Page 4-Friday, September 21, 1979-The Michigan Daily The 1980 budget:Choice between guns and butter As America heads into the final stages of the 1970s - a decade of ex- cesses and abuses - the nation's top lawmakers are conferring in Washington to come up with a budget for the 1980 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. . It's perceived as an annual decision, one fought along partisan battle lines in which some politicians escape un- scathed while others suffer permanent injuries. BUT THIS YEAR is different. Not only will the political careers of some Congressmen be. hanging on the line, but so will the future of the republic. For never in the history of this nation has there been such a clear choice bet- ween the alternatives and what each one represents for America's future. In short, the politicians must choose between increased military spending or higher outlays for social services, because both cannot live together in the 1980s, in the new era of fiscal restraint. It is because of that new era - which has already begun in the latter part of this decade - that makes this year's budget outline so crucial. The choice is not simple, especially since whichever side wins will likely remain on the winning team for some time. And the choice has become even more complicated with the distracting issues of the SALT treaty, Russian troops in Cuba, and presidential politics clouding the lawmakers' lenses. So far, from preliminary reports and some congressional votes, America's elite seems to have made ' its' choice; By Michael Arkush they have selected guns instead of but- ter. The Senate approved a $546.3 billion budget Wednesday, alloting a $3.2 billion rise in military spending, figures that represent three per cent real growth over the current year. The Senate also approved a non-binding guideline calling for increases in military spending of an additional five per cent above inflation in 1981 and 1982. As expected, the House rejected the Senate figure Wednesday, and will soon vote on a scaled-down version of that amount. Whether its final decision will be significantly different from the Senate's remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure - military spending will be given a high priority. THE SENATE'S decision to go ahead with a healthy increase in arms spen- ding can be directly traced to several events. First, the SALT treaty with the Russians convinced many conservative legislators of the necessity to raise military spending, while others have been saying that for a long time. Some senators, especially Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Georgia), have linked their votes on ratification to whether the Car- ter administration increases its military budget. In fact, it is highly likely that the treaty would have no' chance if those senators weren't satisfied .with the military outlays for the 1980 budget. Nunn seemed pleased with the Senate's vote. "I've been saying the same thing on defense for four years and it only made the Georgia papers. But the attention of the public is now focused on defense for the first time in a long time." The discovery of Russian troops in Cuba did little to improve things; if anything, it persuaded other senators to jump on the bandwagon and call for more money to the military. THE THIRD reason, as always, has been the most powerful. It's called politics, and it grows even stronger as 1980 - the year of presidential politics - inches closer. Many senators face tough re-election contests, some having the powerful force of the American Conservative Union at their throats. To escape from those critics, many senators, who had previously urged fiscal restraint but at the expense of miltary spending, have switched sides and now support higher allocations for nulcear weapons and the rest. Since they sense that America has turned to the right, these legislators fear that if they were to opt for social spending instead of military needs, the public outcry would be severe enough to kick them out of office. This internal conflict among mem- bers of Congress assumed some dramatic overtones during last year's Democratic mid-term convention in Memphis. It was during that occasion when suddenly the conflict emerged amidst the backdrop of presidential politics. There were two sides in Memphis. One group, favoring President Carter's anti-inflation program, and another faction, backing a plan to increase spending on social services for the poor and unemployed. The latter group's leader was Senator Edward Kennedy. It was not a particularly bloody affair, but it did reveal some underlying ten- sions among House Democrats. Those tensions have surfaced again as the battle lines are being drawn for the race between Carter and Kennedy for the White House. AT THAT conference, Kennedy repeated his famous plea to the Democratic Party to "sail against the wind." Referring to the obvious trend toward conservatism and fiscal restraint, the Massachusetts senator insisted the Democratic party has the responsibility to aide the poor, unem- ployed, and minorities. He mentioned his national health insurance plan, in- creased social security allocations, and revised welfare formulas as just some of the decisions the party has to make in the upcoming decade. Whether the youngest Kennedy will have the opportunity to take control is still a question mark, but it's safe to say a Kennedy candidacy would give citizens a first-hand debate on that very issue of who should get more money. During such a debate, it will probably be brought to everyone's attention how much Jimmy Carter has slipped from his campaign promises of cutting the defense budget and providing services for the nation's poor and unemployed. IN 1976, CARTER