Corvallis Gazette-Times from Corvallis, Oregon • 9

Thursday January 11, 1990, Corvali.s Gazette-rimes, Ore. A9 Publisher: Thomas Watson Norm Lewis Opinion Page Editor: Carter Wood We are primarily a blue collar community of farmers, loggers and mil! workers. Lttttf wrtttr Floyd Burton ami Editorials i- James Kilpatrick QvOi rsN, ri r- do ton uull jf li V- -w vvilllltv (lUUWHV I1MVVMUVU M. JtJV passed several propositions that might give the impression that stricter rules are enough to reform college sports. The NCAA hopes to restore the proper balance between academics and athletics through such steps as publishing graduation rates for scholarship athletes, cutting the length of basketball and football seasons, and strengthening drug testing policies.

The various reforms might help, but an emphasis on WASHINGTON Congress recon- venes at noon on Jan. 23. Before the sun goes down. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan will introduce a bill that ought to be passed the next day.

The New York Democrat proposes to cancel the increase In Social Security taxes that just went into effect. The quality of college sports depends less on NCAA rules than on the commitment of individual schools to running clean programs and educating their athletes. It's not rules that inspired University of Oregon's football coaches to have players take final exams during the team's recent trip to the Independence Bowl in Louisiana. It's not rules that led Oregon State University football coach Dave Kragthorpe to post the top grade point averages of his players on a bulletin board. Instead, it's a philosophy that refuses to stress athletics at the expense of academics.

Pxnrvncihilitv fnr nmmniina that nhWevtnnhv u-ith The bill won be passed the next day, of course, because the Bush administration will fight furiously to keep the higher revenues rolling in. Every extra dollar that is paid in Social Security taxes contributes to the charade that is known as "deficit reduction." It takes a Letters Kilpatrick a awa wiliu.l.taj V. ra aaavvra aaw the president of each university. Presidents oversee the hiring of athletic directors and coaches, presidents repre- -sent the schools to the and presidents ultimately take the heat for losing sports programs. So the great success of the just-completed NCAA convention in Dallas rested not in the specifics of the reform proposals.

Rather, it could be found in the ability of university presidents to push through policy changes over the protests of some coaches and athletic Victories by the reform-minded Presidents Commission made it clear who was in charge of university athletics: university presidents. That's how it should be. Abstain Instead According to a Jan. 4 article, chlamydia, a sexually transmitted parasitical infection is the most commonly diagnosed infection in Benton County. Two methods are listed for preventing this dangerous disease: 1.

Condoms. This always surprises me since condoms were always listed among the least reliable methods of contraception. Why are they now touted as "protection" from AIDS, chlamydia and other sexually transmitted diseases? If they are unreliable for preventing pregnancy, why are they reliable for preventing disease? j2 Limiting sexual partners. I row noble! What about abstinence for unmarried people? Nope we can't suggest that. We could be accused of "pushing jnorality!" Never mind that it just makes good" physical and emotional sense! Perhaps if we encouraged our teens ana unmarried adults to abstain from intercourse before marriage instead of sending them to the Health Department for contraceptives the incidence of chlamydia, quite a harmful disease, would be lower and 71 members of Benton County's Classes of 2007 and 2i08 would not have died by abortion.

This idiocy must stop Is Albania next? Over, the last 15 years or so, major newspapers like the New York Times have told this story, over and over: "Once "reclusive Albania opens cautiously to the West." care of the district office: Lorcne Olsen. Tom Plant, Tom Petty, Gary Moss and Stephan Ross. Floyd Burton. Chairman Budget Committee Philomath School District Invasive procedure Mandatory drug testing on babies and mothers is bad enough. Worse is the fact that after these invasive procedures, the patient is then stuck with the bill for tests he or she never requested.

This is yet another example of how some haspitals continue to strip patients of their power and dignity, by making' them a helpless pawn in their care, rather than a cooperative participant. It is sad that Good Sam has not yet learned the value of what many other hospitals have already learned; that the patient" should be an active participant in their own health care and that providing them with a greater range of health care options is what best leads tjo a Speedy and effective recovery and ability to make informed choices about treatment options. I urge health care consumers to compare what various hospitals offer. Some, including Good Sam, still offer information which is terribly one-sided (for example, they offer only Lamaze classes instead of other important childbirth education methods Ask for your hospital patient bill of rights and read "Take This Book to the Hospital With You," by Charles B. Inlander should you ever have to venture into the foreign land of hospitalization.

Suzannah Cooper Corvaliis employees that is substantially above the prevailing "wAges for our area. Those covered by this contract are the custodians, media assistants, secretaries and instructional aides. An example of the outra-geousness of this contract offer is the instructional aide whose total compensation would be in excess of $15 per hour. By comparison the top bracket for the same position in The Dalles District 12 is almost $5 per hour less. We are primarily a blue collar community of farmers, loggers and mill workers.

