OCR Text |
Show , . rra 0,..At.eenTztt'. .'; ''' ''''' 14- ,- r -- ,,!,. !,.&1:.,,-, t ,i, .").k..i.44004.00101ar.4'2Atisi.g.litotikiainiMiti410451614,211eiiiiiaki,34-,A41.it.i.-Nti0.1.q.- . .1, : . ', . (U'a mirmi act o c NEWS, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH ,6t 41 WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1976 1 A A5 4 . v, ,,rtr .,.k V.,d a' What his narrow victory i esi snoula AI le; - to one-ter- 01 . l',VP ; Ai i- .0) ,,, , 1 cliff-hang- er - Fifth, more than a little humility is in Order from a man who saw a lead of 30 in the polls dwindle to almost the vanishing point in only two months. Some erosion set in as Mr. Carter pretended so many things were wrong with America it became increasingly hard to believe him. Still, more erosion set in as he came to look more liberal in t ft.! latest a tuition of the public rates Itself poll, 51 conservative, 12 middle of the road, liberal. With even a and only 37 slightly better economy, the outcome Tuesday could have been quite different. ' 3 4 I ''' -- ".;,,. ., 1 ,. , . ---- -- r - V I ,, .t 4,,,,,111 ,,,. II 11 ,, Nit . it i1.3 1 17" .1,70 b ;45115 0 I I11I ,I LI ' 2,,,,;' Li rt, , sj j James J. Kilpatrick A definitive text turned up the other day of the new Tax Reform Act of 1976. As produced by U.S. Law Week, the text runs to 131 pages of agate type. The grey columns stand like tombstones over the grave of common sense. Now did we get into this mess? Man and boy, I have been reading the English language for more than 50 years and claim some modest competence in comprehending the written word. But this is monstrous! The text falls open at random: For purposes of subparagraph (b), the term 'adjusted tax difference with respect to the estate' means the excess of what would have been the estate tax liability but for subsection (a) over the estate tax liability." That is among the simpler provisions. Wille battalions of lawyers and accountants nay, whole divisions, whole armies -- - will be grappling with these complexities for months and years. Within the Internal Revenue. Serviee. the task of dra:ting forms will occupy a full corps of analysts. !ntheeOIrSeftfti1.e. 500 federal judges will probe the Impenetrable prose. We have drifted into this qorry mess for one big reason and a hno of little 01IPS. The dominate our everyday lives in ways the Founding Fathers never dreamed of. When they gave Congress the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises," the framers of the Constitution could not have imagined a net so closely woven. , The Tax Code directly af- fects marriage, family, home, tr,siness, the buying and selling of property, the survival of charities. The index to the 1976 act touches upon vineyards, cattle,, oil wells, gas wells, hospital services and amateur athletics. The small reasons devolve from the big one. When the net falls upon every aspect of business and personal exis tence, every taxpayer can contrive some reason to wiggle free. Certain income is "different." Certain deductions are "only fair." Every hardship, is "special." And the arcane provisions run endlessly on. What to do? The only intelligent answer is to scrap the whole thing and start over. This is the straightforward approach urged in a recent essay by Russell E. Train, a tax expert .4d a former judge of the U.S. Tax Court, In his knowledgeable view, nothing will be gained by furthk patchwork. The jerrybuilt code is beyond repair. !lc would junk it all, root and branch. &tad impose one uniform tax upon all net income, however derived. Is tins reasibie? Ai, . i) . 's,-,.- 1 t 1 t , fn, i; , 6 4 ''',,. ,i ' . t 4 . - . ., ., , , ,1 .,,,,,,,;,,A,' , 4 IliN1161(11 . ', A d' Z , ., , ' .1 I ,c) 1916 snak MI - MMUS , ART BUCHWALD Ct 1 .; ,. "Lik answer is, technically, yes; politically, no. Train has worked out the revenue proapjections. His flat-rat- e proach would produce whatever income Congress desired. There would be no problem in drafting such a law. But the howls would be horrendous. Train has sensible answers. The realistic prospect, sad to say, is that few members of Congress wiU pause to dis- cuss them. But the next Congress might be persuaded to take one major step, not in the name of simplication but in thE name of equity: We could move toward the "indexing" urged by New York's Senator James L. Buckley as a countermeasure against inflation. The idea may sound complicated; it isn't. Buckley would discount a taxpayer's income according to the costof-liindex, so that tax rates were applied to constant dollars. If an inflated income of, say, $20,000 had a purchasing power of what $15.000 had a few years ago, he would tax on the bdsis of the $15,000. One effect would be to keep middle income families from falling into the upper tax brackets where rates are punitively higher. One thing 6 certain: We must not drift indefinitely from a large mess to a larger one. At some poiht, a taxpaver's revolt will occur. if the 