Editorial
New Reagan budget
lacks any surprises
President Reagan’s proposed budget offers no new
departures and many of the same old disappointments. His
request for an excess of $1 trillion dollars — literally an in
conceivable amount — is the highest ever asked for by any
president, and it contains some major flaws.
His budget calls for raising federal revenue, without
raising taxes, along with the predictable calls for increased
defense spending and cut backs in social, agricultural and
environmental programs.
The president claims that the proposed budget will
meet the 1988 deficit goal of .$108 billion required by the
budget-balancing law, but most outside the administration,
including many Republicans, don’t see it that way.
Much of the budget places emphasis on increasing
revenue as a means to meet the 1 ¥188 deficit ceiling. While
adamant in his opposition of increasing taxes, the brunt of
raising revenue will be placed on individuals in indirect
ways.
User fees would play a major role in raising this
revenue. The Coast Cuard would impose fees on direct ser
vices to individuals by charging licensing and inspection
fees.
Meat and poultry slaughterhouses and processing
plants would be charged fees by the government for man
datory inspections. The administration claims that the con
sumer will not be affected. Hut this would hardly be the
case, for any first-year economic student knows that as the
costs of inputs rise so does the final cost of a good.
Similarly, fees for National Parks services would in
crease across the board, yet ironically the parks service
would not benefit from the increased fees as the funds would
be used to shoulder part of the national debt.
The government also would sell more of its federal land;
sadly, some of it from National Parks.
The administration also would like to increase revenue
by stepping up its tax enforcement. While a good idea on the
surface, many correctly speculate that the increased cost to
nab tax offenders will outweigh the net gain from forced
compliance measures.
Under the president s budget some of the sharpest cuts
would come from Medicare and Medicaid, the health pro
gram for the elderly and the poor, and financial aid for
students. Civil Service retirement benefits also would fall
under the budget axe, and farm aid would be slashed by
more than half over the next five years.
At the same time, defense spending would be increased
by 3 percent. The president claims that he now is willing to
lie more flexible when it comes to military outlays, noting
that this is his lowest requested outlay for the military since
he took office. But he is not flexible enough.
He didn’t get what he wanted last year,and he shouldn’t
get it this year.
His administration is willing to sacrifice valuable
domestic programs in order to foster the sacrosanct defense
establishment. With independent reports of wasteful spen
ding by the military still being released, the Pentagon
budget should be subject to cuts instead of increases.
Furthermore, he calls for $105 million for the Contras
and still insists on funding for his Strategic Defense In
itiative. The success of these two programs are questionable
at best, and they consume a disproportionate share of this
nation’s resources.
The Democrat-controlled Congress is certain to revise
many aspects of the Reagan budget, and we hope it will em
phasize human needs over defense wants.
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Letters
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Far-fetched
In response to Michael Cross'
letter (Extinction. Jan. 7). I find
myself wondering what to say
about a letter written so il
logically that I want to stick my
head out the window and
scream at the top of my lungs.
Mr. Cross referred to Dar
winism as a means of warning
the secular world of their doom
ed destiny because of their prac
tice of abortion.
1 guess he didn't consider
nature’s little sin with the
march of the lemmings to the
sea.
Of course anyone that would
quote a "demographic expert"
without a name from a "recent
television interview" (I don't
know why. but the 700 Club
comes to mind) without naming
the station or program, might be
foolish enough to believe that
our shrinking planet with over
5,000.000,000 people is in need
of "higher birthrates."
In the summation of his
bizarre warnings of the "extinc
tion" of "western nations" due
to their "secular" ways, he of
fers a way out of our "self
inflicted extinction" by telling
us to reject the "me-first"
secular philosophy.
The way I've always seen it is
that Christian fundamentalists
have always recruited and
preached with an appeal to the
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“me-first" attitude. After all,
isn’t the desire for ever-lasting
life a desire for the self in the
“me' of every Christian fun
damentalist?
Patrick Clancy
Eugene
Equity
Now that most of the Univer
sity’s students have been
registered and the quarter has
started, clerks in all depart
ments must rush to complete
the thankless, detailed student
registration tasks that keep the
University functioning.
These 700 women (and a few
men) are its lowest paid workers
because they hold traditionally
“women’s” jobs. On the na
tional level, the phenomenon is
termed the feminization of
poverty.
In Eugene, recent comparable
worth studies show that the
city’s largest employer, the
University, reserves its lowest
wages for 64 percent of its
classified staff because they are
female.
Single mothers with more
than one child who work as
University clerks receive so lit
tle money that they qualify for a
welfare supplement while
working 40 hours a week out
side the home (Oregon welfare
rules require a single mother to
work or look for work after the
youngest child is three; they
may not “loaf” at home caring
for children).
Research done by the
employees' union has shown
that jobs requiring intelligence,
strength and skill equal to
clerical jobs, but held by men,
are paid more.
The union is sponsoring a
program to correct these ine
quities; part of it is a rally to be
held in Salem on Jan. 24.
Anyone who supports pay equi
ty between men and women as
well as decent pay for all
workers should meet at the state
capitol in Salem to demonstrate
for fairness in employment in
Oregon.
Victoria Payton
Staff
Evolution
It seems that Brian Krary and
Charlie Richards (ODE, Jan. 12)
are a bil confused about the
theory of punctuated
equilibrium.
The statement you made that
.Stephen Gould “has found no
intermediate fossils between
species and yet has proposed
the punctuated equilibrium
model of evolution” is mean
ingless and carries no weight in
the argument against evolution.
This model evolution is not
seen to exist as a smooth transi
tion between species; rather,
it’s seen as a series of long
periods of stasis punctuated by
short, rapid periods of
evolution.
It’s these rapid periods of
evolution that we sometimes
see as gaps in the fossil record.
That Gould did not find any
intermediates is an empty state
ment. The time period which
then existed was relatively short
so one would expect them to be
harder to find than fossils of
animals that were in stasis
perhaps for millennia.
It should be remembered,
however, that fossils do not
even provide the main evidence
for evolution and are just one of
the many examples that prove
evolution to exist.
1 also found your $400 offer
most amusing and challenge
you to put your money where
your mouth is and show me the
so-called “facts” of your
religious faith.
I also suggest that you guys
read the paper by Stephen
Gould and Niles Eldredge titled
“Punctuated equilibria: the
tempo and mode of evolution
reconsidered;” it might clear up
your misunderstanding.
Frederick Leff
Eugene
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