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EDITOR
DougKouma
OPINION
EDITOR
AnneHjersman
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Doug Peters
Matt Waite
Paula Lavigne
Mitch Sherman
- Anthony Nguyen
Financial fix
Campaign reform
must be high priority
An open letter to Sen. Bob Kerrey,
Sen.-elect Chuck Hagel and Reps. Jon
Christensen, Bill Barrett and Doug
Bereuter:
The election is over. The signs have been
taken down. The results are clean the five of
you are Nebraska’s delegation to Washing
ton.
iNOw mat uie campaigning is uuuc, u is
time for the work in Washington to start And
there is one nagging item that should be near
the top: real campaign finance reform.
The American people have lost faith in
the very system that gives you a job — the
very system that selects the leaders of the
world’s greatest democracy. Cynicism about
politics is rampant. And the influence of
money has fueled that cynicism.
Congress and the individual parties have
a chance to revive politics—revive democ
racy —with real campaign finance reform.
Working folks see the influence of
DollarCorp Inc. and Joe Megabucks with
their multimillion-dollar donations to cam
paigns and parties. They wonder how they
can compete — in the face of a $250,000
soft money donation, a vote can seem insig
nificant.
Congress should open a bipartisan com
mission to examine and draft proposals for
comprehensive campaign finance reform. If
there were ever the right person to lead such
an effort, it would be Bob Dole. Leaders from
both sides of the aisle, as well as citizens,
need to be involved.
We c&ll on you to see that it is dbne. &
Some of the issues we believe shoilld be
1_f_1 —A. _ .
iuukcu ai aie.
• Limiting political action committees to
$1,000 donations in the primaries and$l,000
in the general election, making them equal
to individuals.
• Making individual donations tax-de
ductible.
• In the strongest words possible, encour
aging political parties to no longer accept
soft-money donations.
• Banning donations from foreign inter
* ests.
• Increasing regulation on independent
expenditure campaigns.
Politics in America should not be about
money. It should be about the people. Does
“Of the People, for the People, by the People”
ring a bell? It means as much today as it did
when it was written.
Politics in Nebraska is changing from
Main Street campaigns run in coffee shops
to soft money and media buys. We’re tired
of the negative campaigns. We’re tired of
politics as usual.
We call on you, Nebraska’s congres
sional delegation, to work for real campaign
finance reform.
■
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Fall 1996Daily Nebraskan They do not nec
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Kasey
KERBER
Fiscal psychoses
There’s no stopping the buck
Money.
It’s a simple thing, really—
processed wood pulp dyed a light
shade of green.
Yet this wood pulp has a pretty
huge impact cm our lives.
Think about it: We’re bom. We go
to school. We use our schooling to
get a job. Then we use our job to get
money.
Bang! Seventeen years of our
lives have suddenly been dedicated
to the quest of getting money.
This is not to say that I’m advo
cating a boycott of money.
Heck, if I told you to stop using
money and survive off the land, men
in white coats would be waiting in
my first class today to coax my butt
into a straitjacket.
Yet I find money to be a pretty
influential item in our lives.
And like SPAM, glowing neon
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Royal Family—money also adds a
humorous aspect to all of our lives.
To truly demonstrate how
humorous an impact “cash flow” has
on us — I’m going to toss down my
THREE FUNNY MONEY PHI
LOSOPHIES!
Funny Money Philosophy No. 1:
Too much money is a bad thing.
Take, for example, Shaquille
O’Neal. The man was recently
selected by the National Basketball
Association as one of the top 50
players in the world. He’s also on a
new team, has a big contract and tons
of the green stuff to go around.
Yet Shaq wants more. He wants
“A New Level of Energy." He wants
an apple-cinnamon flavored Shaq
Bar—with 49 grams of carbohy
drates and only 4 grams of fat.
I know same of you wish I was
kidding. But Shaq’s not. He’s hoping
Amway will give him even more cadi
flow. Just one scary consequence of
what too much money can do ....
Now we’re up to Funny Money
Philosophy No. 2: Too little money
is a bad thing.
Here we And a sweet old lady
about to celebrate her 100th birthday.
ii
Like SPAM, glowing
neon license plate
holders and the
British Royal
Family — money
also adds a
humorous aspect to
all of our lives.”
So momentous is the event that
officials are going to mark the
historic birthday.
That is, until they discover she’s
dead.
Dead for 30 years that is.
Her daughter, Shirley Specht
cashed in over $132,192 of pension
checks meant for mother-dearest.
Officials wanting to celebrate the
mother’s 100th birthday were a tad
disappointed.
But not to be outdone by a woman
deceased for 30 years, a man tried to
rob a man who’s been deceased for
a few thousand years.
Last September, Ame Mohammed
hid behind a display case in the
Egyptian Museum and, at night, stole
quite a few of King Tut’s priceless
treasures.
Unemployed and desperate,
Mohammed based his plot on the
1966 film “How to Steal a Million.”
What Mohammed didn’t do was
figure out how he’d get out of the
building.
Guards caught him with the goods
stuffed into his pockets and socks. In
a desperate attempt for freedom, he
told the guards he was fixing the
plumbing.
The saddest part of this is that he
almost got away with this. You see,
the museum houses over 16,000
items and at the time, well, had no
security.
This leads me into my final
philosophy, Funny Money Philoso
phy No. 3: Money drives people to
do strange things.
Here we’U travel back to the year
1974. “10-Cent Beer Night” seemed
like a decent idea—cheap bever
ages to numb the pain of another
hideous Cleveland season.
correction — it was a BAD idea.
Drunken spectators descended on
the diamond in the ninth inning and
began to battle police with bottles
and chairs.
Billy Martin, then-manager of the
Texas Rangers, led a brigade of bat
wielding players to rescue Jeff
Burroughs from right field.
OK, so maybe it was the brew that
caused the fans to battle the “Billy
Martin Brigade,” but cheap beer
prices certainly had an impact.
Lastly, we glance at a moment in
the life of Donyell Marshall, a
Golden State Warrior forward.
Marshall has a $42 million, nine
year contract with the Warriors. Yet a
friend was puzzled when he saw him
making a phone call from the lobby
of his hotel.
When asked why he didn’t just
call from his hotel roan, Marshall
replied:
“They charge you 50 cents to
make a call from your room.”
Now there’s a guy who’ll make
$42 million last.... ,1
Kerber is a sophomore news
editorial major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist
—.....i
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