Rebate Is Hardly Significant

. Gov. Hunt presented his budget proposal^ to the General Assembly Monday, including plans lor a tax cut, tax rebate and a seven percent increase in pay and benefits to state teachers and ernployees.

The budget, which will be worked over by the Legislature, calls for a $10 billion spending program over the next two years.

Our initial reaction is that the tax cut idea is desirable, although singles and working couples without children are left entirely out. The plan proposed by the governor would cost the state $40 million in revenues.

The tax rebate, to be determined by the amount of surplus would cost between $26 million and $65 million. The refunds would range between $10 and $25 per taxpayer.

It appears that the tax rebate will hardly be significant to the individual taxpayer even if the maximum amount is available. It would seem far more logical to us to veer away from the rebate and use those funds to provide tax relief that would affect everyone.

The seven percent pay increase to state

THIS AFTERNOON

employees and teachers is not going to be satisfactory to the people involved, but it is in tine with presidential guidelines and the Legislature should adhere to it.

The budget also contains an increase of 8.1 percent in funding for public schools and a six p>er-cent increase for higher education. There are funds for continuing development of the N. C. State veterinary school and also the ECU medical school.

A new program would be $10.7 million to subsidize child day care centers.

The governor called the budget an austere one and said, We as A state must hold down the cost of government.

Austere or not, there dont appear to be any deep cuts in the growth of government, although there was a limited number of new programs. Certainly this is not the time for big new spending programs in government and we should be looking at many we now have to make certain they are absolutely essential. Budget making tije is when this should be done. ' ^

ByBZLLNOBUTT

RALEIGH At the present rate, it would take 50 years just to find and sign up all of the adults in North Carolina who need help with reading, writing and arithmetic in order to get or keep a decent job.

That is why the State Board of Education is putting so much of its hopes in a demonstration project now underway in 11 counties: the communities served by Caldwell Community College. Forsyth Technical Institute, Martin Community College. Robeson Technical Institute, and Wilkes Community College.

Called the Comprehensive Project in Functional Literacy, the program is attempting to overcome the sheer weight of numbers of adults who need literacy training.

Currently about 86,000 adults are enrolled in basic education or high school programs at the states 57 community colleges or technical institutes. But census figures indicate three quarters of a million adults cant read

THE CARTER AIDES

street signs, newspapers: write letters or fill out applications. Some cant even county money.

Large Number

Nearly a million more never went beyond eighth grade, and more than 200,000 young people have not completed high school. And the totals grow at the rate of 30,000 dropouts each year.

The Comprehensive Project in Functional Literacy is simply a fancy name for a simple approach rally the community to help.

Emphasis in this special approach is on volunteers to work with the students; all forms of outreach to let the people know they can get help; and classes where the people live instead of at some remote college campus or governmental building.

The ultimate goal is to get the community cares approach rolling then turn it over to the people who live in the places to keep it underway.

After a year, the big question is whether this works. A lengthy study report has just been completed, and the con

clusion is mixed: maybe it works, and maybe it doesnt.

Despite careful monitoring and research data written in educational jargon, it is far from clear whether the program is making significant progress.

BILL

NOBLITT

In fact, the study cautions that it will take many years to demonstrate success, and it is candid in pointing to shortcomings such as less than enthusiastic community involvement and support in some cases, and not-so-thorough understanding and endorsement from the traditional educational community.

Yet there are signs that something is working. More students have been enrolled in the community-based setting (2,307) than have previously been served in the

campus oriented programs. Volunteers

Volunteers have been plentiful and active, with around 800 people involved, spending an average of three hours per week each.

Something does appear to be working right, because statistics show that students are making important gains in reading and math. In just six months, the gain in reading was well over half a year in grade equivalency; in math, the gain was nearly two-thirds of a year. Considering these are two or three-hour classes once a week and not fulltime study routines, the gains are strong.

After all the negative and positive factors are explored, however, one little-mentioned point becomes most important the students who do best are those who are motivated to learn either from within or from outside influences.

