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Show 2 The Magna TimesWest Valley New,Thursday, June 8, 2000 EditorialGovemmemt within reach Home ownershiP Wishful thinking on guns for 250 low - income Utahns by SHELDON RICHMAN Rosie ODonnell, mistress of ceremonies of the Million Mom March, couldn't have been clearer about what she wants for the American people. On ABCs This Week program, Cokie Roberts asked ODonnell what she thought of concealed-weapon- s laws. Said Roberts: "There is some evidence that those laws do reduce crime. But you would be against them? O'Donnell replied: "Of course Im against them. This is not the wild west. I do not want to man sic all of the people in America. I want to remove the guns from the people who are bad and who should not have access to them. Thats what I want to do. I want to take the gun away from the bad guy. So as ODonnell banishes evil from the world, we must That was the quality of what passed for argument from the people who spoke at the rally Sunday. Emotion, hopes, and dreams void of reason, logic, and facts. "I care, chanted Marion Wright Edelman of the Childrens Defense Fund. These truly arc people who cannot tell the difference between thinking and wishful thinking. ODonnell would be sur- prised to learn that the wild west was a lot less violent than some of Americas cities are g today, mainly because had and knew guns people how to use them safely. But more important is ODonnells approach to public policy. She is no serious thinker, but her statements reflect the thought process of many who would violate the right to keep and bear arms. An impressive volume of scholar-ship-n- ot to mention logic-suppthe idea that criminals are deterred from attacking people whom they suspect are armed. orts ODonnell did not deny that. She merely emoted, "I want to remove the guns from the people who are bad. Okay. How? We know how: by mandating trigger locks, licensing gun owners, and registering guns. (Thats what she and her colleagues own up to. Its hard to believe thats all they want.) It is incumbent on anyone who proposes a solution to a problem to show the connection between the proposal and the problem it is meant to solve. It is less than obvious how trigger locks, licensing, and registration would remove the guns from the people who are Would ODonnell please bad. explain why someone who intends to violate peoples rights through the use of violence (which is against the law already) will be deterred by gun laws? If that worked, the Million Mom March would not have been held. The 20,000 gun laws on the books would have long ago eradicated crime. Will she further explain how the use of trigger locks will be enforced? Unannounced police inspections of homes, perhaps? If there is no obvious connection between solution and problem and if the advocates of the solution refuse to draw the connection for the rest of us, we are entitled to assume that it is not a serious proposal at all. It is mere feel good ritual. To use a subtitle from one of Thomas Sowells books, it is as a basis for social But its more than that. policy. If the Second Amendment trash-er- s get their way, the new laws will have no effect on crime, except to exacerbate it by harassing citizens law-abidi- who want to protect themselves and their families. The controllers will then go before the American people and say, We tried modest measures, but they did not curb the crazy gun culture. It is time to ban guns altogether. The disarming of the peaceful citizen will be in full swing. Registration historically has been the prelude to confiscation. It is instructive to realize who was not asked to speak at the big rally in Washington, D.C. Among all those victims of gun violence, wasnt there room for one speaker whose life was saved by a gun? (Guns are used to thwart crime at least a million times a year.) Could the organizers not find one per- son whose loved one might have been saved by a gun? People like that, the Second Amendment Sisters, .were across the mall holding their own modest rally in support of the right to own guns. But they were scoffed at by the wishful thinkers who were too busy patting themselves on the back. Flag Day is Stars and Stripes birthday by S. DEAN LEDBETTER STAFF WRITER 2000 is on Flag Day birthJune the 14, Wednesday, day of the Stars and Stripes. Flag Day is celebrated on June 4 as the anniversary of the official adoption of the Stars and Stripes as the national ensign by the United States Congress on June 14, 1777. While June 14 is a special time to honor the American flag, a deeper meaning also is attached to the observance. Veterans and various patriotic groups are encouraging everyone to fly the American flag in respect for the sacrifices of veterans, pioneers and other brave 1 MAGNA TIMES USPS 325-58- 0 Second class postage paid at Magna, Utah 84044 8980 West 2700 South Magna, Utah 84044 J. HOWARD STAHLE Publisher BONNIE 8TAHLE Advertising Manager Office Manager MINDY HAVIQ Production Manager Lead Computer technician KEITH LOBDELL Editor GARY R. BLODGETT Editor ALAN BLAIN Staff Writer KENT GOBLE Sports Writer S. DEAN LEDBETTER Stall Writer DALE SIMONS Sports Columnist TIFFANY MANSFELD Advertising Copyright, Magna TimesWest Valley Newe C. All rights reserved. Reproduction, rtuts, or tranamlttsl of Ml matter her, tin Is prohibited without prior written permission by the publisher or editor. The Magna Times and Wees Valley are published each Thursday New Subscrtotton $18 per year $21 par year out of state Postmaster Send change of address to: Magna Times 3980 W, 2700 So. Magna, UT 8944 (801) or FAX (601) 8 250-568-5 magwoatxmisslon.eom The Magrw Times la t boniM ntmtptptr Member of the Utah IPraaa AatodaUon forebears. The American flag has inspired millions of people throughout our great nations history. The red, white, and blue colors of the American flag have respectively come to symbolized courage, purity, and