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Show HfldDw ADDDnntt Hit? 7 V7305i2 I -.ggv I 1 -(fcl'ft AIM MM EKBWnDGDDEIlll This question was used a couple of weeks ago by The Crested Butte Pilot. We liked it so much that we decided to steal it: What's the best line you've ever heard? Pete Sherwin Sherwin , . m . . , i line that got Groucho Marx fired from his TV show A guest e show said he had 10 children. "That's a lot of kids, said The Ull U1C SI1UW BUU I1C IIOU X umvuvii. - , Groucho. "I love mv wife very much," said the guest, to wfucn PageA2 Thursday, April 15, 1982 Groucho replied : "I love my cigar, but I take it out every once m a IEdlnitaDirnall while." iyvrwt'r 4y rail Coalville challenges P.C. voters The following editorial appeared in Coalville's weekly paper, "The Summit County Bee," three days after voters overwhelmingly defeated a proposal to change county government. Apparently Summit County does not want to change their present form of government. From the very first public appearance of the "Plan for Revised Form of Government For Summit County," public reaction has been largely negative. The plan regarded as radical and unnecessary by most county residents was heralded as "at last an opportunity for Park City to have the representation in the county it so sorely needs. " However, Park City was unable to muster up enough enthusiasm en-thusiasm to even make a good showing at the public hearings. Question: Is Park City really lacking in a "voice in county coun-ty government" or do they just not care? Question: Was the proposed plan intended to improve county government for Park City residents? If so, why why should one area of the county demand readjustment readjust-ment by all other areas? Question: When a city, town, village, neighborhood, or person does not have a voice in county government, whose fault is that? Is the county supposed to carry them to and fro plug in their brains and open and close their jaws? All it takes to "have a voice in county government" is to become involved. That doesn't mean standing around backbiting and faultfinding. And that doesn't mean hiring "experts" to run out and deal with every one of our problems. That means: Acquaint yourself with the issues and keep current. Organize advocacy groups where necessary. Support candidates Attend meetings Write letters Circulate petitions Vote And a thousand other things That doesn't mean: "All right you guys- -change the way you do things so we don't have to." Louise Page We're not going to quibble with Louise Page's assumptions, assump-tions, or her conclusion, although there's certainly room to do so. We're just using this as an illustration of the way Park City is considered in other parts of the county. The word is paranoia. There's an election coming up. Among the offices up for grabs are two of the three seats on the County Commission, including that of the so-called Park City representative. If you were here in 1978, you may remember what happened. hap-pened. Although Park City voted overwhelmingly to send Lloyd Stevens to Coalville he lost by 31 votes. "Park City's representative ' was elected by the residents of Coalville, and Kamas, and Henefer. The situation hasn't changed that much in the last four years. The Park City-Snyderville area still doesn't have a majority of the county's electorate. So, like it or not, we can't elect who we damn well please. For Park City to have an effective voice on next year's commission, two things will have to happen : 1. We'll need to see some candidates who appeal not only to the Park City-Snyderville area, but also to a significant number of voters in the eastern part of the county. 2. There will have to be the same kind of machinery and the same kind of voter turnout that we saw in last November's Novem-ber's city elections. Louise Page does have a point. The filing deadline is April 26. DH M DID WE LET m MATE THIS BUKLfNP SETTLEMENT? , by Stanley Karnow There's a reason for Japanese import quotas Washington It goes without saying that the makers of American foreign policy are heavily influenced by domestic political pressures. But the same policy-makers often are unable or unwilling to concede that other democratic governments also operate under similar pressures. This one-sided attitude is contributing contribut-ing to the trade conflict currently building up between the United States and Japan a conflict that could have critical international consequences. So, it seems to me, Reagan administration officials ought to try to understand the internal dynamics that sway the Japanese, rather than indulge in denunciations that only exacerbate the problem. The problem stems from the fact that Japanese cars, machinery, electronic elec-tronic equipment and other exports have been phenomenally successful in America, while U.S. goods have made little headway in Japan. As a result, America's trade deficit with Japan this year could run as high as $18 billion. Reagan administration officials, most notably Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige, blame the Japanese Japan-ese for the imbalance, claiming that they have not done enough to open their doors to American merchandise. Baldrige and