Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 102, No. 157, Ed. 1 Wednesday, July 2, 1980 Page: 4 of 16
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«I 4—THE NEWS-TELEOtAM Sulphur Springs, Tmm, Wodnwtdoy Juiy J. IStO.
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forum
;
In our opinion
^Building industry
shows upturn here
While building costs have climbed in
Hopkins County, it is evident that the
increases have not soared as much as
in larger cities and heavily populated
areas.
A few years ago not many houses
were being built in Sulphur Springs
priced in the $50,000 range. Today f it is
not unusual for houses to be permitted
in the $50,000 and above level.
In earlier years — tunes that can be
remembered by many of the 1930 era
builders — complete frame houses
could be constructed in Sulphur
Springs well under $10,000. That no
longer is true, of course, with all
building materials much higher, labor
costs up, and choice lots now
demanding as much as many homes
did in the 1930 era.
Even with the increased costs, home
buyers in Sulphur Springs and Hopkins
County apparently are getting
bargains. They are bargains if federal
housing umt_ costs are used as
standards of comparison. Senator
Lowell Weicker, R. —Conn., recently
observed that the average cost of a
federally subsidized housing unit has
reached $106,000. He was speaking of a
unit containing a combination living-
dining room, one and one-half
bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom.
While residential building has
experienced a few slack weeks during
the money fluctuations in recent
months, local observers report that a
mild upsurge can be expected here
nqw that loans are becoming available
again at more /reasonable interest
rytes. /
'The builders report there is a
demand for more housing and many
. observers are predicting an upturn, if
not a mini-boom, in new residential
construction.
' . > . * t
Report from the committee
By Don Graft ""
v ‘The cases come every day Mast get better but too many
die For those who get well, there ls great joy pall around,
playing and joking and happy scenes of departure when thev
leave. You hope it will be those that Wilt stay in vour memory,
but it is the ones that break your heart that stay most vivid
Like the grandfather who buried all but one of his children
and grandchildren in Cambodia and brought in his last sick
gtandson A day later, the little child just faded away Then, a
teen-age girl carried in her little brother stricken with
meningitis. As we tried to save him through the night, she
stood close by, touching him. sponging him off and weeping:.
When he died, she quietly left, leaving her brother on the floor
wrapped in an old blanket "
w COMMENTARY
Don Graff
That passage is excerpted from the letter of a volunteer
worker at a facility in Thailand of the International Rescue ■
Committee. It is included in the IRC s latest annual report, a
document that makes both distressing and encouraging read-
ing
The latter because of the evidence it provides of the efforts
of compassionate humans to do something about a human
problem.
Take Indochina to start - and that, unfortunately, is exact-
ly whal it is, only the start. The refugee crisis there has been
years in the building and IRC has been involved throughout
From facilities in Thailand, it is providing medical and food
assistance to hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. Cambodi-
ans and Laotians who have fled the oppression and continuing
disorder of their homelands
Recommendations of its Citizens Commission on Indo-
chinese Refugees have been adopted as government policy
and, through committee offices in U S. cities, it has processed
a large portion of the 280.000 refugees resettled in the United
States duringT979.
Although they dominate the headlines and news columns,
the Indochinese arej however, only a part of the refugee prob-
lem - and effort. Worldwide, the IRC reports, it has been a
bumper vear with greater effort expended during 1979 and
the early months of 1980 than in any comparable period since
the founding of the organization in 1933 in response to the
refugee flpod unleashed,by the rise of the Nazis
The IRC has responded, through1 facilities in Florida and
Central America, to the needs of Cubans. It has aided
Haitians. Chileans, Argentines and,other Latins who have fled
their homelands for diverse reasons
Also Ugandans, Angolans, Somalis and Ethiopians on the
continent, Africa, where the refugee crush may be greatest of
all — estimated at more than 2 million
And Afghans, crowding into.camps in neighboring Pakistan
Also Jews, Armenians and others permitted to leave the
Soviet Union (53,000 during 1979. compared with 40,000 in
1978) plus dissident Czechs, Poles and fellow East Europeans
And Chinese
One of the report's more illuminating sections is on. Hong
Kong, the destination of some 75,000 Vietnamese boat people
during 1979 and also a haven for refugees from another quar-
ter
In this era of sudden good feelings with Communist China, it
has been easy to overlook, or under-rep<Jtp(he fact that many
Chinese would prefer to be elsewhere For those whp can
evade the Crown Colony's patrols and the shoot-to-kill zone
established by Chinese authorities on their side of the border,
that turns out to be Hong Kong r; *'^>4
They included "freedom swimmers" who fake their chances
in the treacherous waters between the- mainland and the
Crown Colony, many of whom fail to make it and reach free-
dom posthumously as bodies washed up on beaches.