95th Congress produces only another 131 pages of agate type, the molt may come sooner than anyone tAIL...s emu I "Lb. Slat i trIrsnie 111. JIB . Ibt , WASHINGTON After every election the fickle media tend to interview the winners. No on seems to care about the losers. It has always been my policSilo stay with the losers and find out why they blew it. This year I talked to several of them. The first was George Merchantile, an incumbent Luntil esoutact w;its, davetivt; 'numbly by Ctn.' 1 Crawfish in what many people said was an upset. Merchantile told me, "I believe my bigge mistake was not communicating with the voter,. Instead, I did most of my communicating with rib, press secretary, Lizzie Poivron, never suspect that she would tape all our conversations. Most tf what the public heard about the tapes was taken ollt of context. All they read was what I promised Lizzit, and not what I promised the country." I Archibald Blandanna, who lost his seat in Congress, was another bitter loser. "I would have won it if my opponent had played fair. But he ma& capital out of the fact that I had accepted a $50,00b gift in cash from the South Korean government.. T4 truth is tbal. towed ,..lowu ie isa, ao Twig Pouic Long,' a very dear friend of ours, gave it to my witp without my knowledge. I had warned my wife never to accept expensive gifts from a foreign government, but she maintains I never said anything about cash. Had she told me about it I would have made her return $20,000 of it immediately." :4 1.4 I Is 4 Robert Quovadis, who lost a ,close govern44 race, was more philosophical than bitter. "We 10 make mistakl..s. I imagine mine was posing chaik4 in Hustler magazine being whipped by three womeir wearing black boots. I thought at the time I could, reach the blue-coll- ar workers who do not necessa1.3 read the newspapers, but apparently I was wrong144. the same picture had appeared in Family Circle 114 certain there wouldn't have been an uproar. I'm no saying that this photograph made me lose tit& election, but it put me on the defensive in the finaC weeks and no one was interested in what I had to sty, about the new school bond issue I had proposed oe: .;, 4 the stite." 4 Harlan Hathaway, who was running for attorney, general of his state, blamed his defeat on his speech writers. "When Earl Butz resigned," Hathaway tOir, me, "I hired the fellow who wrote jokes for him. I. thought they were very funny and so did all the gti,Vs: at the country club where I play golf. But bell I: started to tell them in ethnic neighborhoods tiles) people just didp't laugh. So then I switched and canr: out for the death penalty. They didn't laugh at thate either. I never saw so many uptight voters in my litel ac I did this year." 44 - 1?., Probably one of the saddest losers was Flotic; Harmoney, who ran for the school board in Dutche4 4 4. O. County. reform: Try again! By I t - 1 , Moscow could control China as well as the entire Soviet Union with its Eastern Euro- that the federal government has come to 5 i A ) , ahead big reason is ,,,,mtues, ,, vty china r ----1- 14 ,;, Ark ;,';,, ward the workingman. But such charges throw no real By light on how either man I would meet a serious pean satellite empire. ingeph C. economic crisis should it IL Lao Leta, UUQUVI i.ca Harsch fortabty for the rest of us emerge. from the moment Moscow Perhaps even more imporlost its control over China. An tant to the future of the attempt to regain that control American people and of the The American presidential campaign of 1976 hits by force would tbreattm world at large will be the methods employed to handle eveyone else in the world. been marked (1) by the abof energy. Ever sence of humor (international Suppose that should hap- the problem' of 1974 pen. How would the new since the oil embargo variety), (2) by a regrettable talked have - not ingovernments haPdle the unusual prebpresident although about the problem of energy. dulgence by both sides in lem? Nothing said in the But what In fact would the slurs, innuendos, misrepcampaign bears on this new president do to prepare rese ntations, evasions, matter. American, industry and the calumny, and empty prom, Almost equally dangerous ises -- - and (3) by avoidance would be a military move by American citizen in his little automobile for the day when it., 11,,...1 eprcliesioas Of RP rinds Sevict antled efzinft oil runs low and natural gas Is discussion of the major probwhen Marshal lems which lie ahead for the Yugoslavia Tito is no longer present to tone? American people. keep his conglomerate The subject has scarcely the ,country together. The third point been mentioned in the camavoidance of discussion of the: - This is a major concern in paign and yet It may be the major problems ahead ? office in single inost difficult problem every foreign seems Le me to be of first Europe. Nothing said in the for the next geteration. importance., campaign throws any light on The candidates exposed