Perhaps this is why some state officials are^ putting so much emphasis on neighbors helping neighbors, for this close contact can itself be a motivating factor.

By ANN BLACKMAN Associated Press Writa*

WASHINGTON (AP) -After two years in the White House, many of President Carters aides have concluded that economically and socially, Washington is a tough town to break into.

The high prices, notoriety, gossip, snooty social life, public criticism ^ all are distasteful to many White House staffers who campaigned against the Washington insiders and feel they have never really been accepted by them.

White House aides tell a story about presidential aide Greg Schneiders, who not long ago was invited to a dinner party in Georgetown where those insiders congregate by a wellknown national columnist.

After ascertaining that Schneiders, 33, was married.

the columnist asked. Is your wife, hmmm, presentable? When Schneiders appeared surprised that he would be asked such a question, the columnist explained that he was having some important people to his party a few diplomats, some senators, Supreme Court justice and Henry, to which he did not add Kissinger. He would have his wife call Mrs. Schneiders to tell her what to expect.

Asked why. after being insulted, he went to the party, Schneiders said. That sort of thing doesnt bother me anymore. I told my wife we wouldnt go if she found it offensive, but she was amused.

Like Schneiders who asked that the columnist not be named many of Carters aides and their families are finding that life in official Washington requires more

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adjustments than expected.

im very sensitive to criticism of all the Georgians. said Nan Powell, wife of Carters press secretary, Jody Powell. For me, thats the hardest part of being in Washington.

Mrs. Powell, a part-time elementary school teacher, said during the first eight months they lived in Washington, she hated to read what the newspapers said about them. Im past that point now. she said, but I dont think Ill ever get used to it.

.She said she does not think the fast-paced Washington lifestyle can be blamed for breaking up the marriages of Carters son. Chip, and several White House staffers, such as top aide Hamilton Jordan and political adviser Tim Kraft.

The marriages that came to Washington on sure footing remained that way. she said. The ones that didnt fell apart. It doesnt make things easier to read about your problems in the gossip columns. But thats not what caused the breakups.

Most of those who have worked in the White House feel, however, that the long hours and constant pressure do little to enhance marriages.

Its inevitable that there are parts of this job that cause strains on marriages, said James Fallows, who resigned as Carters top speech writer to spend more time with his wife and small son.

I almost never saw them, Fallows said. I left the house before Tommy got up and got home after he went to sleep.

Fallows said ^ that while many White Hciuse staffers are making more money than ever' before, they were saddled with homes bought in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country.

The major change for many people is that they have acquired houses with large mortgages, I\e said. The mortgages are bigger than we have ever had before which makes it difficult to leave. I didnt want to become dependent on the high income that would be hard to sustain as a journalist.

Public records show Fallows paid $133,000 for his house: Powell paid $115,000; Kraft paid $92,500; and presidential imagemaker Gerald Rafshoon paid $190,000.

Last December Fallows (CotOmiedoapageS)

Strength For Today

NIGH UNTO All.

Above the altar in a certain church the words were etched in lights: The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him. One night during a service, all the lights went out except in three of these words: nigh unto all.

Tliis incident made a deep impression on everyone who witnessed it. Nigh unto all is something that our faith teaches. We may feel discouraged and full of self-pity, convinced that everyone, including God, has deserted us. But that is not

true. God is nigh unto all. Everyone is part of the living universe, and God is just as much beside each one of us as He is beside the most outstanding saint on earth.

And this applies to the most wanton sinners as well. God stands beside the betrayer, the thief, the libertine also. The trouble is that most of these will not reach out toward Him and ask forgiveness, and then seize the power He gives to make a new life.

EMtsDaa^

NICE, BUT LETS NOT GET CARRIED AWAY! nirl Act

The Apemen

Hope In A Reading Effort

By JAMES J. KILPATRICK

Propaganda Broadcasts

,Some hard thinking needs to be done, in Congress, in corporate offices, and within the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) itself, on the whole business of editorial responsibility for the programs the corporation sponsors. An uneasy feeling will not go away that nobody is in charge of the store.