For those who do make it. the International Rescue Com-
mittee is there to help
IRC is only one of many volunteer agencies active in its
chosen field. Name the RediCross.and Oxfam, among its more
notable associates, and you have only begun the roster
But considering the continuing magnitude of the problem,
the field of refugee assistance is scarcely overcrowded. That
is the distressing aspect of the encouraging effort
(NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN i
■+
Public demand prime
deficit spending key
£ttA ^ N.E.fl.So
“Shall we blame Uncle Sam for all
j he spends, or blame ourselves for all
we ask?”
That pointed question recently was
! aimed at the public in an ad published
by the Life Insurance Companies in
America.
The answer might be termed a little
more obvious than most of us would
like to have it.
Wefall find, it easy enough to keep
pounding away at big government for
spending money so lavishly.
We find it hard to remember that if
enough people weren’t demanding big
expenditures that politicians wouldn’t
be making them in such profusion.
This same demand also helps
jack Anderson
explain the persistence of deficit
spending and consequent damaging
inflation. The myth of the free lunch
dies hard when we are thinking about
goodies that might be coming our way.
The Life Insurance Companies in
America put the emphasis in the right
place by turning the primary heat on
the people instead of on the politicians.
“We must all stop demanding of
government what we are unwilling or
unable to pay for in taxes,” the
message concludes.
The ad also urges readers to sign a
coupon saying “I vote to self-control
inflation” by not asking or supporting
programs that require deficit
spending.
That is a good idea, too.
£
Today in History
By The Associated Press
Today is Wednesday, July 2,
the 184th day of 1980. There are
182 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight in history:
in 1881, President James
Garfield was shot by a disap.
pointed Chicago office-seeker at
the Washington railroad
station. He died 79 days later.
On this date:
In 1937, the American pilot,
Amelia Earhart, was last heard
from on a flight over the
Pacific.
In 1961, Nobel-prize winning
author Ernest Hemingway shot
and killed himself in his Idaho
home.
In 1964, President Lyndon
Johnson signed the most far-
reaching civil rights law since
the days of Reconstruction.
In 1976, North and South
Vietnam were officially
reunited after more than 20
years of war. ;
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Carter playing it cautiously
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on Central American politics
‘OK, troops, think of it as our last line of defense against inflation.
* , i •
Collecting child support
By JACK ANDERSON
WASHINGTON - The
Carter administration is tip-
toeing gingerly around the
edge of the fabulous Mexi-
can oil discoveries In near-
by El Salvador, for instance,
President Carter has given
quiet support to the middle-
of-the-road junta that has
managed to cling to power
under siege from both left
and right.
fvidently Jimmy Carter
learned a lesson from his
ignominious role in the
Nicaraguan revolution So
far, he has resisted the siren
songs of both the intelli-
gence community and arch-
conservatives in Congress.
Resisting this pressure
has not been easy The Sal-
vadoran left wing has Fidel
Castro in its corner; th#
right wing has Sen Jesse
Helms, R-N.C., and Rep
Robert Bauman. R-Md The
rightists also seem to have
the American Legion, the
American Security Council
and the CIA.
Major Roberto d’Abuis-
son, leader of an unsuccess-
ful rightist coup in May, vis-
ited Washington recently, as
did Salvadoran businessman
Alfredo Mena Lagos The
two men jhead the Broad
National Front, a supposed-
ly “respectable” right-ori-
ented party that claims
growing support in the U S.
