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Show am? DESERET NEWS, SALT LAKE CITY, aatMtac UAH 5 A WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1975 WIWlllSPWBaBBaMM8B8MSaMBaeTWlTWllffl8WMIaMaBQiaBMWMIMaWgraaWWWBBMgWBMCTMBBaaWWM We stand for the Constitution of the United States with its three deportments of each field. government , fully independent m its own With 'friends' like BiA, Indians need no foes The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs has long had a reputation as one of the most incompetent and least effective agencies in the entire federal establishment. Just how well that reputation is deserved is indicated in a report released this week by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission on the plight of the Navajo of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Here the Navajos are the largest Indian tribe in the entire country. Yet they continue to have the worst health, the least education, and the lowest income of any ethnic group. Congress has not always been as g concerned over the of the American Indian as it has been in recent years. Moreover, this nation's lawmakers have not been as consistent and purposeful as they might have been in pursuing a well thought out policy regarding Indians. Consequently, the BIA isnt solely responsible for what has happened. But even the most enlightened policy can be no better than the agency thats supposed to implement it. Unhappily, the BIA has not been a vigorous advocate for the American Indian. Its record has been one of delays, obstrucand tionism, bureaucratic red tape. Although the study made by the Civil Rights Commission was concerned with a much broader range of Indian problems than just the BIAs shortcomings, it seems sufficiently clear the BIA must be overhauled if the government is to succeed in its efforts to heip Navajos and other Indians help themselves. Among other things, the study finds: The process by which the BIA approves or disapproves actions of the Navajo tribal council is often unnecessarily protracted and even obstructionist. These delays are said to be the rule, rather than the exception, and hurl Indian morale and progress well-bein- Although the BIA must approve or disapprove all the tribes contracts and leases, the agency makes little effort to monitor or enforce the Indian employment provisions of those arrangements. While the BIA is supposed to protect the Indians' interests, the agency is often said to throw its weight and influence on the side of those who have dealings with the Navajos. No wonder the study finds that profits ironi the exploitation of the rich natural resources on Indian lauds are often invested elsewhere rather than being put to work on the Navajo reservation. Increasing the BIA staff so the agency can do a better job of monitoring contracts, letting the tribal council act on the basis of its own decisions unless the BIA vetoes them, machinery to coordinate the BIAs activities with some of the programs of other agencies these are among affecting the Indians the recommendations of the Civil Rights Commission. reforms will produce enough streamlining seems questionable in view of the BIAs long and persistent reputation for ineptitude. Happily, Congress late last year American Indian created an Policy Review Commission to scrutinize the conduct of Indian affairs. With five Whether these few Indians on the review commission, it seems safe to assume this is one group that wont merely go through the motions of seeking effective reforms. Nor can such a group be unaware of the need for a thorough investigation of the BIA with an eye to overhauling it. Meanwhile, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission has done some thoughttul spadework on the BIA and the plight of the Navajos. Its report must not be allowed to end up merely gathering dust on a shelf. Senate 'shell game' fleeces Pentagon coalition endan- anti-defens- e gering longrange defense programs. Architect of this coalition is Muskie, who preaches "fiscal discipline but is firmly committed to cutting back the Pentagon and boosting social By Rowland welfaie spending Such reordering of priorities is Evans to correspond to the accounting change, but the Muskie committee for now has given a false impression of defense profligacy and parsimony This fits Muskies Senate tadics. On July 10, he rose to oppose a $180 million addition to the school lunch program on grounds it exceeded his committees targets. He was overwhelmingly supported by the Senate, amid speculation Muskie had turned from fiscal spender to tight-fiste- d conservative. the goal of Muskies Senate Budget Committee staff (including its defense specialist, WASHINGTON The Andrew Hamilton, a former sott-lin- e most recent scorekeeping staffer on the Nationreport by the Senate Budget al Security Council). Committee, showing excesThe game began stacked sive defense spending and against defense in the Muskie That speculation ended reduced