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Show Free Press - Wednesday, April 13, 1994 - Page 2 Learning dubious lessons from the IRS Editorial To toll or not to toll: Roads must be funded recent study released by the gas taxes - since gasoline tax is the Utah Department of Transportation main source of funding for federal examining the possibility of using and state highway funds as it is. toll roads to fund highway construcRight now in gasoline tax, Utahns A tion and upkeep has caused some vocal concern throughout the state. But more than anything, the study call to should serve as a wake-u- p Utahns that our roads are crumbling and we are either going to have to ante up the necessary funds to rebuild our highways or drive on inferior roads. Actually, the toll road suggestion is a logical answer to some of Utah's highway funding needs. Of course, no one wants to pay more than necessary to get from one place to another. And anyone who has traveled where toll roads are commonplace knows they can be a nuisance. But toll booths point out a fact of life it takes money to keep our roads in the kind of shape required for us to get from one place to another safely and conveniently. And Utah's ability to build and maintain its highway is diminishing. The federal government is limiting its contribution for the upkeep of the national interstate system. Over the nextfive years, for example, Utah will receive $110 to $125 million per year from federal highway funds -regardless of how much is needed. State funds are also limited. This basically leaves the state with $2.3 billion worth of road construction and maintenance that will not be funded by the state or federal government over the next five years. By that time, our unfunded critical highway needs will be even greater. Toll roads are one possible answer to this dilemma, at least for suitable roads. The other solution is increased - pay 18 cents a gallon to the federal government and 19 cents a gallon to the state - a total of 37 cents of every gallon of gas we buy for our cars goes to fund road construction and maintenance. It's not enough. . Tolls work because they charge the individuals who will use the roads for the cost of building and maintaining the roads. But the poor person who has to use a toll road for commuting faces a double whammy of paying gasoline tax for the upkeep of other state roads and the toll fee for his daily trip to work. To him or her, that hardly seems fair. UDOTs study focused on four roads, US 6, Spanish Fork canyon road from Spanish Fork to Helper, SR 128, the river road near Moab that attracts hordes of river rafters during the summer, and a state highway in west Salt Lake County. One ofthe reasons the roads were picked is because they are among those with critical needs in the state that will go unfunded over the next five years. Arid nothing is likely to change in the next five years except those roads, and many others, are likely to deteriorate. That is the only choice left if we are unwilling to fund road construction and upkeep. The bottom line is we either suffer a decrease in our quality of life or we pay for a better quality of life. And where our roads are concerned, we can either pay at the toll booth or at the gas pump. Within a few years, Utahns will have to decide which alternative it - will be. The new computerized tax software programs for computers apparently have a new feature that might revolutionize income tax filing. Electronic filing has been available for a few years, but is only available to certain representatives, who are happy to process your return for a fee. But this sophisticated software now produces a form called the 1040PC that can be created by anyone who has such a program. The printout lists the same information as a regular 1040, but only lists the line numbers that have dollar amounts written on them. It also eliminates the boxes and the columns and the significant amounts of empty, wasted space found on the regular tax forms. The program assures taxpayers that "filing a 1040PC will not increase your chances of an audit." I guess time will tell. I'm always receiving catalogs from companies that offer the latest in high-tecequipment and other items that are touted as the answer to life's problems. Compact disks for personal computers seem to be the futuristic thing of today. One company offers a disk that contains millions of telephone listings, complete with address and zip code. You can type in a name, and the computer will find all ofthe people in the United States that have that name. Or you could find just the people in New Hampshire with that name. It might be fascinating, I guess, but having that much information available is almost more overwhelming than beneficial. Sitting in church the other day, my wife noticed that the person behind her spent the whole hour punching buttons on some device. sort of hand-helThinking that the object was a calculator h . d fine Daly Pleanefl: By RUSS DALY or an electronic speller with some sort of game feature, she was quite annoyed at the sound produced by the button pusher. I suggested that maybe that churchgoer may have been more involved in the meeting than she thought, since he may have had an electronic bible. Another piece of miniature computer wizardry, the device contains the entire bible actually several translations of it in an object not much bigger than a calculator. Maybe he was looking in the Holy Electronic Writ to augment his understanding of the sermons given from the pulpit. I interviewed two gentlemen recently who have started a service that might make traditional grocery shopping a thing of the past. With their computer software and a modem, one can shop for groceries over the telephone lines and have the groceries delivered at your convenience during the week. Busy families or large families might find'that this service is the answer to at least one of. their problems. Too bad it eliminates getting the food samples given at the store. Maybe someone's working on - that, too. Cellular phones are advertised as a real too. Last Sunday's paper even had a whole section devoted to the devices that are becoming more commonplace. time-save- r, dreams First it was a sequel to "Gone With the Wind;" now we are about to be subjected to another sequel to a classic that can, by all logic, brook no sequel the immortal and It was June in my little Welsh village. The morning