1*
OPINION
Page 4
Saturday, January 30, 1982
'New
Federalism'
and.
By David Spak
Irony of ironies: We would have come full
circle from the ideas of the New Deal and its
hero who would have celebrated his 100th bir-
thday this week.
If President Reagan's "New Federalism" is
enacted by 'Congress, it will effectively end
most of what is left of Franklin Delano.
Roosevelt's social programs. Reagan's plan to
shift at least 40 federally funded and ad-
ministered programs to the states flies in the
face of whatever progress this country has
nade towards eliminating the need for such
programs in the first place.
SURE, THESE programs do have a great
deal of waste in them. Many people do take ad-
vantage of them. And the president should be
applauded for efforts to trim the fat from the.
programs. But turning that effort over to the
states is not the answer.
Quite simply. this "New Federalism" is
discriminatory. Instead of having one national
standard for 'distributing the benefits of these
programs (which include most notably food
stamps and Aid to Families With Dependent
_Children), under Reagan's plan the individual
states will decide how these programs will be
administered.
In return, the federal government will take
over the Medicaid program currently run by
r each state.
IN OTHER WORDS, Reagan would like to
- give the states a responsibility they have never
wanted, or accepted before. House speaker
Thomas (Tip) O'Neill said Wednesday that one
of the major reasons the federal government
had to step in and initiate these programs ini
"1932 was the states refusal to act to ease the ef-
sects of the Depression.
What makes the president think that
situation has changed?
Edited and managed by stude
Vol. XCII, No. 99
Editorials represent a majority b
-rHE NEW FEPERr S.IM
discrimi
currently have a lot of money invested in
Medicaid stand to benefit from the plan. New
York, for example, currently has a $2.68 billion
Medicaid budget, and receives $2 billion from
the federal government for food stamps and
AFDC. So it would come out $680 million
ahead. Other states with less invested ink
Medicaid or with economies in particularly bad
shape (like Michigan) would probably come
out losers in the trade. Such a swap, the
president says, is supposed to have no winners.
and no losers.
And who will suffer the most? As usual, the
poor, the unemployed, the elderly, and the
downtrodden, whom the president, in his
inaugural address, claimed were the ones who
were supposed to benefit the most from this
"New Federalism."
SO HOW WILL this swap result in
inequalities?"
Right now, with these programs being ad-
ministered by the federal government, people
receiving aid in one state can be assured that
their benefits are equivalent to the benefits
given to people in other states.
But all that would change under Reagan's
plan. Georgia legislators could decide to cut aid
benefits to avoid a tax increase, threatening
the poor who already face tough going with
even tougher times ahead. And Michgan's
legislators could find such a cut politically im-
possible and face a very unpopular alter-
native-a tax increase.
SUCH A TAX increase would politically
crucify state legislators rather than the
president, who will have simply passed the
buck.
But there is another possible course of action
particular states can take. By 1988, states will
have complete control over the 40 federal grant
programs. This means if states don't want to
fund them, they can eliminate them altogether.
What makes the. president think the states
and their governors will accept the respon-
sibility of running these programs which will
lead inevitably to tax increases? Maybe'those
tax increases won't come in a year or two, or
even three. But as the states begin to lose the
federal revenues to run these programs, taxes
will increase.
THIS LATEST installment of Reagan's
"New Federalism" has been met with less than
rousing cheers from the states.
California Gov. Edmund Brown called the
proposal "a diversionary tactic, diversionary
from the central issue of our time, which is a
sick economy and the 9.5 million people who
are out of work."
Hugh Carey, governor of New York said
"New. Federalism" was really "new
feudalism."
EVEN, SOME governors who described the
program as "rather bold" said they were going
to have to wait and see how the proposal would
directly affect their states.
That is another one of the proposal's major
problems. Some states will come out winners
and some will come out losers. The states that
nts at The University of Michigan
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
Is another ice age c
The Michigan Daily
nation
Many of these programs went a long way
towards educating minorities and the poor,
who, without these programs, would have
even less of a chance of digging'themselves out
of poverty.
