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Friday, March13, 2009
Earmarks
A New Deal for Oklahoma
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beautification of Hudiburg Drive in Midwest City. “Unfortunately, Democrats voted to keep the earmarks in the bill, and President Obama went along,” he said via e-mail. “Therefore, as long as Democrats continue to keep the current process intact, you can bet I will be working to get every dollar I can for Oklahoma.” Inhofe and other members of Congress requested their earmarks for this budget last year, before Obama took office. Coburn, who has never requested an earmark in his eight years in Congress, also voted down the omnibus spending bill. He has repeatedly scoffed at other lawmakers’ earmarks. “The greatest pleasure in the world is spending other people’s money,” Coburn said. “We’re not elected to bring home the bacon; we’re elected to do the right thing for the country.” Coburn said he does not need earmarks to help the people of Oklahoma, but called the number of earmarks Inhofe requested “a real pittance compared to what everyone else has.” “You never see a superfluous earmark from Sen. Inhofe,” he said. “You won’t see him do an earmark for a private company or help any of his friends.” Inhofe did not request any earmarks for private companies, but he has several earmarks dedicated to OU. This year’s requests include $143,000 to OU for equipment and research “for applications derived from prosthetic and assistive mobility technologies for injured war fighters.” He and Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole also requested $713,625 for OU biofuel refining engineering, as well as $350,000 for experimental radar research at the National Weather Center. Inhofe’s requests for earmarks
CONGRESSIONAL GLOSSARY An OMNIBUS BILL packages together several measures into one or combines diverse subjects into a single bill. Examples are combined appropriations bills — like the current one — reconciliation bills, private relief and claims bills. EARMARKED funds are those dedicated for a specific program or purpose. Revenues are earmarked by law. Expenditures are earmarked by appropriations bills or reports from legislators. Source: C-SPAN Con
far outnumbered the rest of the Oklahoma delegation’s, but he was not the only one to request funds. Coburn was the only one to not request earmarks. Rep. Tom Cole sponsored or co-sponsored 19 earmarks worth nearly $13 million. Reps. John Sullivan, Mary Fallin and Frank Lucas, all Republicans, each requested 10 or more earmarks, and each requested less than $7 million. Oklahoma’s only Democrat in Congress, Rep. Dan Boren, requested 17 earmarks worth $11.7 million. Boren was the only Oklahoman to vote for the omnibus bill. Earmarks united Boren with his fellow Oklahoma delegates in the GOP. He co-sponsored earmarks with Lucas, Sullivan and Fallin and co-sponsored 10 with Inhofe.
Earmark evolution Earmarks are nothing new, and their causes are sometimes justified, according to OU President David Boren, who served in the Senate from 1979 to 1994. “Earmarks can definitely get out of hand and can increase spending on projects that are not fully justified,” he said via e-mail. “At the same time, the unelected federal bureaucracy should not alone be making these decisions.”
He said individual members of Congress sometimes must be involved in protecting the interest of their state when there is bureaucratic bias against them. The Obama administration has chided earmarks before, and announced steps this week to reign in earmark spending in the future. However, Obama signed the omnibus bill – earmarks and all. “I am signing an imperfect omnibus bill because it’s necessary for the ongoing functions of government, and we have a lot more work to do,” Obama said Wednesday morning. “We can’t have Congress bogged down at this critical juncture in our economic recovery.” As far as Coburn is concerned, the faster the work is done, the better. “Congress is addicted to spending,” he said. “We need a 12-step program. Oklahoma cannot be healthy if the rest of the country is sick.”
See the full text of the e-mail interview with Sen. Jim Inhofe online.
• Past economic crises could help Americans plan for future ones ALEX LYNN The Oklahoma Daily The national unemployment rate is at its highest since 1984. U.S. News and World Report found February had more than 120,000 foreclosures. Times are tough. Many are unaware, however, that the current economic situation is similar to the ones faced by previous generations. “I’m inclined to say, and there are people who will disagree with me, that Oklahomans simply don’t care very much about their history,” history professor William Savage said. “I think much of it has to do with the degree of unpleasantness one finds.” The national unemployment rate during the Great Depression, from 1929 to 1940, was 17.9 percent, more than double the current rate. Based on the 2005 Oklahoma population, 5 percent of the state, or 177,172 workers, are unemployed as of January. At one point during the Great Depression, 240,000 Oklahomans were unemployed, said Lynda Schwan, an Oklahoma Historical Society program coordinator. The unemployment rates created a sticky national situation. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered the White House in 1933, he was faced with many economic problems. His solution? The New Deal.
Lilly Chapa/The Daily
WPA shields, like this one from 1939, line the 330 miles of sidewalk created by the Works Progress Administration. Not limited to sidewalks, the WPA built Adam and Richards Halls along with a portion of the Oklahoma Memorial Union.
The New Deal in Oklahoma
Then and now
The Works Progress Administration, part of the New Deal that created specific jobs to work with people’s individual skill sets and talents, left an unerasable mark on Norman. WPA 1937 and 1939 shields adorn sidewalks along Cruce Street and Asp Avenue in the Chautauqua Historic District. The shields were stamped into the sidewalks about 70 years ago, but remain bold and legible signs of what might come. “The tendency is to ignore the Depression completely as simply an unpleasant aspect of our history,” Savage said. The WPA built parks and buildings, but also raised the confidence of many Oklahomans. “It [the WPA] provided buildings and resources Oklahoma didn’t have,” Schwan said. “And it helped to employ those people so they felt like they still had a sense of worth.”
