Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 99, No. 81, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 8, 1981 Page: 4 of 36
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Polk County Newspapers and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Livingston Municipal Library.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
I
i
PAGE 4A-THK POLK dniJNTY ENTERPRISE. THURSDAY OCTOBER 8, I»1
Editorial
Butter
I
It’s anyone guess why some people rob banks
when they could rake in the loot, legally and at no
risk, by going into butter.
government price supports,
i pay about $2 a pound for b
pirce is about $1.
Due to government price
consumers
the world
American
for butter when
Because price supports stimulate increases in
dajky production, there's now a 10 percent surplus
over what the U.S. market consumes. Under the
support system, the Agriculture Department’s
Commodity Credit Corp. purchases excess butter
milk and powdered milk, and stores them in
refrigerated warehouses throughout the country.
The CCC claims it (read U.S. taxpayers) loses
more than $100 million a year in interest cost
resulting from purchase and storage.
Last June the Agricultural Department set out
to sell the excess on the world market but
Secreatary of State Alexander Haig objected on
the ground that the USSR was the only market in
serious need of butter and that to sell to it while
Soviet armed forces were still in Afghanistan
would send the Kremlin in a "wrong signal.’’
So a special deal was devised, the butter was to
be sold to the New Zealand Dairy Board, a
government-owned export corporation, at 70.3
cents per pound, much less than the world price.
One stipulation: It could not be resold to the
USSR.
There’s a loophole. The contract contains
nothing to prevent New Zealand from converting
the butter to oil and selling that to the Soviets at a
price half as high as U.S. consumers pay in super-
markets. To top it off, New Zealanders will buy
the butter with an interest-free loan from U.S. tax-
payers.
George Palmer, a house Agriculture subcom-
mittee consultant on dairy products, said "What
the deal does is give New Zealand a monopoly on
the world market for the next couple of years."
Whoever in New Zealand clinched this deal
deserves an award from his country. Meanwhile
the American consumer and taxpayer, once
again, get the business.
Reprinted by permission of the Indianopolis
Star)
Jack Anderson
■ #
Fake war
' £
'hair-raising'
WASHINGTON—The Pentagon
delivered a Sietnibing report to Presi-
dent Reagan earlier this year. Nato had
gone to war with the Waraaw Pact and
lost
Fortunately, it waa a make-believe
war, fought only on Defense Depart-
ment computers. But the reslults were
so hair-raising that the generals felt
compelled to describe the whole
supersecret exercise in a report to the
president.
What particularly bothered the Pen-
tagon was this: Under the predetermin-
ed conditions of the computer war
game, NATO forces were given advan-
tages they would never have In a real
shooting war. Yet the Warsaw Pact ar-
mies still won.
The computerised exercise called for
only conventional weapons to be used.
No nuclear weapons were called up by
either side.
There was another unlikely assump-
tion fed into the Pentagon computers.
This was that all the NATO allies
responded (mediately to the supposed
Soviet attack on West Germany. In real
life, there would probably be at least
some delay in the Allied response.
There was yet another big "if In-
volved. The computers were told to
assume that the hostilities broke out in
MB, and that NATO had most of the
equipment it has asked for, in place and
ready to go.
Even with all these assumptions go-
ing for them, the NATO forcers were
creamed. "By the end of Day Five,”
says the top-secret report to the White
House, “The Warsaw Pace had
penetrated past the NATO forward
general defense positions. On Day 19,
the Warsaw Pact broke through
NATO’s rear defensive line and started
moving rapidly westward. Finally, the
war game was terminated on Day 24,
when NATO was unable to maintain
cohesive defense.”
The spine chilling truth is that if
NATO forces face annihilation In three
or four weeks of conventional warfare,
their only hope is to bring up nuclear
weapons And the Russians would res-
pond in kind.
This means that a war begun in Cen-
tral Europe with conventional forces
would soon escalate into a nuclear
holocaust.