First, let'a look at the real bow either Mr. Ford or Mr. themselves in all their imperproblems ,which can rear up Cartel' would- meet that fections before us. We were b:any moment to confroht problem. remarkably well informed 'the new president of the In the American economy about their faults. These have United States. In foreign policy it: is "In foreign policy it is conceivconceivable that the Soviet Union- will take military acthe Soviet Union will take able tion against China. Perhaps of action is such the threat military action against more plausible:hen its actual use. But it might happen. And the use, or even he threat of ;en mentioned often enough the use, of Soviet military the new president certainly in this newspaper and others. will lave to make important power against China would be the health But both men also have some deeply disturbing to the decisions affecting and the strehgth of the sturdy qualities. whole world. Both American Be comfortable in the Indeed. there is nothing car1410Ra economy. have indulged in that the American which could be more disturbplatitudes on the subjects of Republic has survived the ing than such a threat by infiati3n and unemployment. Moscow since the world today leadership of several presidents less competent, less is built around the fact of - Mr. Ford has accused Mr. sturdy, and less hatelligerit Moscow's noncontrol over Carter of spendthrift incihmthan either MI. Ford or Mr. bona. Mr. Carter has accused China. The world was dungerCarter. Mr. Ford of callousness to ously out of balance when Tax , ,.;!:74,0.!, r,,,,,,.ze- .,, that . , . ( 1 ,6 - ed r i.,., I, ' . ,,f, 1 ;.17rfg'4.''''.414 '''(1''b( r:" P1 , 4 ,N14, 'fry-x,-,iii ur new presioem It: 1 t ,T;;Iel, 4, ,,,,, ,, , I ( I I ', 011i, , 1 ' II, I ,,, . , iPio!"-,,- . I I 41It'rt.t.,,,,,,, ..A i - ;. 1 ' ,,,,:o... ;'; . , , tl t,t, it I ' ,I C ...,'' . The crises With their performance at the polls Another kind of lesson seems clear defeat of DemoTuesday, Utah voters upheld their from the Allan Howe: cratic for their Utahns won't citizenship Rep. taking reputation and for ignore the personal indiscretions of their responsibilities seriously and properly so being highly selective in the process. public servants Ruch episodes of reflection the because mat rev Roams clear from the way cazt and trustworthiJnelownent t!!. Democratic gubernatorial candidate ness of those who seek to serve this state. Scott Matheson survived a Republican sweep of most other major state offices, In the race to replace Mr. Romney as and from the careful job of picking and attorney general, the defeat of Gilbert choosing Utahns did among the proposAthay at the hands of Robert Hansen als on the ballot. should signal future candidates to avoid At the ,same time, Utahns demonsupport of those who have become strated their conservative leanings but closely associated with pornography in without going so far as to embrace the Utah. candidates on most strongly right-win-g As for the proposals on the ballot, the the ballot. heavy vote against the budgetary ceiling could have rubbed off on the other Moreover, though Mr. Matheson's of to influence the a is initiatives, with a recall plan failing and testimony victory one Gov. there Calvin limiting fluoridation barely getting Rampton,, departing clearly are sharp limits to the extent of through. Mr. Rampton's influence. That point Despite the solid vote against the seems plain enough from the defeat of ceiling, its defeat is certainly no budget three-terU.S. Senator Frank Moss for Utah to go on a spending mandate despite repeated endorsements by Mr. Ones of the arguments for voting Rampton. against the ceiling was that Utah has one to Hatch of election .,Orrin With the of the lowest records of tax increases in mcr,s, senate seat and of Dan Marriott to the country. Let's kocp it that way. the Second District Congressional seat, ' In their losing effort, recall': !unporterUtah acquires one of the more conservas-still in demonstrated they have enoues Washington. tive delegations to warrant trying again. The strength to the Among the other exceptions Legislature should do the job itself, only , Republican sweep Tuesday is First, with a proposal requiring at least 25 of District Rep. Ganz McKay, whose the electorate to trigger a recall election victory over Joe Ferguson is a testimony, instead of just 10010 and making the not just to McKay's personal popularity change by constitutional amendment but to his ability to work with the other instead of by statute. Members of Utah's delegation and with As for the fluoridation initiative, its conservative elements within the state. In a campaign that involved some victory is mire of a triumph for forces than the vote extiemely unfortunate personal attacks Atty. indicate. Gen. Mr. of Many voters indicated figures Rampton, on the part confused were about the proposito become bid his lost they Vernon Romne) a vote in its favor in which