Weinberger proposes military budget cut By FRED S. HOFFMAN AP Military Writer WASHINGTON Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger surprisingly . recommended yesterday an $11.3 billion cut in proposed military budget authority next year, a step that he and President Reagan had once resisted tooth and nail. But Reagan declared: "I'm pleased . . . Cap did it!" Weinberger credited the prospective scaledown to Reagan's "effective . . . anti inflationary campaign," meaning fewer dollars were necessary for programs once - thought to require greater spending. Despite that rationale, it appeared - Weinberger had yielded to budget director David Stockman; other White House economic Tug of war Volunteers brave the muddy residue as they work to save calves that survived a northwest Washington. Han Holman, 43, co•owner of the firm, was killed in huge mudslide that destroyed the animals' barn near Sedro Wooley, in the slide. Guerrillas abduct Soviet officials By RICHARD BILL Associated Press Writer ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Afghan guerrillas kidnapped 14 to 16 Soviet civilian advisers, in cluding two women; in a daring, daylight raid in the northern Afghan . city of Mazar-e-Sharif, Western diplomatic sources said yesterday. They said immediately after the abduction last week, Soviet troops rounded up many . of Mazar-e- Sharif's women and demanded to know the whereabouts of their husbands and sons. The Soviets freed the city's women several hours later, but the roundup threw residents into "tur moil," the sources said. The sources added that they had no word on the fate of the advisers. There was no independent confirmation of the . _ . , . inside Pensions cited, for • Subramanyam Vedam granted bail; trial to be held to decide amount Page 2 sex discrimination • ARHS hears Housing's imi case for raising advance depos• By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN . contributions than similarly its Page 3 Associated Press Writer situated men. • Lodge owners report less than favorable skiing conditions WASHINGTON The Reagan "Whether a woman contributes Page 3 Administration told the Supreme a greater amount of het' • This man has his own Court yesterday that most pension compensation than a man for an homemade recipe for beer and plans illegally discriminate equal benefit or contributes an wine Page 14 against women by paying them equal amount for a lesser benefit, . , lower benefits than men simply the use of sex-based actuarial because they live longer. tables in calculating periodic weather Solicitor General Rex Lee told benefits results in the same the court in a written brief that discrimination," Lee said. Mostly cloudy today with a Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights chance of snow showers this Act prohibits the almost universal Pension plan operators have morning and some sunny Intel- practice of basing different argued that the life expectancy vals this afternoon, high of . 30tables produce a fair system monthly pension benefits on Degrees. Becoming partly because men as a group get paid actuarial tables showing the cloudy and cold tonight with a the same benefits as women as a different life expentancies of men low temperature of 18 Degrees. group. This is because in the and women as groups. • Partly sunny tomorrow with a The Justice Department's United States women tend to live high near 29 Degrees. , comments came in a case longer than men and thus, , , . —by Craig Wagner although their monthly benefit is involving pension plans used by smaller, their total benefit is about 1 ft 3,400 colleges for some 650,000 • index employees,-but the issues raised basi s. could affect millions of American the same when viewed on a group Arts 16 workers and billions of dollars in The American Academy of Cornics/crilssword 17 pensions. Actuaries says that the life News briejs 7 Lee noted that in 1978 the expectancy of women born in 1981 Opinions 8 Supreme Court ruled against a is 78.3 years, while men born in the Sports 10 retirement plan that required same year are expected to live an State/nation/world 6 women to make larger average 70.7 years. the daily advisers, and senior congressional Republicans who had been pressing for a significant trimming of the defense buildup so stoutly embraced by Reagan and his Pentagon chief. Stockman, in fact, had been pushing for cuts in precisely the same ball park $ll to $l2 billion for fiscal 1984 as part of his quest to narrow what otherwise looms as a deficit approaching $2OO billion. But Weinberger denied he had given in to pressure and pictured the reductions, leaving a still-record total of $273.4 billion, as "long planned, ever since it was known how effective our anti-inflationary campaign has been." Most of the rollback, Weinberger said, is attributable to lower fuel costs and prices for abduction, the single ,largest such kidnapping reported in Afghanistan since the Kremlin poured an estimated 85,000 troops into the coun try three years ago to help the pro-Moscow regime battle anti-communist guerrillas. It was not immediately clear in what capacity the advisers were serving. In the past they have helped on development projects in Afghanistan. Mazar-e-Sharif, provincial capital of Balkh province, is only 30 miles south of the Siwiet border. The city, located immediately south of Termez, the main Soviet supply