THE RICH GET RICHER: Oct 1 was
the first day of the new fiscal year, and
that means President Reagan’s new tax
plan is now in effect It is already being
attacked as a war for the rich to get
richer.
The president has also come up with a
plan to encourage Americans to put
their tax rebates into savings accounts.
The hope Is that this will help hold down
inflation by limiting spending and give
a shot in the arem to beleaguered sav-
ings and loan insitituitons.
However, congressional experts say
the savings plan will also favor the rich.
Here’s how it will work.
The regulation that permitted the
first $400 in interest income to be writ-
ten off no longer exists. Instead, the
Treasury Department will approve
“All Saver Certificates” which will en-
title taxpayers to write off part of the
interest - $2,000 on joint returns; |1,M
Certificates earn only about 70 percent
of the amount that Treasury bills and
money market certificates will bring.
The only way a married couple could
come out ahead under the Reagan plan
would.be to purchase at least >9,000
worth of All Savers Certificates.
The congressional analysts say it
would take an annual income of $40,000
for a married couple to get the most
benefit from All Saver Certificates.
On the other hand, families that can’t
afford to pour thousands of dollars into
the certificates would have to pay
taxes on the interest they collect And
they would wind up paying slightly
more taxes than the Reagan tax cut
would save them.
A 115,000-year- houshold, for example
will pay $170 less in taxes now that the
Reagan cuts have gone into effect But
they would have to pay $176 on interest
income that previously was not taxed.
This works out to a net loss of $8.
WATCH ON WASTE: Sen. S.I.
Hayakawa, R-Calif., decided that keep-
ing his computerized mailing list up-to-
date was a waste of his staff’s time. So
he massmailed millions bf letters to his
Californian constituents using an old
list. Three million pieces were returned
to Hayakawa’s Washington office as
undeliverable. The senator’s blunder
cost the taxpayers $750,000.
-Last year, the Army ordered some
auto parts from a firm in Denmark, but
weren't up to standard. They were
usable only on egines with metric fit-
tings. This year, The Pentagon plan-
ners ordered more auto parts - from the
same firm. The reason: The Danish
Company submitted the lowest bid on
the contract.
-Thirteen years ago, a group of UJ5.
oil companies - including Gulf, Amoco
and Husky - leased governmental own-
ed tracts off the California Coast Now
the leases have run out, and the oil
firms are asking Congress to extend
them. Ten senators from oil-producing
states are pushing the plan. If they are
successful, the taxpayers could lose
$240 million on the slippery deal
Copywright, 1981
United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
Stop, look....
Two railroading events recently make us stop,
look and listen.
In America, 150 year old John Bull locomotive
rolled out of history and chugged down
Washington’s C and O canal at the heady speed
(for its time) of 35 mph. In France, the sleek TGV
high-speed train sped out of Gare de Lyon and into
history at a breathingtaking average speed of 156
mph.
We hail the Smithsonian Institution for resur-
recting the steam-driven iron horse that revolu-
tionised transportation in the fledgling United
States in 1831, The John Bull was made in England,
but American ingenuity adapted it to the needs of
a new country. Yankee locomotives soon surpass-
ed their EngUgh prototypes, and America revolu-
tionized European rail travel by introducing
Pullman sleeper cars later in the 19th century.
Now American rail technology has been eclips-
ed by developments abroad.
France’s electric train, tested at speeds beyond
230 mph, Initiated service from Paris to Lyons
after a decade of research and development. The
10-car train, equipped with computer control
systems, cute more than an hour from the three-
hour 50 minute trip.
It makes clear that trains are not museum
pieces. America should stop sleeping at the
switch, and climb aboard a high-speed rail
system.
^Letter to the editor-
Postal service lacking;
rate hike should be denied
Teteendtter:
On ten mm tonight, the networks
reported tent effective Nov. 1, 1911
postal rates will be increased to 10 cents
per letter. Baaed on their present per
formaacs, tee United States Postal Ser-
vice should be refunding money instead
of asking for more.