The issue is important. The

CPB has a budget this year of $119.2 million in tax funds. It is a fair assumption that ever larger appropriations will be sought in coming years. The Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting is expected to make some expensive recommendations toward that end in a full-dress report next month.

From the time the corpora-

ContinueTbBeOutsiders

Other Editors Say Being Taken In

(Rocky Bloimt Tdegram)

Considerably disturbing is the current report, compiled by the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, that commrcial fishermen in North Carolina have become a significant like in the growing marijuana smu^ling trade along the Atlantic coast.

The report points out that the fishermen are being recruited by mother ships to ferry loads of the illegal drug ashore. The report then quotes some of the more honest fishermen those who will talk as saying they frequently are the targets for smugglers who offer outrageous sums for the use of their boats.

Theres no question, said one lawman, that smugglers are offering big money and some fishermen are accepting. Those familiar with the inhabitants of the coastal area know them to be essentially plain, honest people who often have a difficult time in wresting a living from the sea.

Their boats, frequently not paid for, are expensive to operate at best; and when a smuggler comes along waving huge sums of money for the use of their boats the temptation often becomes too great to turn down.

For example, there was one boat owner who was told that the mortgage on his $250,000 boat would be taken care of if he made a trip; and a customs agent is quoted as saying that if you have a fair-size shrimper and are willing to rent it out. no questions will be asked and you can get $50,000.

A trawler captain, it is further shown, can earn $50,000 for a trip with each member of his crew earning $10,000. Now all of this represents a tremendous temptation for these men who often never realize such sums in a lifetime.

All up and down the coast, the survey which quotes liberally from sheriffs officers and customs and Coast Guard agents, prowl representatives of illegal drug operations who know every trick in the trade to lure these fishermen, who in years past knew only about the lures emanating from their boats in search of fish.

Thus, fishermen who will heed the call to illegitimate business are becoming able to make more money in a week than some of them will earn in a lifetime. Meanwhile, those honest fishermen who have refused to succumb to the temptation find themselves forced to rub shoulders with neighbors who are illegally affluent even while they wonder how theyre going to feed their families, pay their taxes or make the next payment on the boat.

Its a distressing picture and one to which those men who long have enjoyed the respect of all with whom they came in contact should not be forced to endure.

tion was established more than ten years ago, many observers both liberal and conservative observers have been troubled by fundamental questions. They are the same kind of questions that have been raised about federal involvement in the writing of social science textbooks and the making of grants to individual poets and playwrights. What business does our government have in the broadcasting business?

Unless the general welfare clause is to be invoked, the Constitution provides no authority' whatever for spending public funds to promote particular cultural values or political points of view. Until quite recently, such appropriations were widely regarded as beyond the scope of the federal government. Now these outlays seem to be growing. Its time for some fresh concern about whither we are drifting.

These reflections are prompted in part by Reed Irvines running feud with the CPB. Irvine is the editor and moving spirit of Accuracy in Media. A couple of months ago. he delivered a powerful broadside against the corporation for its part in financing a series of 13 documentaries produced by WGBH in Boston.

In Irvines view, three of the 13 programs were un-contestably Marxist propaganda. Three others, as he saw them, supported Marxist themes that capitalism is inherently bad. F'our of the remaining seven, he contended, also were slanted journalism. Irvine protested bitterly at what he perceived as an abuse of the requirement that the CPB adhere to objectivity and balance. .

Now Irvine is the prototype of the man who won a reputation as an even-tempered fellow by staying mad. His boiling point is phenomenally low. So I went around to the CPB offices to see for myself, and spent an afternoon looking at one of the 13. an hour-

(CootiiniedoopageS)

By KEVIN McKBAN AP Science Writer

CLEVELAND (AP) - An ape-like creature that strode the savannahs of Africa 4 million years ago has been identified as the oldest known direct ancestor of man. anthropologists said today.

The creature, dubbed the Afar ape man, walked upright with a human like body but had the face and brain of an ape.