promised he would cut the defense budget by $5 billion to $7 billion by cutting waste, getting rid of surplus officers, and changing some troop deployments. And after first an- nouncing he planned to withdraw American troops from Korea, he changed his mind when he said North Korea was increasing its forces on the southern front. Also, to secure passage of SALT, the president has agreedl to increase the fat to add to an already obese defense budget. He has played into the hands of Senator Nunn and company. In the meantime, the Congress has displayed its view though some maneuvering can be expected in the next few days. To be sure, the choice has to be made; there just isn't room for the two of them. When he unveiled the budget last January, Jimmy Carter said it the- best; "The effects of the tight budget could mean more unemployment and slower economic growth, but real sacrifices must be made if we are to overcome in- flation." Michael A rkush is Director of the Daily's Page. the Co Editorial ':.i ' Ninety Years of Editorial Freedom Vol. XXXX, No. 14 News Phone: 764-0552 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan The wage-price guidelines AST WEEK'S settlement between L the United Auto Workers union and General Motors, made public this week and made official in ceremonies Wednesday, has been called a high- settlement victory for one of the nation's largest and most influential unions. But what is most overlooked is that the proposed three-year contract is in effect the final blow to President Carter's already staggering wage- price guidelines. The administration is currently in the process of redrawing the guidelines - the so-called seven per cent solution - that have been virtually ignored sin- ce they were imposed. The guidelines took a beating from the AFL-CIO, they took a drubbing from the machinists, and a federal district judge in Washington D.C. delivered the coupde grace when he ruled this summer that the administration had no legal enfor- cement powers. So when U-A W and GM negotiators sat down across the bargaining table in Detroit, and when GM, on the opening day of the talks, proposed an initial of- fer far in excess of seven per cent, the guidelines were already dead. By not even bringing up the subject during the ensuing negotiations, the bargainers allowed for a quiet burial. The now-defunct seven per cent solution had many faults, although a post-mortem should not dwell solely on the flaws of the deceased. It was an idea never given a fighting chance, but an idea which hopefully provided a lesson for an administration still groping for a way to come to grips with one of the nation's most pressing problems. The problem with the seven per cent figure was that inflation, apparently not having consulted the ad- ministration economists, decided to run at closer to 13 per cent last winter, thus making the logic behind the seven per cent figure obsolete at best. But the key lesson to be learned from the fate of the guidelines is that they don't work without a commitment from the nation's unions and businesses to cooperate in restraint. The seven per cent was far too low, and an unrealistic figure to elicit voluntary compliance. In the new version, the administration can correct that mistake to come up with realistic guidelines, and then the burden of in- flation can be fairly tossed on the shoulders of business and labor. Letters U ant To Th7 iiy: In the good old days, an in- stitutional investor has to be con- cerned with only one thing: the financial performance of its stockholdings. Universities such as the University of Michigan faced only a few proposals from management and almost always voted their shares with management. During the 1960s, however, the University as an institutional in- vestor came under student scrutiny. Students wanted their universities to exercise social responsibility in managing their portfolios. No longer could the universities claim neutrality while holding stocks in cor- porations operating in South Africa or manufacturing napalm to be dropped on Vietnam. After the publication of Ralph Nader's Unsafe At Any Speed, the issue of corporate social responsibility emerged. Shareholders began to put for- ward proposals in their cor- porations on environmental, con- sumer, equal' opportunity and foreign operations issues. The first proposal was introduced in 1970 in General Motors calling for GMato form a Committee on Cor- porate Responsibility and to elect three "public interest" directors to the GM Board. Most students are unaware that the University of Michigan faces these types of proposals each year and casts a vote, ostensibly in the name of the entire Univer- sity community. In the interest of making our administrators more accountable to the community, this is the way our University voted on some major issues of corporate social responsibility in 1979: NUTRITION: The University of Michigan voted against a shareholder proposal calling for Abbott Laboratories to set up a committee to review the com- pany's sales of infant formula in developing countries. Given the overwhelming support in the dormitories for the Nestle Boycott, it is evident that this vote does not represent the views .f a suhtintiil sement of our I social responsibility to set up a"committee to'review its activities in South Africa and for INA to cease underwriting securities sold to the South African government. It also voted in favor of a proposal calling on Citicorp to report on its loans to South Africa but ab- stained on an identical proposal in J. P. Morgan. With the excep- tion of J. P. Morgan, these votes are in keeping with existing University policy on South Africa. The University voted against proposals for corporate with- drawal from