I mailed a letter from tee Livingston
Post Office on Jum$$, 197$ tosdeetine-
tfoa in The letter contained a
check for an Installment loan payment
and, as of this date, the letter has not
reached Its dastination In Lufkin. This
Is not tea only case of letters not
reaching their destination that I could
dtTldy parents and aevwal friends
have ted letters with checks or money
Service. Some of the letters warn mail-
ed in Livingston and were to be
delivered in livings ton.
Several years ago a person could
count on a letter reaching its destina-
tion, but now it is a hit or miss proposi-
tion. The things that make the matter
worse now is that a person has to pay a
late charge on late payments and that
most banks charge a fee to stop pay-
ment on a check, these charges are in
addition to the increased postal rates.
Hopefully the government will refuse
the rate increase because the people of
the United States do not need the added
expense of a service that is not
rendered to their satisfaction.
Jsaac* K. Parker
RtlBoxUH
• - - --...i >•;! in Sfl. '•> .. , .. .. . , • t *
PATCO shows problem, solution
By DAVID Y. DENHOLM
Mr. Denholm is President of Public
8ervtce Research Foundation
(e) Public Research, Sydicated, Ml
The abortive strike by PATCO has
focused attention on the question of the
illegality of strikes by public
employees. The day after the strike
began, Representative John Conyers
(D-MI) introduced a bill, HR 4375,
which would legalise strikes by federal
workers and retroactively sanction the
PATCO strike.
Pulic sector union officials like Ken-
neth Blaylock, president of the
American Federation of Government
Employees (AFGE), the largest union
of federal workers, are engaged in a
battle for the hearts and minds of their
members and the American public. To
achieve these ends they portray Presi-
dent Reagan as “stiff-necked, ” laws
•gainst public sector strikes as
“archaic” and PATCO’s action as
"heroic."
A strike by a public sector union is a
political, not an economic action. Its
purpose is to mobilise pressure against
the elected representatives of the peo-
ple to make it politically more advan-
tageous for them to agree to union
demands rather than suffer the
political disadvantage of public discon-
tent arising from the lack of service.
Union officials recognize that in order
ly...workers are granted amnesty as
part of a strike settlement."
Public sector strikes have several
dimensions, only one of which is usually
visible to the general public. Whether it
is a strike by air traffic controllers,
teachers, the police or sanitation
workers, the public usually knows im-
mediatedly that a public servie is not
being delivered.
Tforeal harm of public sector strikes
and the true justification for their pro-
hibition, however, is more subtle and
far more important than the temporary
deprivation of public service.
PtiKtic sector strikes are illegal, not
t because there is a law on the books
at says “thous salt not strike," but
because there is a king tradition in com-
ma* taWthat impose upon the holder of
a natural legal or economic monopoly
the obligation to provide the service
over which he or she enjoys the monop-
poty. A strike which made impossible
the delivery of tee service would violate
this common taw obligation.
A number of union officials are con-
temptuous of laws prohibiting public
sector strikes. Arnold Zack, in his book.
Public Workers and Public Unions,
rikeisof
IJvtuprtiw points out that “the power ti> strike is <
far greater relevance than the right to
strike." Robert Poli, the president of
PATCO, was even more blunt when he
declared, “ the only illegal strike is an
unsuccessful one." Very recently, an
official of the American Federation of
State, County and Munieiapl
Employees (AFSCME), admitted that
“All our strikes are illegal, but general-
to succeed, they must create a climate
of public opinion in which government
is discredited. This frequently leads to
charges by unions of waste and
mismanagement in government. In the
PATCO affair, for instance, PATCO
went to great lengths to question the
safety of the air traffic control system,
even before the strike began.
Beyone this, a union leadership intent
on striking must develop within its own
cadre a sense of being exploited. This
forces union officials to be extremely
hyperbolic when it comes to com-
municating with the membership. In
such a situation, such as the PATCO
debacle, a strike becomes much more
an inevitably than a last resort The
union leadership is actually forced by
its own rhetoric to engage in an action
that is unreasonable and self-defeating.
