4 -Tuesday, November 13, 2007 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 4 CbE 1i*Idig an Ba4ly Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. r' Ann Arbor, Mt 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu KARL STAMPFL IMRAN SYED JEFFREY BLOOMER EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. The Daily's public editor, Paul H. Johnson, acts as the readers' representative and takes a critical look at coverage and content in every section of the paper. Readers are encouraged to contact the public editor with questions and comments. He canbe reached at publiceditor@umich.edu. Beyond empty words More must be done to protect veterans from homelessness "America is blessed to have such brave defenders. They are tomor- row's veterans, and they are bringing pride to our country. Their ser- vice is noble, and it is necessary." With those words at a Texas memorial for four American servicemembers killed in Iraq, President Bush marked Veterans Day, a holiday that has taken on a new sig- nificance since America's war with Iraq began in 2003. Regardless of whether we disagree with the path of war that the president has led us down, no one can deny that soldiers sacrifice much for the sake of the rest of us, and they deserve much in return. All too often, however, they are neglected. The governor can pray when he wants to. What he can't do is lead prayers in the name of the people of Georgia." - Ed Buckner of the Atlanta Freethought Society at a protest against Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue's call for a pub- lic prayer in light of the devastating drought the state currently faces. Gambling on a recovery 4 The Mississippi Gulf Coast, a short drive northeastfromNew Orleans,wasthesecondhardest hit region in Hurri- cane Katrina. More than 250 people in the area were killed by the August 2005 storm, many more went missing and the region suffered t millions of dollars' worth of structural THERESA damage. Today, more KENNELLY than two years later, Bay St. Louis - an area alongthe coast known for its small-town charm - still has several houses, storefronts and churches boarded up. The city is struggling to regain its population and tax revenue. The lights are always on, however, at Hollywood Casino, Bay St. Louis's glitzy hub. Only a week after Katrina touched ground in Mississippi, while the impact of the storm still hadn't settled in, Mississippi Gaming Commission Chairman Jerry St. Pe' and CEO Larry Gregory flew to Las Vegas to discuss plans with senior casino executives to.reopen Gulf casinos. Of the 12 riv- erboat casinos located along the coast prior to the storm, all were severely damaged or destroyed, and it didn't seem like they would be rebuilt with- out some serious convincing. Thanks to the negotiating of St. Pe' and the Mississippi legislature's will- ingness to revise a couple of gaming laws, casinos returned one by one start- ingin December of 2005. Today, almost all of the casinos have relocated inland - land-based gambling was legalized in October 2005 - and several more are in the works. While this expansion will bring needed revenue to Mississippi, casino proliferation ultimately leads to thrashing an area's culture and elimi- nating regional distinction, a chilling societal problem especially worrisome for the post-Katrina Gulf Coast. The Mississippi Gaming Commis- sion's eagerness to bring the casinos back to town as quickly as they were wiped out represents a mentality of lawmakers across the country. Logic holds: Bring in the casinos to promote more cash flow and carry a state out of debt. Aside from Mississippi, this has been seen in Louisiana, New Jersey and Michigan. The 11 states with com- mercial casinos in2006 reported a $5.2 billion tax revenue from casinos. Few people outside of religious conservatives are complaining about casino growth. Casino attendance has more than doubled in the past decade. Total gaming revenue has grown from $45.1 billion to $84.7 billion between 1995 and 2005, showing thatpeople are bettingmore atthectables, participating in lotteries and making legal bookings at higher rates. Judging by the growing number of casinos, quick slot machines at airports and bars and the growing Internet market, the gaming craze is here to stay. As a Wall Street Journal feature story on casinos last weekend asked, who even needs Vegas anymore? From Biloxi to Detroit to San Diego, luxuri- ous gaming centers are popping up around the country. Some statistics show that 75 percent of Americans live within driving distance of a casino. In every state but Utah and Hawaii, at least some form of gambling is legal- ized. Evidently, the proliferation is creeping into everyone's backyards. There's no denying that the expan- sion of gaming methods are a quick fix to state deficits. Casinos are assets to cities like Detroit: They bring in jobs and business. Many of this country's cities would be much worse off if they didn't have a gaming industry. Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago has jumped on this bandwagon and is currently at odds with state legislators over the construction of a land-based Chicago casino. Daley thinks the city could become the next hotspot for casino- seeking tourists and that could spare the city from a fiscal dilemma. Indeed it may, but at what cost? Chicago will just be added to growing list of cit- ies to conform to the casino culture, which has caused areas from Detroit to the Gulf Coast to lose their unique regional flair in attempting to mimic Las Vegas. Last month, as I drove down a mile-long winding road toward Hollywood Casino in Bay St. Louis, away from the boarded up bun- galows and gas stations and the stench of the Gulf, I saw first-hand the cost of using casinos as a quick monetary fix for a distressed area. Sure, Hollywood Casino may have brought cash, resi- dents and jobs to the Gulf Coast town after the hurricane, but it has stripped the city of its character. Casinos bring in cash, but do so at a great price. There is also a bizarre dichotomy betweenthe inland casino and the yet- to-be-rebuilt town. None of the gam- ing commissioners are interested in rebuilding the restaurants and shops along the Gulf that previously made this city a resort area, because there's a casino