loyalty, while the 50 white stars on the field of blue stand for the current 50 states, one star for each state in our republic. The 13 stripes of the American flag, seven red and six white, are in remembrance of the 13 original American states that formerly were 13 British colonies along the Atlantic seaboard of North America. announces Brushfire Strike Force The fire departments who comprise the Salt lake Valley Fire Alliance have agreed, through a memorandum of understanding (MOU), to function cooperatively in attacking the brushfire problem in the Salt Lake Valley. They will accomplish this through a joint commitment of brush fire apparatus and staffing, beginning on June 1, 2000. The fire chiefs from Alta, Bluffdale, Lehi, Midvale, Murray, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Sandy, South Jordan, South Salt Lake, West Jordan, and West Valley have formed the Alliance to enhance the utilization of existing fire agency resources in the Salt Lake Valley. Each cooperating agency in the Alliance will commit one auxiliary with two firefighters and one tender (pumper or tanker) with tow firefighters to the Brushfire Strike Force. The incident commander at a brushfire will make an evaluation of resources required to effectively control the fire. After their resources are committed, a level one through level six response can be requested through either Salt Lake Valley Communications Center or Sait Lake Fire Dispatch Center. The Utah Housing Finance Agency (UHFA) completed a $25 million bond sale last week in mortorder to make gage loans available to 250 first-tim- e home buyers in the state. According to UHFA Executive Director, William H. Erickson, a slower economy and rising interest rates are pricing low and moderate income people out of the housing market. The economic changes that were experiencing now are affecting working people in particular, Erickson explained. When youre living from paycheck to paycheck, owning a home seems totally unre st e, alistic. Our goal is to help qualifying buyers to get into a quality, affordable home and start earning equity instead of throwing money down the rental drain. The Federal Reserve has raised overnight bank rates five times in less than a year. Each time banks receive an increase in interest rates, they pass it on to their customers. Currently, the variable rate on credit cards, 9.37 is 16.57 on new car loans, and more than 10 on home equity loans. UHFAs mortgage rates are typically more than one full percentage point below conventional rates. As a result of the recent bond sale, a fixed rate mortgage loan carries a 7.15 interest rate with two discount points or a 7.45 interest rate with no discount points. For example, a family earning an annual household income of $31,000 could qualify for a loan on a $90,000 home with a total monthly payment of $720, instead of paying more than $830 with a conventional loan. The Utah Housing Finance Agency is a public agency that finances and develops affordable housing throughout the state. Established by the Utah State Legislature in 1975, UHFA has financed the purchase of more than 43,000 homes for low and moderate-income families in all areas of Utah. For more information on a 0 UHFA mortgage loan, call e or 359-520- toll-fre- 30-ye- ar - Closed fire season officially began June 1 , 2000 1 Utahs closed fire season officially began June t, 2000 and will continue until October 31, 2000. a closed fire season requires that any open burning be done only by first securing a permit Permits are available form county fire wardens, county fire chiefs, county sheriffs offices and through offices of fee Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands. Our weather continues to warm and with good weather comes fee increasing risk of wildland fire, said State Forester Art DuFault "Were asking everyone to be especially careful wife all forms of fire. For mere information contact Dave Dalrympie, fire management coordinator for fee Utah Division of . Forestry, Fire and State Lands at (801) 538-550- 1, ;lL -- JL ssa Stop playing games with social security by DEAN BAKER The latest word in the presidential race is that George W. Bush has a secret plan to save Social Security. Apparently he does not intend to give us much detail, but the main point is that everyone is going to retire rich and happy if we just let him privatize a portion of the Social Security program. Voters may choose not to take this one on faith. There are times when the details may not matter much, but this is a case where the devil really is all over the details. As Congressional Republicans have found in recent years, it is very difficult to design a privatized system to replace Social Security. Salt Lake Valley Fire Alliance announces! brushfire strike force Salt Lake Valley Fire Alliance Utah Housing Finance Agency sells bonds for home financing Firescope of California serves as a model for the Alliance. The high Incidence of catastrophic emergencies in California created the need for fire departments there to share resources on a statewide basis. Through time, this system has been utilized extensively and refined to the point where it has become the standard for the fire service. The first problem is fee admin- istrative cost. One hundred and fifty million individual accounts cost far more to administer than a single centralized system like Social Security. It costs less than .8 percent of annual tax revenue to run fee Social Security system. By comparison, the administrative costs of the individual account systems in Chile and Britain, which the privatizers hold up as models, are between 15 to 20 percent of annual revenue. If the U.S. system were run the same way, it billion would mean that $60-8- 0 was being pulled out of workers retirement accounts each year, and placed into the pockets of the Wall Street brokerage houses and banks. The second basic problem wife individual accounts