Elected public officials, when faced
with a strike or a strike threat, must
decide whether they wish to maintain
control over the size, cost and quality of
government or relinquish that control
to the extortionate demands of a special
interest group-in this case, a public
sector union.
Recently, it has been fashionable to
qqfe the taciturn Calvin Coolidge as
the authority on public sector strikes.
During the 1919 Boston police strike, Mr.
Coolidge declared, “there is no right to
strike against the public safety by
anybody, anywhere, anytime,”
This might lead us to imagine that
such a philosophy was limited to
Republican presidents, but no less a
liberal Democrat than Franklin D.
Roosevelt made the same point when he
wrote: “A strike of public employees
manifests nothing less than an intention
on their part to obstruct the operations
of government until their demands are
satisfied. Such action looking toward
the paralysis of government by those
who have sworn to support it is un-
thinkable and intolerable.”
Unions have succeeded m the last few
decades in imbuing the AMtrican
public with the notion that collective
bargaining in the public sector is not
just a good, in and of itself, but that it is
somehow a sacrosanct right But an ob-
jective analysis by observers on both
sides of the question shows teat collec-
tive bargaining and strikes are in-
Noted labor mediator Theodore
Kheel, who is certainly not anti-union or
anti-collective bargaining, has said on
several occassions that “collective
bargaining and strikes are like
Siamese twins.” Professor Sylvester
Petro, who is the intellectual father of
the movement against public sector col-
lective bargaining, notes that
"collective bargaining unsupported by
the right to strike is a mere sham, any
government whose employees may
strike in no less a sham.”
It is time for the elected leaders of
this country to realize that collective
bargaining is an inappropriate method
of public sector employer-employee
relations. It was foisted upon us as a
means of promoting harmony and equi-
ty. In fact, it has became a means for
institutionalizing strife. It has had the
effect of transferring influence over the
size, cost and quality of government
from elected officials to union officials.
It is hard to believe that we are so
limited in our intellect that we cannot
devise a better means of insuring equi-
ty and harmony in public employe-
ment. This task, unfortunately, is
obstructed by an enormous vested
power structure known as public sector
unionism and collective bargaining.
Perhaps the PATCO strike has shown
us both the problem and the solution.
POLK COUNTY
ENTERPRISE
ALVIN HOLLEY, PUBLISHER
Entered as Second-Class Matter at the Post Office kt Livingston,
Texas 77351 under the Act of Congress of March 3,1897.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Barbara White, Editor
Grace Holman, Family Editor
Beatrice Hall, Special Correspondent
Van Thomas, Sports Editor
Greg Peak, Area News Editor
Marc Gibson, Darkroom Tech.
Elizabeth McElroy, Reporter
PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT
Pressroom Persoaael- Adrian Dunn, David HoDey,
Paul Holley, Beamon Goodwin
Cwnpesitioa Personnel
Dorothy Wilson, Cam position Supervisor
Shirley Starling, Rebecca Nelson,
Shirley Phillips, Hilda Sykstine
CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT
Felicia Fiscal
ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT
Linda Dickerson, Ad Manager
Linda Jacobs, Rita Btoodworth
Jimmie Morris, Patty Hankerd, Ruby Rowe
BOOKKEEPING DEPARTMENT
Diane Holley
SUBSCRIPTION RATES - 81U$ per year, la ceaaty, $UJ$ per j
eta ef ceaaty. flUl per year, eta of state. PabUata
Saaday and Tkanday at 591 Tyier St in Uvtagstoa, Texas by the 1
Ceaaty PaUkking Co.
Any emaeoas reflection tee character, staaih
ef any person, firm or corpora tim wkkk may appear ta
newspaper wO be glafly corrected apoa being kreaght to tee i
ef the
Texas 77351.
I font 3579 ta P.O. Bat ISM, Ltvtagataw.
- t#
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
White, Barbara. Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 99, No. 81, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 8, 1981, newspaper, October 8, 1981; Livingston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth791299/m1/4/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Livingston Municipal Library.