route into Af ghanistan, also has two major airfields, one of which serves as a military base. A spokesman for the Jamiat Islami guerrilla group, which is known for its strong links in the north, said it was "entirely feasible" his organi zation was responsible for the kidnappings. one • ian many other items as a result of "sharply lower inflation rates," Weinberger said. The rest, he added, would be reached by some unspecified personnel cost savings, postponement of some military construction in the United States, such as housing, and some other expenses, including training costs. In Dallas, Reagan told reporters after a speech to a farm group that the new cuts would not set back "in any substantial way our defense program. That still remains a top priority the security of our people." He said the cuts are not "a ploy" and were not "intended to persuade Congress." But any further cuts imposed by Congress, he warned, "would be endangering the security of our country." ' "I'm delighted with this $ll billion," the Mohammed es-Haq, reached by telephone in Peshawar, close to the Afghan border, said he knew of the abductions several days ago but decided against releasing the news to media representatives because he only had sketchy details. However, he acknowledged the "probability" that the Jamiat group engineered the operation, which, he added, would have been conducted by Zabi Ullah, Jamiat's top guerrilla commander for the northern areas. Azim Nasri, another spokesman in Islamabad, said he believed the Soviets were still alive and being held at a "secret place" across the border. Nasri, citing information from Jamiat's mili tary command, had little to add but said the Soviets may eventually be brought across the border to Peshawar for questioning. Food bank • President Reagan is given a tour of the North Texas Food Bank in Dallas yesterday afternoon. Katherine Cain, president of the bank's supervisory board, guides the tour. The bank is a private, nonprofit orgaization that distributes groceries to the needy. president said. "I'm accepting that gladly. Cap did it. I'm pleased with it." Deputy White House press secretary Larry Speakes said aboard Air Force One as Reagan flew from Dallas to Washington that the .president "feels like this is a good-faith effort ... "It's not a token, it's not a bargaining chip, it's not a high figure we'd be willing to come down on. It's an honest budget figure." Spfeakes said the president and the defense secretary "met privately to work it out on Monday." In effect, Weinberger agreed to the level of defense spending which Congress envisioned for 1984 when it passed the 1983 budget last year. That measure projected 1984 Pentagon authority at $273.5 billion; Weinberger's proposal would actually put it at $273.4 billion 3 . • ' ' 4•••• .. ." 0 ”:1: , vu, , • • • . , • • Wednesday, Jan. 12, 1983 Vol. 83, No. 102 18 pages University Park, Pa. 16802 Published by students of The Pennsylvania State University Prime rate drops interest rates continue to fall By CHRISTOPHER LINDSAY AP Business Writer NEW YORK The prime rate hit its lowest level in 2 1 / 2 years yesterday as the nation's major banks lowered it from 11.5 percent to 11 percent, continuing a downward march in interest rates that began in July. Some analysts said they expected continued declines because of sharp drops in banks' costs of obtaining funds and of weak demand for business credit in the lingering recession. They disagreed about whether The The prime rate has not been in single digits since October 1978, when it rose from 9.75 percent to 10 percent, heading for a record high of 21.5 percent in December 1980. Otto Eckstein, president of Data Resources Inc., a research firm in Lexington, Mass., predicted the prime would "bottom" at an average 10.85 percent in the first quarter of this year and rise to just over 12 percent by year's end. David Jones, economist with the Wall Street firm Aubrey G. Lanston & Co., predicted the prime would drop below 10 percent by late March. It would come sooner, he said, except banks want to maintain a "cushion" between their cost of funds and the yield they receive from making loans. Jeffrey Leeds, money market economist with Chase Manhattan Bank, which had been alone at an 11 percent prime rate since Dec. 28, said he expected further cuts in the prime. But he said they hinged on decreases in other interest Leeds, echoing many economists, added that too much attention is paid to the prime rate, because a substantial number of short-term commercial and industrial loans are made at rates slightly and even considerably below the prevailing published dictate banks have to pay on long- prime. rates, including the federal funds rate that banks charge on overnight loans among themselves, the Federal Reserve's discount rate on loans to banks and what market forces Caspar Weinberger term certificates of deposit, a source of considerable bank funds "I do expect market rates of interest are likely to decline further, but I don't know where the bottom is," he said. Prime Lending Rate 15%- 14%- 13%- 12%- 11 %- 10%- IJIA IS 10 1982 The prime rate has dropped from 16.5 percent in mid-July, while the Fed's discount rate has been trimmed from 12 percent to 8.5 percent and the federal funds rate has fallen from about 15 percent to about 8 percent. 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