spendcommittees original targets. ing, suggests that the much The defense target was set when Muskie dropped the acclaimed congressional below President Ford's re- other shoe Aug. 1, the last day budgetary reform is really a quest ($3 billion less for before the August recess. Muskie again rose in the Senate shell game to fleece current spending, $7 billion Senate to the Pentagon reject (he defense less for new budget authoribills fmal verprocurement In fact. Congress clearly is ty). The target sion on grounds it exceeded was above President set defense reducing spending the target by $5.4 billion (a and increasing Fords request ($21 billion misleading figure partially spending. The reason this more for current spending, caused by the Muskie staffs does not show up in the $17 billion more for new accountancy). Muskies mesbudget authority). monthly scorecard is an acsage: if you cut school counting change by the SeFrom that uneven begin- lunches, cut defense as well. nate staff which, at least ning, the Muskie committee temporarily, appears to removed mto a budget accountDefense advocates scarceduce for future ing quagmire navigable by ly consider swapping free spending by a huge $27 billfew technicians and no U.S. lunches for missiles a fair ion. That accounting change Senators. The committees trade considering the overall will piobably be corrected in rise in social welfare spendSept. 2 scorecard shows Contime, but the figure juggling gress $4 billion over the ing. But Muskies argument a reflects clever committee target in defense enlisted five conservative Reoperation only now budeet authority and $9 billHenrv Bellmon publicans becoming clear. ion under its target in nonof Oklahoma, J. Glenn Beall of Maryland, Robert Dole of The budgetary reform defense budget authority. Kansas, Pete Domenici of while actually cutting PenHow can this be when Mexico and William New more cuts defense and tagon spending deeply Congress Roth of Delaware. They prothan domestic programs, increases Just about everyvided the difference as the gives the opposite impresthing else? The scorecard Senate rejected the bill 48 to we If m cut a answers school milk footnote: an sion. 42. funds, demand liberal budget accounting change removed aureformers headed by Sen. $27 billion in long-terIt is no coincidence that all Edmund Muskie of Maine, thority for public housing. these conservatives except Roth belong to Muskie1 s Without that change, nonyou must reduce missiles, and aircraft carriers. The defense budget authority budget committee. Relativewould be $9 billion above even result: enough Conservative-Republicanly junior in seniority, they the Senate's lugh target. This view the new budgetary projoining Muskie to create a new Senate target may be lowered later cess as their avenue to power. and Robert Novak non-defen- non-defen- How about a tax cut for Utah? With Governor Ramptons announcement this week that there will be a cai ryover of $7.7 million from last years budget, a reappraisal of some of Utahs fiscal policies is in order. Its a reappraisal that should take into consideration the possibility of the surplus being considerably larger once the impact of the property tax revaluation program along the Wasatch Front is taken into account. For one thing, with a continuing supply of money available in the general fund lor possible transfer to highway purposes, it should be harder to increase Utahs gasoline tax as stale transportation officials have been urging. For another, the existence of a surplus should shoot down the idea that Utah made a mistake in tying its state income tax form to the federal form for convenience in making calculations. The surplus makes it ridiculous to argue, as some state officials have, that Utah should return to the former tax system in order to be sure of having enough revenue. Instead, a better argument can be made that with a sizeable surplus in hand, the Legislature should reduce the state income tax rates it recently increased. A tax cut would not only be a good way to win favor with the voters. Putting more money into the hands consumers would also increase state cf-th- revenue by increasing personal spending. The surplus also raises questions about how good a job Utah does of budget-makin- never was an exact Budget-makin- g science. Besides, when confronted with a recession, its better to err on the side of too much caution rather than too little in anticipating future revenue. But w hen a state of Utahs size runs a surplus on the order of this one, a review of budget-makinprocedures ought to be made to see if revenue estimates cant, be made closer to the mark. non-defen- next half-centur- Those questions should be important to every American. How we manage our forests and other public lands has a of every direct bearing on the citizen because of the wide use to which forests are put for housing, recreation and other purposes. The Forest Service currently is assessing how it can respond to