The WPA could serve as a model for future policies to combat the nation’s economic problems, said Zac Savage, history senior. But the U.S. would be headed toward a new New Deal sooner than some think. Congress recently passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which will save or create 3.5 million jobs, according to President Barack Obama. In his Feb. 24 address to Congress, Obama said 90 percent of the jobs created will be in the private sector and will include rebuilding roads and bridges, constructing wind turbines and solar panels, and expanding mass transit systems. Could Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act be another New Deal? Only time can tell, but future generations of sooners may unknowingly walk over sidewalks and past buildings stamped with “ARRA 2009.”
Documentary raises questions, awareness about suicide prevention • After two suicides last semester, the Nonprofit Leadership Student Association attempts to raise awareness RENEÉ SELANDERS The Oklahoma Daily A semester after two OU students committed suicide, a group of students and faculty members gathered Thursday to discuss ways to recognize warning signs and prevent suicides. The inaugural event for the Nonprofit Leadership Student Association, which has been planned since January, aimed to inform students about mental illness and suicide with a showing of the documentary “The Bridge.” The other main objective was to raise
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flicts in the classroom. Harrison emphasized the bill is not implying there is a broad problem of misconduct in the classroom. “By writing this bill, I’m not necessarily saying that the faculty is getting away with a whole bunch of stuff or that they are the bad guys here,” Harrison said. “But whenever isolated
awareness of a related nonprofit organization by hosting a nonprofit representative in a discussion panel at the Honors College Nancy Mergler Library. Though a representative from the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Cleveland County failed to show up, University College freshman and nonfilm event organizer Emily Mapes said the discussion generated by the panel members and students present at the event showed the need for nonprofit organizations. Students expressed frustration with the film for not addressing suicide prevention, but Mapes said students’ desire for more awareness of how to prevent suicide demonstrated the need for nonprofit organizations addressing suicide prevention. “They [the students] wanted awareness, they wanted that in the film,” she said. “So that’s just like a call for nonprofit almost. That’s what a lot of nonprofit organizations do, so though the actual component was missing, you could tell the want was still here for it. And that kind of shows, if anything, why nonprofits are around – so they can fill that void.” The film, “The Bridge,” is a documentary about suicides committed at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It focuses more on the personal stories of
incidents happen, there needs to be a system in place to deal with that.” The bill recommends OU compile and release an annual report that includes statistics and information for all professional misconduct complaints filed by students. It also suggests OU create an ombudsman position to handle all professional misconduct complaints and to advise students when there is a complaint. Harrison’s bill requests the vice president of Student Affairs
assemble a task force to carry out the bill’s provisions. Currently, students have several avenues to file a complaint against a faculty member. Most can be handled by the Equal Opportunity Office and are addressed in policies posted online. The President’s Action Line, 325-1212, is another option for students to bring comments, concerns and questions directly to President David Boren’s office.
people who committed suicide at the bridge than on suicide prevention. The panel members who were present included Bryan Stice, staff psychologist for Goddard Counseling and Testing Services; Harry Wright, adjunct professor for the psychology department and Ben Alpers, associate professor of film and video studies. Stice, who works on campus suicide prevention efforts, addressed many concerns students had about the documentary’s lack of suicide intervention awareness. “The film raised awareness to some level about the tragic nature of suicide; however, it could have gone a bit further in also informing people about what they could actually do to help to treat or how to seek help or what to do if somebody they know is feeling suicidal,” Stice said. Amanda Gann, health and exercise sciences senior, said she attended the event because she was friends with one of the two students at OU who committed suicide last semester. She said the film made suicide a “black-and-white” issue, when it’s really more of a gray subject.
Legislative limbo The bill is drawing wide support from senators, yet many have voiced concerns that the bill is too vague and doesn’t define “professional misconduct.” The ad hoc committee of students and faculty reviewing the bill will convene for the last time after spring break. The committee members have taken their time in discussing this legislation because they want to get the wording right, Senate member Michael Ukpong said.
SUICIDE PREVENTION If you or a friend need to talk to someone about distressful or suicidal thoughts, you can call Goddard Health Center at (405) 325-2700 or (405) 325-2911 to speak with a designated Crisis Services Counselor, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
“All your life you’re growing up looking for these certain signs, and it’s not always there,” Gann said. Most suicides aren’t committed by, “someone who’s schizophrenic and jumping off a bridge.” Despite this aspect of the film, Stice said the discussion that followed the showing of the documentary allowed the students to discuss different preventative techniques. “Some of this discussion helped people to highlight some of the warning signs that were implicitly addressed in the film,” he said. “The discussion allowed us to bring it more to the forefront and to recognize some of those warning signs.”
“Legislation is binding in the wording that it is written in, so we are always very careful in which words we use. We pride ourselves in actually taking longer to look at something to make sure the language is okay,” Ukpong, a botany graduate student, said. Adams-Johnson said she is concerned with getting a realistic view on which parts of the bill will be implemented by the university. “Students can make any reso-
lution they want, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to bind the administrative body unless they want to, out of their own benevolence, agree. They are the final authority. It’s a lot easier to include them in the conversation from as [early] as possible,” Ukpong said. “Perhaps, we can meet as close to middle ground as possible.” Harrison said if the bill passes the Graduate Senate, he will take it to the Undergraduate Congress for consideration.
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“The rumors are true,” Trap said. “The artist was killed while making the statue, which is why some may refer to it as evil.” Reports from the Lincoln county New Mexico sheriff’s department said Jimenez was working on the statue when a large piece fell on him and killed him. The statue on campus was the inspiration for the one at DIA, and first arrived at OU in 1998. Student reaction to the smaller on-campus horse is similar to the that of Denver residents. “I still get shaky when I see it,” said Jonathan Curtin, University College freshman. “Especially at night, it just looks demonic.”
OUR COMMITMENT TO ACCURACY The Daily has a long-standing commitment to serve readers by providing accurate coverage and analysis. Errors are corrected as they are identified. Readers should bring errors to the attention of the editorial board for further investigation.
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