South Africa in American Express and General Motors. It voted against a proposal to end Exxon's expan- sion into the South African uranium industry. It voted again- st proposals aimed at stopping Texaco (Caltex) and Mobil's sales of oil to Rhodesia. It voted against a proposal callingron Mobil to recognize black trade unions. It voted againstproposals in Eastman Kodak, Ford and General Motors aimed at stop- ping sales to the South African military and police, and, in the case of Easkman Kodak, any sales of photographic equipment where the equipment could be used for violation of human rights. Revd. Leon Sullivan, a black member of GM's Board of Directors and author of the SullivanPrinciples,voted again- st the rest of the Board in favor of this proposal in General Motors. CHILE: The University of Michigan voted against a proposal calling on Citicorp to report on its loans to the Chilean junta. The University will undoub- tedly claim that these votes with management on issues of cororate social responsibility constitute an apolitical stance whereas a vote against management would "politicize the University." To us, however, a vote with management on any of these issues is tacit assent to the persisitance of irresponsible corporate practices. The Univer- sity can no longer remain unac- countable to the community when it casts its votes in our name. "For Workers Revolution in Iran! The Mullahs Left-Wing Apostles Paved the Way for Khomeini's Islamic Reaction." It comes at a crucial time because people all over the world are outraged at the wholesale slaughter of those Iranians fighting for democratic rights. Over the 'past month, the at- tacks mounted by the Khomeini regime on its left-wing opponents and the national minorites have escalated sharply. Demon- strators are no longer being beaten up only by the unofficial thugs of the "Imam's Commit- tees," but now face the heavy weapons of the "islamic Revolutionary Guards" and the ex-shah's regular armed forces. In August, following mass' demonstrations protesting the suppression of the liberal daily Ayandegan newspapers and of- fices of the pro-Moscow Tudeh Party, the guevarist Fedayeen and the fake-Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party of Iran (HKS) were closed down and sacked. However, the biggest mobilization of Khomeini's reac- tionary repression has been directed against the Kurdish national minority, and has in- cluded armyhtroops and the air force launching a full-fledged- reign of teror in Iranian Kur- distan. Leftists and students here in Ann Arbor have shown in the past that they are concerned with events in Iran. Debate and discussion now is particularly important as the intentions of Ayotollah Khomeini become in- creasingly clear. We would like to encourage all those who have been present at events of ours in the past to attend the upcoming forum. However, we would like to make clear that as in the past, we seek to have a democratic discussion in which all views are allowed to be aired. Last fall, when hundreds of thousands of Moslem fanatics took to the streets in Iran, we pointed out that Khomeini aimed to institute a theocratic state h..a . nn the K.hn isn ai ul dless. Unfortunately, these disagreements were not confined. solely or even principally to the political plane. Last spring, the SYL sponsored several forums on the situation in Iran, including a tour by Fatima Khalil, a Near Eastern communist woman of Moslem origin, entitled "No to the Veil". The Organization - of Iranian Moslem students conduc- ted a vicious physical assault on one of these forums in Ann Arbor, and it was only because a number of burly trade union supporters of the Spartacus League defended the speaker that the forumwas able to be continued. These Moslem reactionaries wanted to do to Fatima what Khomeini is doing to unveiled women, leftists and national minorites in Iran today . In passing, we would like to bring to your attention an infan- tile stunt pulled by some slimy dregs of the New Left. These political cowards vandalized our office and left in their wake a bashed in vent where they tried to break in throughran adjacent mens room. They also left cop- baiting slanders scrawled on our door. We need not spend any time here refuting the timeworn Stalinist slanders accusing Trot- skyists of being police agents, as the political content of this attack is amply clear. The attack came at a time when the SYL has been actively fighting for the rights of all political tendencies on cam- pus, and has been the only socialist youth group in the world that has been consistently anti- shah and consistently anti- Islamic reaction. No other ten- dency has stood up to this test. All those concerned for democratic rights for the Iranian. masses must demand freedom for theimprisoned Kurdish par- tisians, Arab oil workers, Fedayeen guerillas, HKS mem- bers and other leftists, and all victims of Khomeini's reac- tionary terror. Let not anyone forget those fake leftists who claimed Khomeini was a "progessive" alternative to the shah, who hoped to ride to popularity or power on the coat- tails of Islamic reaction. They ---------- Elbe filxcbtgan a at-1u EDITORIAL STAFF, Sue Warner............................ EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Richard Berke, Julie Rovner...........MANAGING EDITORS Michael Arkush, Keith Richburg ..... EDITORIAL DIRECTORS Brian Blanchard....................UNIVERSITY EDITOR I.A Po n cv,.-..--- .... ....:. IE DITOaRe SPORTS STAFF GEOFF LARCOM .............................. sports Editor BILLY SAHN......................... Executive Sports Editor BILLY NEFF...................... Managing Sports Editor DAN PERRIN ........................ Managing Sports Editor PHOTOGRAPHY STAFF