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Friday, January 10,2003
Oregon Daily Emerald
Commentary
Editor in Chief:
Michael J. Kleckner
Managing Editor:
Jessica Richelderfer
Editorial Editor:
Pat Payne
Editorial
Bush’s tax plan?
Like, totally gag
me with a spoon
On Tuesday, President Bush announced his plan to
bring the economy back up to speed. As expected, his
proposal cuts taxes, including abolishing all taxes on
corporate stock dividends. In all, the cost of the plan is
a staggering $670 billion over 10 years. It sounds like
an ill-timed attack of’80s nostalgia.
We have a major problem with this plan. It is very
much the same supply-side Reaganomics we’ve seen
for more than two decades. For the past 20 years, Re
publicans have championed this style of economic pol
icy on the theory that it will “float all boats” by freeing
up more money for businessmen to create jobs and
stimulate the economy. The problem is, that only
works if you go on the assumption that the economy is
predicated on the idea of making a little bit of profit.
Instead, as anyone who has taken elementary eco
nomics knows, the object of business is to maximize
the possible profit, less any operating costs. Business
owners and the wealthy aren’t likely to start paying
workers more or providing job security because they
get a giant tax gift from Bush.
1 hink of it this way: Is Target going to hire a whole
bunch more people to run the cash registers now that
their investors have more money to invest? No. Tar
get’s job is to bring in more profit with fewer workers,
actually. But instead, it the Bush plan gave lower- and
middle-income workers an additional SI,000 or
S 1,500, they would likely go buy more consumable
goods, which would increase business at Target, and
would likely make the company hire more workers.
These realities show the Bush plan to be either inad
vertently or purposefully widening the gap between the
wealthy business owner and the common worker, who
will not find a boosted economy if the plan is adopted.
The gap in the plan is wide. According to the Brookings
Institute and Urban Institute, Americans earning a mil
lion dollars or more would save $27,000 a year. Those
earning £40,000 to 850,000 a year would save S84.
While we enjoy that electroclash music sounds like
new wave, and we appreciate the humor of “Square
Pegs,” Bush’s old-school, “voodoo economies” recov
ery plan is one thing that should have been left in the
’80s. It is not going to work any better today than it did
back then.
Editorial policy
This editorial represents the opinion of the
Emerald editorial board. Responses can be
sent to letters <®dailyemerald.com.
Correction
The mug shot for the story "Meet the PFC,” (ODE Jan.
9), misspelled ASUO Programs Finance Committee
member Alyce Chong's name.
The Emerald regrets the error.
50 why t>it> vou decide not to run
EOR. PRESIDENT ?
AN INSIDER TOU3 ME '
X DtDM'T HAVE A chance.
\r
50RRY tom . HELL Ain't FREEZING^
Over, anytime Soon.
Peter Utsey Emerald
Disrespect, leather and the KKK
This is it: After March 24,1 am officially
out of here. So without further ado, here
is the final hatch of assorted morons for
the Baka Awards.
First up is the “Shooting Themselves in
the Head” award for
the best display of
verbal ineptitude
leading to a political
suicide. This time, I
couldn’t decide on
just one, so from
both sides of the
aisle, we have Trent
Lott for the Repub
licans and the sons
of Paul Wellstone for
the Democrats.
Sen. Paul Well Captain Sensible
stone, D-Minn., died
tragically in a plane crash in late Octo
ber, 10 days before the midterm elec
tions. Quite naturally, the campaign
went looking for a suitable replacement,
and picked former Vice President Wal
ter Mondale. So far, so good. They also,
about a week later, held a memorial
service for the late senator.
I Iowever, instead of a low-kev non-po
litical sen-ice that could have been a quiet
remembrance of Wellstone and his ac
complishments, the sen-ice became a ral
ly. Republicans who came to pay their re
spects were excoriated from the stage,
and his sons led the crowd in a boisterous
chant of “We will win! We will win!”
News reports later gave at least some of
Pat
Payne
The return of
the credit for Norm Coleman’s (R-Minn)
win against Mondale to voters’ disgust at
the overtly political tone of the memorial.
Congratulations. All they had to do was
wait one day to start the usual sniping.
One day... sigh...
Of course, where it took an arena full
of people to politically do in Fritz Mon
dale, Trent Lott, R-Miss., committed in
advertent political hara-kiri all by his
lonesome. How, you ask? He praised the
1948 run of Strom Thurmond on C
SPAN. Thurmond ran on the “Dixiecrat”
platform, which was opposed to the civil
rights policies of then-President Harry
Truman. In simpler language, he praised,
in our more PC times, a man who ran on a
platform not too far removed from the Ku
Klux Klan. Oh yeah. That’s the way to
make friends and influence people. Influ
enced him all the way out of the Senate
Majority Leader’s position, and out of any
real leadership in the Republican Party.