REAGAN CLAIMS his "New Federalism"
will make welfare less costly. Welfare cer-
tainly will become less costly when it doesn't
exist. But then who will benefit?
Is it no wonder that in a recent CBS News poll
none of the blacks questioned said they
believed Ronald Reagan cared about the poor?
The Reagan administration answers these
charges by isaying they will include in this
legislation some sort of minimal guidelines the
states must follow in handing out benefits. But
if the states gain control of these programs, the
federal government will have no constitutional
basis to impose such restrictive legislation. It
would be an infringement upon the rights of the
states.
And the Reagan team also says that Moves to
curtail such programs will be politically
unlikely because of the increased power of
minorities. But if minorities had this so-called
increased power we would not need to extend
such anti-discriminatory measures as the
Voting Rights Act.
And if these minorities are so politically
potent, Reagan never would have made this
current attempt to cut back social welfare. For
that matter he would never have cut back so
sharply on the programs he has already
reduced or eliminated.
Mr. President, you can add my name to the
list of people who believe you don't give a damn
about this nation's poor.
Spak is a Daily staff writer.
coming?.
7 ~ ~ and California during severe heat
waves in 1977.
IN THIS SAME 40year-period,
earth phenomena not usually
classed with weather also
reached new extremes. The U.S.
earthquake count rose rapidly,
,with 1 times more "significant
quakes in 1976 than were recor-
ded in 1940. Mt. St. Helens
provided only the most dramatic
indication of an upsurge in
volcanic activity.
Data- gathered by numerous
scientists suggest that all these
phenomea could be linked to the
earth's cooling trend. In 1977 an
international team of leading
climatologists published a paper
in the prestigious British Journal
of Nature, stating: "Our data does
not show a reversal in the cooling
of the Northern Hemisphere."
Nevertheless, much recent
scientific speculation has focused
on a theory that predicts a war-
ming of the planet, bringing
significant glacial melting- and
coastal flooding. The warming
theory is built on thefact that
0,000 years human activity, particularly the
burning of fossil. fuels, has in-
O V I T C H creased C02 concentration in the
ed three atmosphere, effectively creating
,000 years, a "greenhouse" which traps heat
d 20,000 from escaping into outer space.
hape of the- But, a least so far, no actual
wobble and measurements show such a
rotation. warming in the Northern
s comprise Hemisphere.
redictable IN'OTHER words, there still
ibution of beCs
ma etoo little C02 in the at-
the earth. mosphere to counteract the ear-
ned before th's cooling and stave off
Tree cycles glaciation.
the earth's Remedies proposed so far
range from speeding~ up Third
the worst World industrialization tohor-
s hit of biting large plastic film reflec-
parts of tors to enhance absorption of
979, for the solar energy.
riory, snow
he Sahara
mena also Gardner, a mathematician
since 1940. who does private geological
ado count consulting, wrote this article
inexpected for Pacific News Service.
red forest
recedented
gh Alaska
By Robert Lence
0, Boss!
NA& L-T 7W
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a' ededde ense
-DMIRAL HYMAN Rickover, the heart of
.-father of our nuclear navy, gave Nuclear
,bur national defense system some tive am
needed criticism Thursday. has incr
The 82-year-old Rickover, who Reducin
recently was forced to resign from his or elim
rpst'as chairman of the Naval Nuclear move R
ropulsion Program, gave his is the on
criticism as part of a final appearance increasi
on Capitol Hill. His comments, coming stockpil
from an insider to the nation's complex Rickoi
.defense industry, should serve as per- current
ceptive insight to the political leaders claimed
currently involved in structuring our too mu
nuclear armament system. claimed,
The more destructive weapons for the
become, the more weapons the super- match, o
powers want to build, Rickover pointed tion. Am
out. "I think there's something \has rea
illogical about that," he said. parison,
"It (the arms race) gets to the point admirall
where it becomes meaningless, but our Rickov
leaders keep using scare words to get seriously
what they want," Rickover, said, in the fi
commenting on the superpowers' need should
to constantly wage a war of military ministr
threats. drastical
His criticism strikes directly at the of how to
a 4E
..