was cool,, the sun had not comeover thetopof RhysogMountain. Ihad my bowl of porridge and told my Mam I was leaving. "I shan't be long," I said. "Don't be too long," she said, "and don't get in any mischief." Then as I started down the garden path, she called after me, "While you're out bring home an armful of wood for the stove." This morning I knew where I was going. I crossed the brook on the stepping stones and continued up the green path to the top of Rhysog Mountain. When I reached the summit I sat down and rested. There below was the valley, my valley that I loved. There was Gwyddon Road, a street of over 100 houses. Our house number was 95. Above the house was a field of gorse, its yellow blooms made it look like a sea of gold. I continued on south until I came to Twin Badlam Tump. I sat down in the heather and gazed out west to the sea. The sun was touching the tips ofthe waves as they rolled toward the shore. As the panorama opened up to me I thought of a poem I learned in the grade school. The name of the author was long forgotten and only snatches of the poem came back to me. This is what I remembered: "I must go down to the sea again, for the call of the running tide is a wild call and a clear call that cannot be denied, and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by." And then he continues with his dreamed: "Oh, moonlight night on a tropic sea, how my soul mounts away from scenes like E?UJSQETQ3 Editor's "Casablanca." There ought to be a law. In Mel Brook's spoof of space movies, "Space Balls," the characters make fun of this trend by announcingthe movie's sequel even as the show goes on "Space Balls II: By MARC HADDOCK The Search for More Money." Sounds like Mel knew what he was talk- wmmmmmmmmimmm ing about. The sequels are okay in some cases. For example, all the James Bond movies had the same movies over and over again with each plots, until they ran out of Ian Fleming the films getting worse in titles then they ran out of steam. But at least these shameless The Star Trek movies have been good don't numpretend to be anything else. made were every other time they Now, with the sequel to "Casablanca," bers II, IV and VI. Despite the flaws of numbers I, III and V, the series as a whole we face the most dreadful of alternatives. How do you pick up the lives of Rick, et stands up. But what would you expect from after he has walked off into the fog and al., a movie series based on a television series? his love has flown off into the sunset with The concept lends itself to multiple chapher husband? How do you find a modern ters. The Star Wars movies were designed as actor who can fill the shoes of Humphrey the most popular form of fantasy fiction -- Bogart? More importantly, with the magic the trilogy immortalized by J.R.R. Tolkein created by this wonderful classic, why would and his Lord of the Rings series. So the you want to? Part of the charm of movies like group holds together well. Even the Indiana Jones movies work "Casablanca" is the sense of completion without a sense of resolution. The film because they were patterned together after old movie serials. When something is ends, but without tying up all the looseends the designed to be done in groups, it can turn in a nice, neat package. That is left tobetviewer's imagination and all for the out okay. But it's still always the search for more ter. We had the same sense of completion money, isn't it? And not everything should have a sequel without resolution with "Gone with the Wind," until somebody came up with a trust me. One need look no further than Friday the sequel that sends Scarlett O'Hara back to 13th or the Nightmare on Elm Street series Ireland, of all places. So much for the great of movies to get the idea. For the most part, American novel and the great American these aren't sequels so much as remakes of heroine being sent back to the Old Coun - - - - Y these and with gliding wings sail from star to star where the homes of our lost and loved ones are." I have never dreamed of going to sea. I crossed the Atlantic Ocean in January when the waves were as tall as a house. For four days I was seasick and hoped to die. No, I dream of mountains, lakes and streams, and even deserts. We must never forget that our children dream. They may dream of becoming a leader in sports, or a doctor. One mother once told me that her little boy dreamed of being a garbage collector. I can understand that, for when I was a boy I loved to visit the garbage dump and see the stuff that people throw away. Children should be allowed to dream, for a world without dreams and hopes could be a pretty dismal place. - - - Pdiijl 0 1W4 Paul Harvey Products Inc. United States" has already been corrected to note that Clinton, as governor, diverted $19,000 from a "public relations fund" to himself. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton's income rose steadily until her 1992 income from that source was $203,172. None of these transactions have been found to be illegal, but they do demonstrate that the Clinton's were very much a part of the "greedy generation of the '80s they so fervently criticized on their way to the White House. law-fir- m . . 1 Maybe this need to tie up all the loose ends is a culture thing- a gift to our society from our sitcom upbringing where issues of great importance can be resolved in 30 minutes on a weekly basis. In fact, one ofthe great sitcoms, "Cheers," raised a lot of hackles by refusing to tie up . the loose ends in its final episode. And so our demand to have things neat and tidy gives those engaged in the search for more money an opening to come in and package our cultural loose ends for us. But I say, let them be. I don't want somebody to come in to colorize our memories of "Casablanca," and then add insult to injury by presenting us a version of what happened to the characters after the movie ended. I prefer to create possibilities of my own. And I don't want someone telling me how, or if, Scarlett got Rhett back "tomorrow," so I can fill in the blanks with my own imagination. Frankly, I'm getting tired of people feeling like they have to wrap this kind of wonderful uncertainty up for us in a nice and neat package so we are left with nowhere for our imaginations to go. One of my favorite books of all time is "Dune," a classic science fiction novel by Frank Herbert that creates new worlds in ways no one had ever thought of before. I've