Perhaps other politicians will take
these two cases of self-immolation as an
object lesson that just because you can
say something, it doesn’t mean you
should. Naaaaaah — then I’d be mostly
out ofajob!
There’s only one clear choice for the
“Too Much Information” Award, which this
year is a gold statuette in the shape of the
club we’re going to use if anyone brings this
story up again. Around Thanksgiving, The
Washington Post published a story about
one of our illustrious weapons inspectors
in Iraq. It could have been interesting if the
story had anything to do with his job. But
nooooo. Apparently, it’s just so important
for the world to know that weapons special
ist Dr. JackMcGeorge is, along with his oth
er credentials (a wealth of knowledge of
biochem weapons and long experience
with the Secret Service), a visiting faculty
member at the S&M Web site “Leather Uni
versity,” where he teaches a 500-level
course in using ropes and knives in fore
play. The TV networks dutifully spread it
all over the airwaves the next morning,
playing up the angle as much as possible.
This brings up three points:
1) Eeeeeeeeeew. I don’t like to pry into
anyone’s private life, but come on ...
that’s not sex, it’s a mugging. All of you
reading out there: Do you feel aroused
when someone presses cold steel in your
face? For anyone who answered “yes,”
you can find help on pages 569-570 of the
Yellow Pages, under “psychologists.”
2) TV news has hit a new low. The man
is iiberqualified to be on the team. Letting
his affiliation with his alma mistress out of
the bag only serves to titillate. Is it sweeps
century already?
3) Eeeeeeeeeew again.
Whoever of the three parties named
would like to claim the award, just take it.
And please, if you guys at the Post hear of
Saddam’s foot fetish, keep it to yourself, OK?
Contact the editorial editor
at patpayne@dailyemerald.com. His views
do not necessarily represent those
of the Emerald.
Letters to the editor
University not
truly diverse
While the Oregon Daily Emerald
deserves much credit tor honest re
porting on the Michael Savage/KUGN
controversy, the paper, like The Reg
ister-Guard, has not reported what
actually took place at the so-called
public meeting when the panel was
confronted with the tact that diversi
ty does not exist on the University
campus when it comes to skin color.
In 1990, the percentage of per
sons whose ancestors hail from
Africa on campus was a mere 1.5
percent of the student population.
Today, it's down to 1.4 percent. It
seems to me that a college with
more than 20,000 enrolled students
and fewer than 280 black students
on campus does not represent diver
sity. The folks raising all hell about
Michael Savage all have white skin,
so what’s going on here? More liber
al lying? 1 think so.
If the University were truly a di
verse university, as it claims all the
time, then there would only be two
blacks on the football team, right?
My bias lies with the Savage Nation,
in that Savage tells the truth, while
campus professors and activists lie,
and lie all the time when it comes to
the question of “diversity." The last
time I looked the word up it meant
“varied,” which certainly does not
apply to the University.
This is not the first time the kettle
has called the pot black, but it should
be the last, given the horrible record
the University holds when it comes
to black enrollment.
^Thomas Martin
Noti
Measure 28 needs
student voters
I ant writing this letter in regard to
Oregon's Jan. 28 special election be
cause this election directly pertains
to the tuition of all University stu
dents. Maitv'stuck; n ts ckr jtot seem to
realize that if Measure 28 fails, signif
icant tuition hikes will occur.
The Oregon Legislature, faced with
severe budget problems, has created
Measure 28 as a solution — a tempo
rary income tax that, if implemented;
will raise revenue for the state. How
ever, if Measure 28 fails, revenue will
have to be saved through the slashing
of various programs, including the
Oregon University System.
The budget cuts will then be
passed on to students in the form of
raised tuition. Each University stu
dent will be required to pay an ex
tra S10 per credit per term. For a
student taking 16 credits per term,
this is a tuition increase of 8480
t per year. Manv students cannot
XhbM\h' tW Wahfcfa* *Wu'r£i6iU' If»
Measure 28 fails, it is expected that
166 students will not be able to re
turn to the University.
As students, it is important to
vote for the passage of Measure 28,
both to protect our tuition and to let
legislators know that we are capable
of standing up for our interests as
students. To remain a strong voice
in Oregon, students need to make
their opinions heard through a high
voter turnout.
For these reasons, I urge all Uni
versity students to take the time to
vote “yes” on Measure 28.
Janelle Uhlenkott
• - • - sophomore
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