the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act, passed fcy Congress last year. The act calls for planning to insure that the U.S. has an adequate supply of timber and other renewable resources during the next 50 years from the nations 1.5 billion acres of public and private forest and rangelands. well-bein- g long-rang- e Public hearings on the proposals will be held Thursday from p.m. and 9 at the Salt in Little Theater the p.m. 2-- 5 7-- Palace. .In the matter of timber supply alone, the projections are formidable. Demand for softwood timber from conifer trees is expected to climb from 46.2 billion board icet in 1370 to 79.7 billion board feet in 2(20. Corresponding figures for hardwood timber go fiom 11.2 to 29.2 billion board feet. Yet supply is not keeping up with demand, and that trend is expected to 1 . Missing a son 'Well," 1 said to my husband as he crawled into .t bed, "1 hope you're satisfied. Your son is gone. You ad, like it was my idea, he said Dont tell me you didn't encourage him to 1 leave. All 1 said was he is old enough to develop some t kind of independence. to be on it let If anything him, your happens " conscience.f What kind of a crack is that? You went aloijg with it. Only because I didnt want him to remember us screaming and shouting at one' another. If he just h$tl someone with him ; "Stop worrying. If everytliing werent going well J wed hear. "The dog misses him already, I said. Hesjn the utility room whining. Oh, for crying outloud. so I went by Ills room touiahl. It was so picked up. I never knew he had a double bed before Go to sleep and stop torturing yourself. I asked "Did you hear something bolting upright. What did it sound like? he asked I dont know. What do you mean, you dont know. Evers thing has to sound like something for petes sake. If I hear it again, Ill tell you. If you dont know what it is, then how' will you know when you hear it again? , Did you leave the front door open? 1 No. anti-Pentag- i ' 1 Im going down and open it. Just m case he should come home in the middle of the night. You know how he never carries his keys. That tears it, said my husband throwing hack the covers and sticking his head out of the bedroom window. Hey, Buddy! he yelled in the darkness Everything okay out there? A sleepy head poked through the tent flap. Aw, cmon Dad, you promised youd let me camp all by myself. SYDflEY HARRIS s The creative need : g N, Y. 's star plummets deficit Forests for the future Are you satisfied with the way our national forests have been managed in the past 50 years? If not, do you w'ant a say in how theyll be managed for the ERfflA BOfflBECK the $2 billion more anticipated by July. It continue for the next 45 years. By the year 2020. in fact, the deficit is expected to reach about 5 billion board feet. Clearly theres an urgent need for more intensive management of forest resources. When demand continually outruns supply, the result is higher and higher prices. Theres also another result: More attempts to find substitutes. Already, metal products are being used as timber substitutes in many cases. Timber, it however, is a renewable resource can be produced again. Metal cannot, except through limited salvage operations. ., With dwindling anticipated in January, and manpower capabilities in recent years because of budget restrictions, the Forest Service hasnt always been able to supply all the timber the nation needs from its public lands. There are ways to accomplish the job. Proper tending, harvesting, and replacement of trees, for example, can increase timber yield substantially. Reforestation by use of genetically superior seedlings is just one possibility. Currently there are over 2 million acres oi National Forest land that are either relatively barren or so poorly forested they could profitably be reforested. That one operation would yield a potential 178 million additional cubic feet of timber per year. Clearly the time to start assuring adequate forests for the future is now. i NEW YORK Shortly after 4 a.m. the other day., after much groaning and travailing under the lash of Gov. Hugh Carey, the New York state legislature authorized $2.3 billion in loans for this city. g gamblers are even when, as in the case of the legislators, they are gambling with other peoples money (including $75ii million from public pension funds). But1, bankers are not easily awed, High-rollin- awe-inspiri- and already they have charged the state 8.7 percent interest on $250 million of borrowing for the city, about 1.5 percent above what it was paying a few months agu. Having hitched itself to the citys plummeting star, the state is viewed as a credit risk. If start things suddenly going as well as the politicians bbndly hope they will, it will take the city nearly three months to stagger back to the brink of bankruptcy. It will not again be ready to default on its obligations until the end of December,, vvhcn.it. will, be short $450 million necessary for bills, salaries, debt