read it four times and it still intrigues me. But the author, feeling he had struck gold, tried to tap into the same vein time and time again, with an unrelenting lineup of sequels th at never matched the scope, wonder or invention of the first book. He should have quit while he was ahead. That's a lesson we could learn about "Casablanca" and "Gone with the Wind" as well. - It's time to prune the Alpine School District than a Editor In my back yard I have an apple tree. Two years ago we had so much fruit that we were still picking it off the ground in December. That winter, either I was too busy or just didn't think about it, I did not prune the tree back. The following spring there were only two blossoms on the apple tree. I kept watchingfor the fruit to come. Through summer and into the fall, there was nothing. We had no apples at all last fall. Whitewater allegations run deep The Clinton administration is gambling that public interest irt Whitewater will soon have spent itself replaced by some other more interesting "news But as each new allegation is laid to rest, another more serious one surfaces. Where early digging revealed only an Arkansas political shell game involving nickels and dimes, now it involves allegations of impropriety within the White House and allegations that Hillary Clinton was able to make a $100,000 profit in commodities in a matter of months. Now, the "poor but honest couple from Arkansas image has blown its own cover. Whitewater runs deep. The most damagingresult ofthe investigation so far is apparent before the evidence is in the revelation that Bill and Hillary did profit from their political connections. His frequent protestations that "we invested money and we lost" are now being corrected." "I was the lowest paid governor in the fs - By TOM GRIFFITHS .' try, indeed! rip-of- would be pretty dismal . h. Hoping for a classic without sequel Tiie - A world without Business customers aren't the only ones using cellular phones anymore thanks to v persuasive advertising and a rising crime ' rate. Safety, as well as time savings, is apparently enhanced through the use of a cellular phone. Even mundane things like porch lights I read the other day -are going high-tecabout an area fire department that is dis- tributing a device that might save lives. The item is a small object that is inserted bet ween the bulb and the base of your porch light. When you turn on the switch, the light t behaves in an ordinary manner, but two . flicks of the switch cause the light to start . flashing, enabling rescue teams to quickly locate your house. There is an ongoing conversion process , with these technological advances. People who dont think they would enjoy or use ' some ofthese things might find themselves eating their words. My mother, for example, has enjoyed the cordless phone we gave her for Christmas a year ago. We were apprehensive about the purchase, because we didn't know if she would really take to the idea. Like many people, she stood next to the base unit on the wall when she used the phone for the first few days. (We had done that, too.) After about a week, though, she was doing all sorts of things while she was talking to us or her friends. A few weeks ago, we realized how much she enjoyed the phone when it quit working. During the time we were trying to find a new battery, the old rotary phone went back up, and I think we all felt like we had gone back into the Dark Ages. Fortunately, the phone started working again, just in time for spring gardening, and soon for summer evenings on the patio. Think it doesnt get much better than that? Wait until I get my next catalog. Now, before congressional hearings have begun, we haveconfessionsof shredded documents, allegations of improper pressure by White House officials and recorded phone calls that "probably should not have been made." The senior advisor to the Clinton White House, George Stephanopoulos, sought to remove a prominent Republican from the investigation. One of the Republican bulldogs in the Whitewater investigation, Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, says he does not believe this scandal is enough to warrant impeachment. Yet, new York Sen. Alfonse DAmato does say that the acts alleged, if true, "may amount to an obstruction of justice.". So Whitewater runs deep. If a smug Republican president and his myopic strategists had not taken you forgrantedin 1992, this whole Whitewater mess could have been ventilated, evaluated and judged before the election. One of my neighbors, and a good friend, chastised me for being so dumb. He said that all of the energy and growth of that tree had gone to wood and the tree had become top heavy. Don said that if I wanted apples I needed to prune and trim the tree back. ' Alpine School District has much the same problem, but the growth has being Lehi going to "wood for more single year. Just like a fruit tree, a bureaucracy, left to control its own growth, will grow top heavy. Our "tree has been getting top heavy for several years. Just like my apple tree, there is still plenty of fruit possible, but pruning is required to get it. -- Jim Hunter needs recreation center Editor: We are in the fourth grade at Lehi Elementary. Our class has been thinking of a way to m ake Lehi City a better place to live. We have decided that we would like to see the city get a recreation center for the youth. This would give them a safe place to go and something to do with their free time. We have surveyed several people and most of them are concerned with this prob lem. The senior citizens have a place to go, we should have one too. -- Mrs. Bishop's Fourth Grade Class Chris Streadbeck Camye Powell Kelly Cummings Bryce Turner and 30 others. Wants to know more about Lehi Editor: Hello! My name is Erik Petersen and I'm a fifth grade student at West Ridge Elementary School in Harlan, IA. Our class is studying the history and geography of the U.S. We would appreciate it if you would send me a post card from Utah so we can learn more about our coun- try. Thank you. -- Erik Petersen West Ridge Elem. School 1401 19th Street . Harlan, IA 61537 Policy on letters to the editor We welcome letters to the editor. All letters should be typewritten and double spaced. Letters must also be signed, and must Include the writer's name and telephone number. Please send letters to Editor, Newtah News Group, P.O. Box 7, American Fork, Utah, 84003. |