others complain in particular that Japan maintains unfair quotas on such American agricultural products as beef, citrus fruits and tobacco. They point out, for example, that the United States has only a 1.4 ptrcent share of the Japanese tobacco r-rkt. The charge, though true, overlooks a tow; reality. Japan's ruling Liberal 3trwx,ratic Party, which is dedicated v U with the United States. mvM f?mky collapse if it alienated ?m Jirt farmers on whom it relies for support. To demand that Japan's leaders change their system overnight, therefore, there-fore, is to ask them to commit political suicide. Ironically, the system that gives disproportionate power to Japanese farm constituencies dates back to the days of the American occupation of Japan after World War II, when the United States sought to encourage the establishment of a conservative government gov-ernment in Tokyo. Electoral districts were carved out in such a way that 60 percent of the Japanese parliament represents rural areas. This tilt is reflected in the composition of the Liberal Democratic hierarchy. Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki, for instance, owes his seat in the legislature to a farm region, as does Kichiro Tazawa, the minister of agriculture. Shintaro Abe, the minister of international trade and industry, depends on citrus fruit growers, and Michio Watanabe, the finance minister, minis-ter, represents the tomato industry. These politicians need no prodding from Japan's powerful farm lobby, the Central Association of Agricultural Cooperatives, which recently reminded remind-ed them that surrender to U.S. pressure for import liberalization would "rock the very foundations of Japanese agriculture." The Japanese farm lobby wields extraordinary strength, moreover, because of developments that have radically transformed agriculture in Japan during the past generation. Japan's traditional crop had been rice, which was cultivated so efficiently efficient-ly following World War II that the country produced surpluses that could not easily be sold abroad. Thus the .Japanese govcrnin'nt urged farmers to diversify, offering them generous subsidies and tariff protection to switch to raising cattle and growing fruit and vegetables. Japanese consumers are penalized for these incentives, paying outrageous out-rageous prices for meat, oranges, tobacco and other items that could be imported far more cheaply. But they bear the burden stoically, perhaps out of nationalistic motives. The Japanese are aware that Japan's farmers exercise lopsided clout. Confronted by American criticism, criti-cism, though, they note that President Reagan continues to permit U.S. grain sales to the Soviet Union because he is reluctant to antagonize Midwestern farmers. Nor has Commerce Secretary Baldrige Bald-rige succeeded in persuading the Japanese to liberalize by clumsily telling them, as he did a few weeks ago, that they must change their "culture" in order to accommodate the United States. That arrogant suggestion triggered an outcry of indignation in Japan, including the comment of Akio Morita, the head of the Sony Corporation, that the Reagan administration "fuels anti-American sentiment." In my estimation, there are rights and wrongs on both sides of this increasingly bitter dispute. But the U.S. -Japan alliance is too important to allow the quarrel to degenerate into a knock-down, drag-out fight. What is desperately needed, then, is a compromise that can only begin when Washington and Tokyo cool their language. And the place to start is with an attempt by the Reagan administration administra-tion to comprehend that, for better or worse, there are other imperfect democracies on earth. (c) 1982 The Register and Tribune Syndicate Inc. Myle Jackson Age is a matter of mind. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. t'wm' l '- Ft piliwiiiiil wimmmmmm ilMiMIIIIlPiw: 'MMmMmmmmmm "'"if" ' - 1 Marnie Carmichael Hey cupcake, ya wanna breed? Morgan Queal I don't know about the best, but the worst is: "Do you want to do it or not. If not, then don't waste my time." I 111 v i 1 Bill Dickson All those who hang from gutters must fall (from a Boris Karloff movie). Michelle Tait Those are always the most generous who are giving advice. by Jack Anderson Weekly pgiaiH Fat cats, not the poor, are the real 'welfare cheaters' Washington The cost of welfare for wealthy individuals and big business is far greater than anything the government govern-ment spends on welfare on mothers who are struggling to feed and clothe their children. In fact, if you added up all the tax breaks and other subsidies the government gives to business, it would come to about $100 billion a year. There are many ways welfare is handed out to the fat cats. One of them is through the capital gains tax. Cheating on this tax is widespread. According to the Internal Revenue Service, 99 percent of American wage earners pay taxes on their incomes. But only 56 percent of those who make money from capital investments pay what they owe. Those are the government's own figures. The tax collectors have a simple suggestion for catching these capital-gains capital-gains cheaters. All that is needed is for brokers to report their