The average worker in our district does not make wages comparable to what he or she is being asked to pay these classified employees. For the last two years the school administration and the board have been indicating that we would soon have to go to the voters for more money in the form of an operating levy because there is not enough money in the budget to properly maintain the buildings. Yet with the budget as tight as it is they are willing to negotiate these salary increases. If salary schedules are not brought in line we can be assured of a request for more money in the next year or two. Once this contract goes into effect it will be too late to do anything about it for two years.

If you feel that we need fiscal responsibility from our board members, now is the time to let your views be known. The next school board meeting is Jan. 18 at 8 p.m. at the middle school. If you can't attend, let your views be known by calling your board members listed below or writing to them in The stories proved to be widely optimistic.

Once reclu-siveLAlbania stayed reclusive, not to mention hostile and oppressive. The poor child of the sick man of Europe remained under the control of the communist dictatorship established by anti-Nazi partisans after World War II. Yet hope springs eternal in the journalistic bfeast, it seems. Los Angeles Times reporters this week' offered readers this lead: "East Europe's last communist domino, rigidly Stalinist Albania, may be tottering." Apparently the economy of this mountainous country Pamela McLagan Corvaliis along the Adriatic has collapsed, and students have been protesting the lack of freedoms. Albania's history suggests reform is unlikely and the government will prevail through the use of force.

However, for the first time since World War' II, the history of Europe gives reason for optimism. For if revolution succeeds in such bastions of Stalinism as Romania and Czechoslovakia, can Albania be far behind? Well yes it can, but as we said, hope springs eternal. Philomath wages It appears that the Philomath School Board is about to agree to a new contract with the classified Noriega How other newspapers saw Panama bad tax to make the budget look good or at least better, Moynihan's proposal is nothing new. The conservative Heritage FoundaUon has been urging a rollback for the past three-years. On this issue, liberal and conservative views coincide.

The so-called "trust funds" of the Social Security system are accumulating a surplus at the rate of roughly $1 billion dollars a week Moynihan calls it folly. The gentleman's reasoning is sound. The Social Security tax, officially known as FICA, never was intended to be a source of general revenue for the government. It was intended to pay for benefits on something close to pay-as-you go. That was how the system operated for many years: Taxes came in; benefits went out.

Then Congress had a nifty idea. When the baby boom of the 1950s begin to retire in the' 2020s, outlays will soar. Why not build up a surplus now, to meet expenses then? The excess would be socked away in the system's trusts-funds and everything would be rosy. Thus Congress decreed successive increases in FICA, and this was called "prudence." yv better word is "humbug." The fic-i A titious trust funds exist only on LX paper. As Moynihan says, payroll taxes have become "a continuing, permanent source of revenue for the general purposes of government." These taxes also have become a continuing, permanent burden on both employees and employers.

The FICA tax rate in 1989 was 7.51 percent. It has just moved to 7.65, for both employers and employees, payable on the first $50,400 in wages or salaries. That is a combined rate of 15.3 percent. On that basis, three out of four American workers now pay more in Social Security taxes than they pay in income taxes. Moynihan's bill would leave the cap at $51,300, but would roll the rate back to 7.51.

This would save the taxpayers (and cost the government) an estimated $7 billion in 1990, and as much as $55 billion in 1991. We are talking big bucks. That is what worries the administration in its effort to cook the books for the coming fiscal year. Through the various devices of "creative accounting," revenues that are down can be made to look up, and expenses that are up can be made to look down. The documents that come from the Office of Management and Budget are not pure sham, but they are mostly sham.

If we had honest accounting under a unified budget heaven forfend! the federal deficit in the current fiscal year would be double the figures you will read about. Look ahead. The Congressional Budget Office projects a deficit in the government's operating budget in 2000 of $268 billion. In that same year, as Moynihan points out, the Social Security surplus would amount to $236 billion. Unless scheduled increases in FICA are rolled back, we would be financing the deficit almost entirely through the payroll tax.

This won't do. The higher the tax rate, the more it affects workers on the margin. As we heard during, the debate over an increase in the minimum wage, a difference of 25 or 50 cents an hour may not appear large, but it is enough to influence a decision to hire or not to hire. The same economic law applies to FICA. At the margin the tax discourages employment.

It also raises the general cost of labor and thus affects U.S. competitiveness in international markets. The one man who probably knows most about Social Security financing is Robert J. Myers. He had a role in creating the system more than half a century ago, and he served as the system's chief actuary for 23 years.