fi Bc
Y
t
a! )YP
criticisi
f our nuclear arms problem.
overkill-the ratio of destruc-
ns to the number of targets-
eased to the point of absurdity.
g the number of nuclear arms,
inating them completely-a
ickover explicitly supported-
ly rational solution to the ever
ng threat posed by our nuclear
.e-.
ver broke with the usual-and
-Pentagon line when he
that the nation was spending
ch money on defense. He
, justifiably, that it is madness
United States to attempt to
Dne for one, Soviet ship produc-
nerican/Soviet military parity
ched a level beyond com-
and sadly only an outgoing
has the sense to realize it.
ver's criticism should be taken
y. His knowledge and expertise
eld of military preparedness
warn the current ad-
ation that something is
Illy wrong with its perception
win the arms race.
By Bruce Gardner
When artic cold swept across
the eastern United States in
January, 1981, many Americans
thought they had seen the worst
that weather could offer. Frigid
new records were set in areas as
widespread as Atlantic City, N.J.
(4 degrees F), Baltimore, Md. (8,
degrees), Richmond, Va. (6
degrees) and Maine (-24
degrees).
Then 1982 arrived. eclipsing
all that. On Jan. 11, lows of 2
degrees were registered in New
Jersey, 4 degrees below zero in
Maryland, minus 11 degrees in
Virginia, and in Chicago, an all-
time low of 26 degrees below zero.
It was the "coldest day of the cen-
tury," the National Meterological
Center declared.
INDEED, THE last 10 years
have brought a series of record
winters, not just in North
America, but in Europe and other
regions as well. The 1973 World
Meterological Organization
bulletin listed scores of record
weather. extremes duringk1972.
George and* Helena Kukla of.
Columbia University's Lamont-
Dougherty Geological Obser-
vatory measured, via satellite
photography, a 4-million-square-
kilometer increasein 1971 mean
annual snow over 1970 for the nor-
thern hemisphere.
They noted that only seven con-
secutive .winters of similar
severity could establish an ice
cover matching in area, if not
depth,,the glacial cover of the-last
ice age. We are about 10,000 years
into an "interglacial," a period
between ice ages.
Contrary to widespread predic-
tions of a disastrous warming
trend-a "greenhouse effect"
caused by increased carbon.
dioxide (C02) in the atmosphere,
threatening to melt the polar ice
caps, the next ice age in fact may
be underway.
ACCORDING to Kukla, recent
research shows that in the last in-
terglacial some 120,000 years
ago, climatic changes came fast.
Ann Arbor endures a recent cold spell.
Wooded areas in the latitudinal
range of modern France went in
a few decades from tht deciduous
forests associated with tem-
perate zones to pine and birch
forests such as are now found in
Lapland. By 200 years later,
treeless tundra took over.
This winter's extreme cold, like
recent droughts, volcanic erup-
tions and other unusual earth
behavior, may be part of a pat-
tern that began four decades ago,
when the planet started to cool.
The earth continually warms
and cools as its movement around
the sun varies in a pattern known
as the "Milankovitch
mechanism." But only in the
most recent geological era is the
chill known to have gone so far
that ice formed and endured on
the planet's surface. The whole
Pleistocene era, spanning the last
3 million years-from which the
earliest traces of the human
species originate, has been
characterized by a series of
lengthy glaciations, separated by
much shorter, 10,000-year in-
terglacials. The last major
glaciation occurred 1C
ago.
THE MILANK
mechanism involvi
distinct cycles-of 100;
40,000' years an(
years-linked to the sr
earth's orbit and the v
tilt of its axis of
Together, these cycles
an intricate but pr
variation in the distr
solar energy reaching
At present-as happer
the last ice age-all th
are working to cool t
climate.
In January, 1978,
snowstorms in 40 year
zerland and other
Europe. On Feb. 19, 19
first time in living men
fell on localities in ti
desert.
Other weather pheno
have set new re ords
An accelerating torn
brought twisters to u
places. Drought-foster
and brush fires of unpr
extent stormed throu
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