transactions to the IRS. But the brokers don't like this idea. They say the paperwork would be backbreaking. What they don't bother to say, though, is that they are already reporting every transaction to their customers. A copy for Uncle Sam wouldn't be all that much trouble. That's just one example of the way the rich are coddled. Here's another: Back during the Great Depression, the government allowed corporations to sell tax-exempt construction bonds. The idea was to encourage business and put people back to work. The tax exemption is still on the books, and it has been used to finance such boondoggles as construction of golf courses. And, finally, there's the little-known provision of the tax laws that lets the country's big defense contractors put " off their tax bills. The Treasury estimates that if this loophole were closed it would bring in $19 billion, by. 1987. But the defense contractors have gotten so used to this subsidy that they now can't do without it. They have warned that if the tax break is taken away from them, they'll simply pass the buck the big bucks, that is right along to the government in their next contracts. President Reagan's budget-cutters are worried about the undeserving poor. The ones they should really be worried about are the undeserving rich. GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY: Ten years ago, we broke the story that the United States had secretly intervened in the internal politics of Chile. The White House had tried to block Chile's president, Salvador Allende, from coming to power. It became a major scandal. Now the Reagan administration may be getting involved in a similar plot in the Dominican Republic. Already, American arms are being rushed to this Central American nation ostensibly osten-sibly to help ensure that the May 16 presidental election goes smoothly. But the real reason for the speeded-up arms deliveries may be to prevent the Dominicans from holding a free election. A few words of explanation: The Dominican army's chief of staff, Gen. Manuel Lachapelle, is determined deter-mined that the favorite candidate will never become president. The likely winner is Jorge Blanco. In Gen. Lachapelle's eyes, Blanco is a flaming communist. So the general's lobbyists in Washington Wash-ington have been pleading with the Pentagon to expedite the weapons that the Dominican army has ordered from the United States. Lachapelle's men freely admit that the general will use his U.S.-purchased guns to seize power if he thinks Blanco has .a chance of winning the election. The arms shipments include 1,200 M-16 automatic rifles. That's more than enough firepower to make a crucial difference in a country that is only half the size of Indiana. This apparent return to gunboat diplomacy has gone largely unnoticed in the uproar over El Salvador and Nicaragua. The Pentagon brass appear to have swallowed Gen. Lachapelle's story of a communist takeover in the Dominican Republic hook, line and sinker. Unfortunately, all the general has come up with in the way of evidence is some inflammatory wall graffiti and his own opinion that Jorge Blanco is a communist. Our sources in the State Department say that Gen. Lachapelle is wrong. They say Blanco isn't a communist at all, but a left-of-center Social Democrat. Demo-crat. One expert described him as the Willy Brandt of the Caribbean. In any case, the United States is supposed to promote free elections, not prevent them. HEADLINES AND FOOTNOTES: Evangelist Billy Graham will attend a church conference on nuclear disarmament disarm-ament in Moscow next month against the expressed will of the White House. Vice President George Bush and national security adviser William Clark have both warned Graham that the Soviets will use his visit for progaganda purposes. . .The Air Force is asking for 50 new C-5N cargo planes at $118 million apiece. Pentagon sources say cheaper planes that can carry more supplies for longer distances are readily available. Copyright, 1982, United Feature Syndicate, Inc. rrri.,k Newspaper - Subscription Rales, $6 a year in Summit County, $12 a year outside Summit County Published by Ink, Inc. USPS 378-730 Publisher . ,, Jan W liking Vl0r.'-. , David Hampshire Advertising Sales Jan Wilking, Bill Dickson Busmess Manager Rick Unman ('raph,cs Becky Widenhouse. Liz Heimos Staff Reporters Bellina Moench, Rick Brough. Morgan Queal Typesetting Sabina Rosser, Sharon Pain, Kathv Deakin Subscription & C lassilieds Marion Coonev Distribution & Photograph, Mjchae SpaudjnK Knlered as second-class matter May 25. 1977, al the post office in Park City, Utah 84060, under the Act of March 3, 1897. Published every Thursday at Park City, Utah. Second-class postage paid at Park City, l lah. Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs are welcome and will be considered for publication, however, The Newspaper will assume no responsibility for (he return of such material. All news, advertising and photos must be received prior to the Tuesday noon deadline at our office, 419 Main Street in Park City, by mail P.O. Box 738. Park City, I t. 84060, or by calling our office (801) 649-9014 Publication material must be received by Tuesday noon for Thursday publication. |