wilderness bill” is the fact that
the remaining 20 million acres of
public land in Utah never could
be designated as wilderness in the
future — it would be managed for
use by livestock interests and
mining companies.
In essence, the proposed
legislation says that if land is not
called wilderness by this bill, it
can never be wilderness again —
wording unprecedented in tne
history of wilderness legislation.
This land belongs to all of us
— not just to the people of Utah.
It scents to me that what this bill
really is trying to protect is the
right of individuals (foreign or
domestic) to trash our property
without our consent.
Last November, I visited the
Washington offices of my
representatives in congress, Bob
Kerrey, Jim Exon and Doug
Bereuter, to discuss this issue.
While our representatives are
hesitant to lake a leadership role
on this issue, you can be proud of
their refusal to support such a
wrongheaded bill as this one.
Even so, this lousy bill passed in
its December markup hearing.
Although it came out somewhat
revised, it is still fatally flawed in
every fundamental aspect.
Remind your representatives in
Congress of this when you thank
them for their opposition to this
bill (S 884 for senators, HR 1745
for representatives).
As an undergraduate at a
university in Utah, the lure of
majestic, awe-inspiring canyons
and mesas was a powerful draw
on my time and attention. This
lure continues today. Although
my studies may have suffered for
it, I have come to cherish the time
spent in big, wild places.
Surely the value of this
wilderness extends beyond the
realm of short-term economic
booms and busts.
Let’s prevent local greed from
trashing our national heritage.
Adams Is a graduate student In plant
pathology.
BE OUR GUEST
The Daily Nebraskan will present a guest columnist each week. Writers
from the university and community are welcome.
Must have strong writing skills and,something to say.
Contact Doug Peters c/o the Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union,
1400 R St., Lincoln, NE 68588, or e-mail at letters@unlinfo.unl.edu.
Or by phone at (402)-472-l 782.