is that they cant guarantee workers a secure income. As anyone who has followed the NASDAQ in recent months knows, markets go up and markets go down. If a worker is lucky enough to retire on a market upswing, they might do well with their individual accounts. But workers who retire on a bad day will end up With much less money than they had expected. If the point of Social Security is to provide workers with a core retirement income that is absolutely certain, individual accounts won't do the trick. The third, and biggest, problem with the Bush plan is that it is making impossible assumptions about fee returns that people can expect from stocks. The main reason Social Security is projected to face problems in the distant future is that projections show fee economy will grow much slower in the future than in the past. In fact, the Social Security trustees projections assume that the economy will grow less than half as fast over the next 75 years as it did over the past 75 years. If the economy kept growing at the same rate as in the past, the program would be fine for at least 70 years into fee future. Remarkably, the Push plan assumes that the stock market will produce the same high rates of return in a economy as it did in the more rapidly growslow-growi- ing economy of the past. This assumption defies basic logic, and none of Mr. Bushs economic advisors has been able to show how it is possible. In other words, the Bush campaign is just making up numbers here. In short, Mr. Bush is trying to sell a Social Security plan that is based on bad arithmetic, hidden costs and risks. If we can have a serious discussion of the issue, he wont get away wife iL Unfortunately, Mr. Bush is not the only candidate playing games with Social Security. Vice President Gore has picked up the baton from President Clinton in fee race to save Social Security. The big secret is that Social Security doesnt really need to be saved. The economists and policy wants who study the issue all know feat the program is fully solvent for more than three decades into the future, even if there are no changes whatsoever. The changes that might be needed at some future the slow growth projecsmall relations prove accurate-ar- e tive to changes we have seen in previous decades. In other words. Social Security doesnt need A1 Gore to save it; fee program is doing just fine without his help. But the polls show that Democrats do .well when Social Security is an issue. So A1 Gore, like President Clinton before him, has decided to make it front and center in his campaign. Fanning false fears on Social Security is an outrage for tow reasons. First, workers and retirees should not have to worry needlessly about their retirement security. Second, if Gore is defeated, Mr. Bush will be in a position to dismantle Social Security wife his secret plan. The fact is, Social Security is a lot more important then either candidates presidential ambitions. point-i- f Back from the grave: Annual The Alliance has proposed a "cafeteria style solution to both emergency response and support needs of its members. Only those members who share a specific need, for example hazardous materials technicians, automatic postage hikes will agree to share existing Century Dr. Frankenstein, the resources for that common shortage. Other members will draft MOUs to share such resources as recruit training, communications, dispatching, purchasing, paramedic school and many others. All member's will not be required to participate in all MOUs. Although the Alliance has only existed for a few months, it is committed to seamless service delivery and fee most cost effective utilization of fire department resources in the Salt Lake Valley. The Brushfire Strike Force is another example of the willingness of the fire service community, working together to meet the fire and emergency medical service needs in the Valley. WASHINGTON Like a 21st Postal Service is trying to breath life into roundly criticized legislation feat most postal observers had given up for dead. The monster in this to the Coalition to Make Our First Class Mai! FIRST CLASS-i- s a provision in the bill that would allow the Postal Service annual, automatic increases in first class mail rates with profits to go toward executive bonuses. John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayers Union, which is a member of the coalition, said bringing back H R. 22 is bad news for postal consumers. We need more accountability at the Postal Service, not less, said Berthoud. It is bad enough feat our first class mail rates climb as the Postal Service has been raking in millions of dollars in profits. This bill would reduce what little review of rate increases exists now, with money skimmed from the top of the resulting profits to pay executive bonuses. The recent scandal regarding moving expenses for postal execu- tives snowed quite clearly that increased oversight of this out monopoly is necessary. An investigation recently revealed payment of $248,000 in moving expenses to two postal executives who moved less than 50 miles and continued working in the same office. Postal Service support for a new, shorter version of H.R. 22 was announced May, 18 2000 at the Postal Customer Council meeting in Providence, Rhode Island. It is unfortunate feat fee Postal Service has decided to beat a dead horse in this renewal of H.R. 22, said Berthoud. We hope the next Congress will bring a real reform effort, including giving the final authority on first class mail rates to the independent Postal Rate Commission. The Coalition to Make Our First Class Mail FIRST CLASS has more than 200 member organizations and businesses as well as thousands of individual members. They include the National Alliance cf Business, National Grange, National Federation of the Blind, National Association of Realtors, American GI Forum, National Minority Business Council, and the American Farm Bureau Federation. |