bringing ina steady income. Sure, casinos have a practical side, but why are we so willing to throw away regional culture to make a quick buck? And since when did pulling the lever on a slot machine or throwing blue chips. at a craps table become an excuse for recreation in our society? What opponents of the Chicago casino have tried to argue and what casinos in the South have proven is that casi- nos take away an irreplaceable under- lying charm of a region. Theresa Kennelly is an associate editorial page editor. She can be reached at thenelly@umich.edu. I I A report released last week found that one out of every four homeless people in Amer- ica is a veteran. The National Alliance to End Homelessness found that 495,400 vet- erans were homeless at some point during 2006, and on any given night, about 194,254 veterans are homeless. As more and more veterans return from Iraq and Afghanistan facing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, these numbers could rise even further - just as they did in the aftermath of Vietnam. For- tunately, there are things that can be done to alleviate this problem, but it all begins with recognizing it and being willing to face it, something the president has in the past proven unwilling to do. Earlier this year, The Washington Post did a special report on conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Wash- ington, DC, a place where many soldiers go to recover and recuperate upon their return from the war. The conditions the Post found were shocking: The premises were infested with mice and cockroaches, mold grew unbothered, and in some cases there were significant delays in appropriate treatment. We were appalled that little was being given to veterans even after they had sacrificed so much. President Bush, however, held firm to the platitude that American veterans receive the best possible care. Bush's ambivalence on the Walter Reed issue was inexcusable, and that type of thinking must not be allowed to hinder immediate action on the issue of homeless veterans. More and more troops are being shipped overseas, and as the military begins to scrape the bottom of the barrel, two types of soldiers are being shipped out that are especially at risk of becoming homeless upon their return. One category is those who have completed their service but are sent out again as part of stop-loss, a process that is semi-voluntary at best and a back-door draft at worst. These troops - given that they are on their second, third or fourth tours of duty - are espe- cially susceptible to the mental illness that even the toughest minds can only avoid for so long in a war zone. The other group that is especially vulnerable are the younger sol- diers who forego proper schooling or voca- tional training and join the military out of financial necessity. Upon their return, they often lack the skills to make the transition to normal life and can easily end up homeless. In light of the spike in the number of homeless vets following the Vietnam War, several programs were put in place to help veterans make a smoother transition. These programs still exist, but, given the increas- ing number of homeless veterans, they must be expanded. More importantly, we must actively seek out and offer help to returning soldiers, because many are not aware of the problems they will face and are unwilling to seek help on their own. Providing treatment to overcome the mental illnesses that are plaguing troops in increasing numbers and ensuring that veterans are able to find employment and housing are the most basic services America owes its veterans. It's easy on Veterans Day to stand solemnly and wax poetic about our immense gratitude for the courage and sacrifices of soldiers. It's more difficult, but even more necessary, to back up those words with actions. JENNIFER SUSSEX Left behind by the FAFSA STUDENTS FOR GIULIANI Giuliani is the most qualified "What are parents good for besides tuition?" a class- mate of mine once asked rhetorically. Overcome with irony, I sat there trying not to think of the amount of tuition I now owe after several semesters at the Uni- versity - without having my parents pay for everything - which is $28,202. That number hangs like a price over my head, as if on a wanted poster. My classmate's comment, however, was hardly sur- prising considering that 75 percent of all University stu- dents come from the five wealthiest sectors of the state, according to a report released in September in conjunc- tion with the unveiling of Descriptor Plus, a program the University began using to counteract declines in minority enrollment after the enactment of Proposal 2. Descriptor Plus works by separating areas of thestate into separate clusters based on the average annual income and socio- economic factors that make up these places. Descriptor Plus revealed a startling lack of representa- tion of all low-income students. For example, there is one cluster that yields an annual family income of $42,000, but this cluster is only representative of 3 percent of the student body. Although this cluster is vastly underrepre- sented on campus, those that do make it to the University are more likely to receive adequate financial aid packages because of their parents' low incomes. But there is a lesser-known group of students who are marginalized on campus. The Free Application for Fed- eral Student Aid, used by most universities to determine a student's eligibility for loans and grants, fails students whose parents' incomes fall slightly over the arbitrary levels itsets. Essentially, ifa student's parents make a cer- tain amount of money, then the parents are supposed to contribute a set level of funding as the "Expected Family Contribution," and the amount of aid the student receives is reduced accordingly. The FAFSA scale creates problems when families that only make slightly more than a particular benchmark and are expected to come up with considerably more money. The arbitrary nature of the FAFSA designations could make a huge distinction between a household income of $49,000 and $51,000, but the ability of one family to contribute more for tuition than the other is marginal at best. The FAFSA must include various income-based dis- tinctions, but these distinctions must become