obligations. That sum is petty cash compared to the $1.3 billion took Mayor Abraham Beame or six months to discover confess the si2e ($3.3 billion) of the citys current and accumulated deficits. So the grim estimates for the coming months almost certainly are inaccurate guesses. The city paid for its thiee-mont- h reprieve from default : the city is no longer A seven-memb- board, including Beame but dominated by Careys operatives, now exercises the citys budgetary powers. is, in large measure, the right to raise money by taxing and borrowing in amounts and from sources of ones choosing, and the right to spend the money for social purposes of ones choosing. The city no longer has those rights. Rather than impose austerity on itself, the city sold its sovereignty for $2.3 billion. That should lay to rest the Bicentennial rhetoric about nt nt being priceless, If residents of this city have any feeling about this sale, their strongest emotion must be smugness about getting so much for something they value so little. For the average resident of this city the connection that elections provide between him and his govemmennt D so attenuated as to he virtually meaninglcsn. Certainly he does not feel measurably less free or dignified because 4 governed by an appointed committee. Citizens of large polities often feel similarly estranged from elected governments. That is one reason why so many Americans do not bother to vote. It may be that such a feeling of estrangement sooner or later afflicts all people who live in polities larger than the Athens Pericles knew or the Geneva Rousseau fantasied. Carey has gained power over New York City at the cost of losing whatever control he had over wnaTever destiny he had hoped to have. By pulling the city from the cliff toward which it is still sleepwalking, he has touched pitch. He now has three months either to reverse a generation of city misrule, or to produce another transfusion of state money at incalcuable cost to the states credit rating and his political standing. The only other alternative is a default he has bet $2.3 billion on preventing. Carey is said to have an appetite for the 1976 Democratic vice presidential nomination. It is understandable that he might want to get out of government. But if the city defaults before the Democratic convention hunkers down in the squalor of midtown Manhattan, Carey will be robbed of his chance to occupy what is, since the emas-culato- n of the New York mayors office, only the second most humiliating office at the peoples disposal. Le is no Napoleon wanted to be a writer, but the essays he submitted were rejected and laughed at. Hitler wanted to be a painter, but his work was rebuffed. Frustrated in their creative endeavors, both men turned to aggressiveness and destructiveness. Such examples could be multiplied many times throughout history. One of the basic human needs is if this need is for creation and dammed up, or diverted, it often reveals itself in its opposite. The man who cannot create wants to destroy, Erich Fromm has said. The forces of violence and destruction in human life are usually generated by men who are ineffectual in loving and in making One of the main reasons, I am convinced, for so much senseless violence in the slum society is not merely the poverty and bleakness of the physical and economic environment. It is that the opportunities for creative endeavor are so limited, r It is not simply that the slums offer young people no place to play and nothing to do; it is also that their homes and their schools and their neighborhood institutions are unable to channel the youngsters' creative energies in productive and satisfying ways And energy that is not used for nuking will be used for unmaking. As I have remarked before, this is a growing environments. Perhaps problem even in middle-clas- s the chief demerit of television is not the poor content of the programs or the fatuity of the commercials, but the fact that it encourages passivity on the part of children. If they no longer have to learn how to amuse themselves, Dy doing and making, by imagining and inventing, by developing personal skills, then the immense kinetic forces of childhood will most likely become first perverted into boredom, and then will erupt in some irrational act of violence against society. For boredom is mankind's most explosive element. But the middle class can at least provide some countervailing tendencies, with their better schools, their camps, their dancing lessons and skating lessons and varied community activities, la the slums, boredom is relentless and pervasive; if it cannot be relieved by creative activities, it will and must be relieved fcy massive delinquent behavior. It is often the brightest and most potentially talented slum youngsters who become the leaders in gang violence; they are the little Napoleons who do not know what to do with their gifts except deviying ways to retaliate against the social order. non-existe- s |