The discovery shows that humans and apes may be more closely related than was previously imagined, said Drs. Donald C. Johanson of the Cleveland Museum of Natural | History and T.D, White ot the) University of California at* Berkeley. !

Afar ape man also proves! that human ancestors were; walking on two feet millions of; years before they made stone! tools, he said.

Some anthropologists thought it was the evolutionary pressure to free their hands for the use of tools that pushed men up from the stooped ape posture.

Robert Radcliffe of the National Geographic Society, which cosponsored the research, said Johansons conclusions were important because they suggest that man did not develop in a straight line from the primates as anthropologists thought until recently.

The findings are expected to cause considerable controversy in the scientific community, Radcliffe said Wednesday.

He said that noted paleo anthropologist Mary Leakey already has disputed Johansons contention that the Afar ape mans bones are from a truly new species, arguing that they are from early direct ancestors, of modern man.

Johanson and White will report their findings in the journal Science next week.

The creatures scientific name is Australopithecus afa-rensis. He was identified and named by Johanson and White after detailed studies of fossil skulls, jaws and other bones found in Tanzania and the Afar region of Ethiopia during the fast seven years.

The Afar ape man supplants a creature known as Australopithecus africanus as the earliest known member of the family hominids, or ancestors of man, they said.

The earlist Australopithecus africanus fossils are about 2.5 million years old.

40 Years Ago Today

JaniaiylB, 19

The story of how three dogs saved their masters life was told here today.

Charles Foster of the Belvoir community was reported to have started out hunting yesterday morning. After he had gone a good distance he was stricken with paralysis and was unable to return to his home.

His family became alarmed when he did not return last night and a search party was sent out to look for him. He was found 16 hours later lying on the ground, with his three dogs hovered about him. A physician was reported to have expressed the opinion the man would have died of exposure if it had not been for the dogs keeping him warm during the night.

LynnCaveriy

Housing Sales Defy All Odds

QyJOHNCUNNIFF AP Business Analyst

NEW YORK (AP)-It was an amazing economic story: In 1978, housing sales soared, defying rising prices, doubledigit interest rates and, in some instances, shrinking take-home pay.

Construction was begun on close to 2 million new homes. Nearly 4 million existing homes changed owners. And selling prices rose 14 percent, the steepest one-year rise on record.

In their year-end statements, many forecasters said it couldnt continue. Eventually, they said, there comes a time when not even the well-heeled can chase prices and rates any higher.

The National Association of Realtors doesnt believe it. The year 1979, it says, will be

another good year, in some respects a record-breaking one. prices and bank terms notwithstanding.

It concedes there will be an impact that interest rates and tougher terms will discourage some buyers, that prices will make others think twice before \committing themselves. But It expects a big year.

Heres the breakdown:

Sales About 4 million existing homes will be sold, a record, surpassing by 100,000 units the 1978 total, which itself was a record. And construction will begin on 1.75 million new units.

Prices A rise of 10 to 11 percent, bringing the median sale price to $55.000 for existing homes and $64,000 for new homes by the year's end.

Interest Rates They may

exceed 11.5 percent in hot markets, particularly in the Sun Belt states of the South and West, and reach as high as 11 percent elsewhere.

By traditional criteria, such high prices and' borrowing rates would be expected to produce a sharp downturn. In fact, in a free economy, that is their function. But housing is defying tradition and criteria.

What, you might ask. is going on? How can any industry appear to defy the economics, to sell so much despite the existence of so many pressures that would be expected to undermine sales?

For one thing, demographics: A bulge in the home-buying age category; A light rental market for another. Inflation, of course; homebuyers believe a house

represents an investment.

A change in attitudes must be considered; thousands of single men and women now prefer home-ownership to renting; affluent families have returned to inner cities: landlords have converted rental units to condominiums and cooperative, making 9wers out of would-be renters.

Financing changes have helped. Lenders now consider the wifes income in determining the credit-wprthiness of a family. And they allow for a greater percentage of takehome pay to be budgeted for housing costs.

The Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Bank Board have contributed strongly, using their access to capital markets to keep a flow of mortgage credit available.