Congress. They were shown
around Capitol Hill by offi-
cials of the Legion and the
American Security Council,
a conservative group that
lobbies for greater defense
spending.
Thus congressional con-
servatives and the African
Legion have given their
blessings to extremists who
are constantly condemning
and undermining U S. policy
in El Salvador. At one point,
d’Abuisson made a veiled Persian Gulf oil.
threat against the US BUREAUCRATIC
charge d'affaires on nation- BULLIES: Fbr 14 years a
wide television - retired Hoosier schoolmas-
And Mena Lagos, with ter and his widowed sister-
undiplomatic arrogance no m-law. have been fighting
doubt bolstered by his warm the federal government’s
reception on Capitol Hill, * seizure of a seven-acre plot
accused the State Depart- of family property The
ment of “railroading social- government's heavyhanded
.ism into El Salvador" by. response has been to threat-
supporting the shaky junta. en them with jail terms for
While tne right-wing Sal- contempt of court,
vadorans have been lobby- The uneven battle began
ing our Congress with dis- in 1966, when the feds con-
turbing success, the Defense demned property owned by
Intelligence Agency was Dottie Cole and her husband,
adding fuel to the fire by Berney, for construction of a
detailing Castro's behind- dam on a" tributary of the
the-scenes involvement in Ohio River. Cole refused the
behalf of the Salvadoran government's $2,100 check,
leftists. arguing that the government
The intelligence analysts had appraised the property
reported behind closed doors as farmland rather than its
that Castro has deliberately - more valuable potential as
maintained a low profile, • commercial or marina prop-
for fear of pro- erty
The Coles also argued that
the United States. Cuba's aid the land grab violated an
to the Salvadoran leftists 1877 Indiana law. which per-
takes the form of training mitted federal condemna-
and munitions supplies. tion proceedings only if
The intelligence experts state and local authorities
conceded that the Salva- handled the case. The feder-
doran leftists are deter- al government won its case -
mined not to accept Cuban - in federal court. But the
leadership as a price for deed remained in the Coles’
CastrqJs help. “They neither name, and they continued to
seek* mor will accept any pay taxes on it.
leadership other than their In May, the now widowed
own," the DIA analysts told , Mrs Cole and her late
a House committee, headed husband’s brother, James,
by Rep Gus Yatron, D-Pa. sought an injunction to bar
Furthermore, the DIA the confiscation. Assistant
said, "the threat of anarchy U S. Attorney Bradley Wil-
and a total collapse of the liams responded by asking
economy is as great a dan- that they be charged with
ger as that posed by the contempt.
growii% strength of the The Coles’ attorney,
guerrillas.” - Charles Gleason, charged
The intelligence experts the government with intimi-
did not mention the U.S. datinn. “We jabbed the goV-
stake in the area’s political eminent with a poker and
stability: The massive oil they responded by threaten-
fields in nearby Mexico ing to send the Coles to jail,”
could reduce, perhaps elimi- he told my associate Sam.
nate, our dependence upon Fogg. The case is still belbre
apparently
voking a countermove from
" vV r*'"
the courts.
MUSKIE’S MINIONS: The
plain-talking political aides
Secretary of State Ed
Muskie brought with him
from Capitol Hill havfe rat-
tled the teacups at Foggy
Bottom by their refusal to
’ engage in the. kind of diplo-
matic doublfStalk favored by
the striped-pants set. Accus-
tomed to blunt, no-jionsense
expression of opinion as
practiced in Capitol cloak-
rooms, the Muskie men have
shocked State Department
aides grown used to subtler
forms of communications.
POLITICAL POTPOUR-
RI: When Ronald Reagan
offered to subject himself to
periodic testing, after he is
in the White House, to deter-
mine if he were becoming
senile, Rep Tom Daschle, D-
S.D., wondered aloud, "Do
you suppose we could talk
him into taking the test
before the election?” ... Tak-
ing the historic view, South
Carolina Gov. Richard Riley
commented on the bitter
fighting over the Democrat-
ic platform by quoting a
Republican, Abe Lincoln:
"Democrats are like alley
cats - always fighting and
quarreling. But in the end,
they’re always making more
cats.”