broader in order to minimize this problem. Anotherproblem is thatthe FAFSA does not adequate- ly take into account individual circumstances that may contribute to making a student's parents unable to pay their expected family contribution. Because the FAFSA only takes into account parents' annual income for one year, it cannot see financial issues that may have come up just prior to that period. For example, my father was a single parent and then remarried shortly before I started college, changing the annual income of my household on the FAFSA. My financial situation was then evaluated on the basis of the present, not taking into account the complexities of the immediate past - that a single parent of many years may not have been able to save up enough money to pay meet FAFSA's EFC requirement for a two-parent income. The FAFSA also completely fails to address students who are not supported by their parents and are forced to account for their EFC single-handedly through private loans that accumulate interest even while they are still in school. The FAFSA application must allow students to explain their individual financial circumstances so that those can be taken into account during the evaluation. The point of the FAFSA is to gauge the financial need of students to make a college education more accessible, but instead the application can sometimes subtly hinder students' ability to attend college without accumulating massive amounts of debt. The problem may begin at the federal level, but it can be dealt with by the University itself. The University has a tradition of providing ade- quate financial aid to ensure that lower-income students don't find this institution out of their reach. It must now take the shortcomings of the FAFSA into account and make similar contributions to students who the FAFSA leaves at a disadvantage. Jennifer Sussex is an LSA junior and a member of the Daily's editorial board. 0 The University of Michigan produces some of the finest leaders in the world, but what influence can we have if we cannot find jobs when we graduate? It is imperative that we all. enter into a flourishing' economy so that we can+ truly shape the future. The best presidential candidate to provide us with this opportunity is Rudy Giuliani.I Giuliani has a proven record of creating tre- mendous economic GIULIANI growth. During his time as mayor of New York City, the city's economy flourished beyond all expectations. He inherit- ed a $2.3 billion deficit and turned it into a $2.9 billion surplus. He cut taxes 23 times - sav- ing New York City taxpayers $9 billion - yet increased city revenues by more than 40 per- cent. Giuliani is a true fiscal conservative who believes that tax cuts spur economic growth, and his record speaks for itself. During his ten- ure, 423,000 new jobs were created, effectively cutting unemployment in half. Give Giuliani the chance to implement his economic policy and watch as conservative principles lead to a more prosperous Amer- ica. More jobs will be created because com- panies will use their tax breaks to expand, and investment money will be freed up for research and entrepreneurship. The Ameri- can Dream dictates that the next genera- tion will do better than the last. A growing economy is the best way to keep this dream alive, and Giuliani will be the president most capable of achieving this goal. His belief in the free market does not end there. As young people, we face a future of high and increasing medical costs. There are far too many people without health insurance, and those who have it overpay for coverage. Health care is one of the most difficult chal- lenges facing our nation, and Giuliani has a plan to fix it. Socialized medicine creates mandates that drive prices through the reof. When people are forced to have health care, insurance companies can charge whatever they want because they know coverage has to be bought. Giuliani believes that the free market is the only way to bring health care costs down and to increase quality. The American people - not employers or the government - should control their own healthcare. When hundreds of millions of Americans are making individual decisions on which policy they want to buy, the health- care companies will need to lower prices and increase quality to compete. How do people afford to pay for their health insurance if their o employers are not providing it? The answer is tax deductions. Giuliani's plan calls for up to $15,000 in tax deductions so that Americans canbuytheir own cov- This viewpoint is the erage for a more rea- seventh in a series sonable by leaders of campus price. groups supporting One of the focal points various.presidential of Giuliani's candidates. campaign is that America must remain on the offensive in the war against terrorism. America wants peace, but showing weakness leads to more aggression by the terrorists. The war in Iraq is only one front in the war against terrorism, but its importance should not be overlooked. We cannot create an artificial timetable for withdrawal because it will only embolden our enemies. The troop surge is working, and there is progress on numerous fronts. Staying in Iraq to build a stable democracy will help minimize the terrorist threat and is a vital investment in our future - regardless of how long it takes. When choosing which presidential candi- date to support, keep in mind Giuliani's unas- sailable qualifications. He is a candidate with extensive and remarkable executive experi- ence who has proven his bipartisan credentials by implementing conservative governance in one of America's most liberal cities. America is in need of a unifying force to lead our nation through these trying times. Join us in making America's mayor the next president. Alex Veneziano is chair of the University chapter of Students for Rudy. Chip Welsh is the group's communications director. Both are LSA juniors. i i WYMAN KHUU LA~es EL~cflo. 4POLL. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Emad Ansari, Anindya Bhadra, Kevin Bunkley, Ben Caleca, Jon Cohen, Milly Dick, Mike Eber, Gary Graca, Emmarie Hiutteman, Theresa Kennelly, Emily Michels, Robert Soave, Jennifer Sussex, Neil Tambe, Matt Trecha, Radhika Upadhyaya, Rachel Van Gilder, Rachel Wagner, Patrick Zabawa I I AA I