In 1988 he testified before a Senate subcommittee that benefits should be financed "on close to a current cost basis." Ideally, the payroll tax should be fixed at a rate only slightly above outgo. Ideally, of course, we would move toward a system in which young workers just entering the labor force would have the option of a private retirement sys tern, but that is another story. Meanwhile, the Moynihan rollback is the next best thing. Janes J. column is distributed by the Universal Press Syndicate.

fOK.MOEO I Times Leader It was one of historvs better mo ments when Manuel Noriega stepped GOTCHA! (JE) It certainly does send such a signal. Whether the rest of this world's drug kingpins take heed, however, is something else entirely. That is why the United States must keep the heat on, whenever and wherever it has jurisdiction and cause to do so. In the end, the church didn't hand him over. General Noriega, stripped of position and power, made the decision to hand himself over to the U.S.

government. Considering his limited options, going on trial in the United States may have seemed to be the-best alternative. The government has assured General Noriega that he would receive a fair-trial and not in any case face the death penalty. The promise oLfairness will be a great test of U.S. jurisprudence, especially given the intense characterization of Manuel Noriega as a cold blooded, dope-peddling dictator.

Still, he will get the best defense that money can buy, and he has nothing to fear if the evidence does not support the allegations. For, unlike Panama under his rule, the United States is a nation of law, due process and justice. Welcome to our venue, General Noriega. The Journal-Bulletin Providence, R.I. On the whole we would have preferred it if General Noriega had found safe haven in one of his allied homelands in Cuba say, or perhaps Nicaragua, but the Bush administration was determined to get their man, and get him they did.

Now that we have him, what do we intend to do with him? There is no doubt that Manuel Noriega is an odious individual politician gangster, drug kingpin, killer and the people of Pan ama are delirious with joy that he is out of their jurisdiction. It is difficult to discern how American laws can be violated by a Panamanian citizen while resident in Panama. Even by the broad, post-Nuremberg standards of international law, the case against General Noriega in American courts is problematical. Perhaps the single greatest deficiency of our system of justice delay will solve the problem for us. by uie time the prisoner has been read his rights, booked, fingerprinted, indicted, arraigned and appeals, the drug war might be won, the defendant declared too feeble to stand trial at his age, and the matter declared moot.

outside the Vatican embassyHnPjjnama City and surrendered to U.S. authorities. Not only does Noriega deserve to be held accountably on charges that he helped funnel huge amounts of illicit drugs into the United States over the years, he must be deterred from ever again having an army at his command. In other words, General Noriega must remain precisely what he is today General Nothing. He will, of course, be held accountable by virtue of the fair trial he said he wants, and which the Bush administration promised he would receive.

And if the results of that trial favor U.S. prosecutors, Noriega will never again muster an army or rule over a nation because that's practically impossible to do from behind prison bars, where Noriega could end up spending the rest of his life. So it's high fives and a hearty salute to everybody who played a role in bringing Noriega to justice," from the Bush administration on down to every last one of the 28,000 members of the U.S. military who contributed to the success of Operation Just Cause. Deserving of a special salute are the 23 U.S.

soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice In the Panamanian victory. Hats off also to the Vatican officials in Panama for rendering what President Bush called "their even-handed, statesmanlike assistance," Bush said Noriega's "apprehension and return to the United States should send a clear signal that the United States is serious in its determination that those charged with promoting the distribution of drugs cannot escape the scrutiny of justice." The Citizen Patriot JacksoaMich. The surrender of Manuel Noriega to the United States government is a relief of global proportions. And if President George Bush seemed untypically restrained in announcing the you have to believe things were different off -camera. Surely there was unbridled joy in the White House.

President Bush has every right to relish this moment. It not only represents the completion of all four U.S. military objectives in Panama, it was a personal victory for the president. Bush's military invasion had as one of its basic objectives bringing General Noriega to the United States to stand trial. The ousted dictator faced lengthy indictments in the federal courts alleging complicity with illicit drug But the initial failure to capture General Noriega was' an embarrassment.

For days, as the military tracked their prey from one place to another, it seemed as though he was destined to outsmart the Americans. When he threw himself on the mercy of the Catholic Church by seeking sanctuary, many believed he had thwarted his enemies. After all, didn't the church say repeatedly that it would not hand over General Noriega to the U.S. government? The Idahonian Moscow, Idaho Deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is behind bars in Miami, and President Bush has declared the U.S. invasion and occupation of Panama an unqualified success.

so fast, George. Jailing Noriega may have fulfilled one of the stated purposes of the largest U.S. military action since the Vietnam war. But it doesn't make any less tragic the deaths of dozens of U.S. soldiers and hundreds of does it excuse the flagrant disregard for international law that has occurred in the name of bringing Noriega to justice and imposing our version of democracy on Panama.

Sure, it's nice to have Noriega put of power. But ousting him has come at. a terribly high price: loss of life, destruction of the homes of thousands of Panamanians, weakening of principles of diplomatic immunity, erosion of U.S. prestige in Latin America..