WATCH ON WASTE:
Medicaid is a federal-state
program, with Uncle Sam
providing the money the
states hand out. A recent
federal audit found that
some states do a lousy job
recouping millions of dollars
in overpayments. The five
slates studied - California,
New York, Georgia, Florida
and South Carolina - have
let some $222.6 nhillion in
overpayments go uncollect-
ed for several years.
Copyn(li, tWt.--
Elut'd E'ltur* Syndic it' Inc
, ^1 .
You're 28, and your children are 7 and 3. One day the father
of your children splits, leaving you alone, jobless and with
little money to support the two youngsters and yourself.
What should you do?
First, says Louis Hays, contact your local welfare or social
services agency. Ask the people there whom to call to get the
father of your children to support them. You’ll be referred to
the local district attorney’s office in about half the states of
the nation. Elsewhere, you’ll be referred to a local court or a
probation office.
Hays runs the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement,
a little-known, nearly autonomous part of the Social Security
Administration set up in August 1975 Sen. Russell Long, D-
La., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Spearheaded
the office’s establishment.
"The basic idea was that 80 percent of all kids who receive
AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) do so
because there’s a parent, usually a father, absent from the
home and not paying child support," says Hays.
Congress believed child-support laws “should be enforced,
so the parent pays to support these children instead of the
taxpayers.”
AFDC, commonly known-as welfare, furnishes funds to
about 10.6 million persons, 8 million of them children Rough-
Berry's World
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lived life
IN THE
fast lane
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® IMO By NEA. Inc
ly half the funds are federal, most of the rest state The states
administer AFDC, so Hays’ office was designed to give the
states “a federal focal point to carry out their own (child
support) laws.” Before August 1975 only a few states pushed
to collect child support.
Hays’ office concentrated on developing computer systems,
since the necessary transactions for child support are
complex. It set up a National Reference Center and tries to
share the best techniques among all states.
In typical child support cases, two things have to be estab-
lished immediately: (1) Paternity of the child or children
(maternity in the case of mothers, and Hays says as many as 5
percent of cases involve collecting from mothers), and (2) the
iocatlon of the absent parent.
Often, Hays says, a father will acknowledge paternity legal-
ly. If not, a full-blown court hearing that could require blood
tests may be needed. '
Finding a parent may require going to the Federal Parent
Locator Service run by Hays’ office. The service draws on
records of the Social Security Administration, Internal Reve-
nue Service, Veterans Administration, Defense Department
and other federal agencies. It usually finds absent parents.
“Then comes the hard part: getting them to pay,” Hays
says. Usually, an accounts-receivable system is set up. If the
absent parent doesn’t pay regularly, “appropriate follow-up
action” is taken.
Hays says that often means going directly to ah employer to
get money from the absent parent’s paycheck. “This is the
most popular, most effective weapon in our arsenal,” he says,
adding that 50 to 75 percent of absent parents wouldn’t pay
regularly without such action.
What are the results of the program?
— $511.7 million was collected from parents for child sup-
port in 1976; of this, $203.6 million came from AFDC parents,
$308.1 million from non-AFDC parents
— By 1979 the total collected was $1,333 billion] $596.7
million from AFDC parents, $736.5 million from parents
whose children wdfen’t on AFDC / „
The 1979 figure was 27 percent above 1978’s and is still
rising. , ‘ > '1
Eventually, Hays believes, child-support payments can be*
doubled, "taking children off welfare and keeping them off ”.
He adds: “Child-support payments also save the taxpayers in
food stamp and Medicaid costs.”
A majority of the non-AFDC cases involves divorces. Only a
quarter of the AFDC cases involves divorces, Hays says. “The
rest are informal separations and children born out of
wedlock."
No matter. If you’re left alone to support yqur children, and
the other parent has rp-out on his (or her) obligation, follow
Hays’ advice It’s the best way to get child support for your
youngsters.
(NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN )
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Keys, Clarke. Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 102, No. 157, Ed. 1 Wednesday, July 2, 1980, newspaper, July 2, 1980; Sulphur Springs, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth824105/m1/4/: accessed June 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Hopkins County Genealogical Society.