should teach race that a tion, required after governor lessons: two indicate to to fluoridaat least order Opposition future contenders alone seldom is tion. Moreover, the proposition. was so worde-,office. that it ev,ild still face a enough to win the btate's top whether or not to conduct court determine test as can't Moreover, one simply be to thwart used could for the a proposal campaign indifferently directed a as water of and chlorination health general for attorney ,,,worrnr as measure. success. stif expect n r I 4 .i '''', d,,,, il4 it- - , , .. AolrikINt. .,,, f ql .,,- - ' ,. ' i,-,- 4 ; LVetill..31:41.i',,,,..: ---- 1 6 - Name-recognitio- FmtUn 1 411 , Lessons for the future from Utahis election see. iti wqrfo in - . . , ( i -- - -- 1 hi, m . ,;..,.t- ' - 1 - , ' - ,'. ,. 1, . - long-expect- 41 , A. ( .,7J.'"'''''-'- ,,,,-- . 1.. 11., e-- I -- ' dvid Second, with a mandate as narrow and as subject to erosion as his is, the Carter administration should go ex- -, tremely slow in instituting anything that can be interpreted as sharp changes In the direCtion of government programs.' America is still best governed the same With his victory, Jimmy Carter has way elections are norMally, won By shOwn hitnself to be one of this century's. brOad of the tolhe . segment appealing most remarkable political figures:' As public in the m4die of , the ralitical little as It year ago feW Americans had to than extremes. the spectrunVrather ever heard of him. His victory in the his appearance ,Third, despite presidential sweepstakes is a triumph of three televised debates and even though personality, perseverance, and intellighis staff issued dozens of position ence. For all our sakes, let's hope he Americans still as well during the next four years wears perceive papers, many Jinuny Carter as a man without a as he has during the past 12 months, - I - 't t , l'i i, 17 , ' t al Ilitiii1il III J ...t4,, ' '' !.' 'T,o;,. ,,...4, 1, f, '7'''''''' I . : ,. 1101 ,,',..:, - i;,. ..C3F77 .'' 4'' iil , - I - ' k$iiii !', '''.'I."A , 'gJ;$, '.40,'N', , il- Fourth, if Mr. Carter is to make good on his promises to balance the budget, formulate an energy policy; and reduce an overgrown federal bureaucracy, he will have to work through a Democratic Congress that is responsible for creating some of the very problems he proposes to attack. Americans could soon discover that g:e7cree,ort Is nnt necessarily an aberration to be avoided at all costs, and that unless Congress is clanged, little else will change either.- ct oleapite a high rate of unemployment and the lull in the economic recovery, there clearly is really not much dissatisfaction among Americans'. Not when an election is as close as was. Tuesday night's s. Americans were looking for someone from outside Washington to help restore faith in government. But faith can feed on promises of integrity and preachments of love only so long. And Mr. Carter has loot same of the look of an outsider by aligning himself with such old Democratic, politicians as Chieago Mayor Richard Daley. The real Jimmy Carter has got to start standing up now. The Oval Office is no place for anyone without real convictions - . s.., iz,;. ;..,,J,Az,-,7'4,',-..,,t- ,47,,, ,s, ,,,,,,,,,,,,y,.,H, :1111 tie" freln the trtqet that 1074 wasn't an' "issue" year; raiher, it was a time when better-know- ' II, :' ' I ft,- To some extent this continuing lack of specifies represents on attempt to please as many voters as possible, no matter bow diverse they are. To an exte.t this situation also reflects Carter's convic- - hard-workin- . - ,.4, is:,,,t.. . !, t detailed blueprint for his administration. That image helps explain the large segment of supposedly undecided voters so late in the campaign. m , it q, e, 1;)1 Art , , ' 11 fi - 5 ii , - -- - , r,. , we stand for the Constitution of the United States with its three departments of each government, fully independent in its own field., Jimmy Carter has done for Southerners what John F. Kennedy did for Roman Catholics. That is, by his efforts the former Georgia governor has OrPnPti nen precidential politics to 50 million Southerners whom custc:n and prejudice have long excluded from the White For the first time in this century, a man from the Deep Soto haz wen tkis nation's l'nighest office, ousting a sitting President in the process. In one of the closest and most tense presidential races of modern times, Mr. Carter demonstrated that even a governor with determination and a g staff can seize control of a national party from n politicians and win the right to occupy the White House for the next four years. If there is a lesson in this experience for other candidates, it's that there is no 'substitute for starting as early as the day after election and not letting up if the natural head start of one's competitors is to be overcome. At the same time, Mr. Carter has brought at least a temporary end to divided government, with Congress in control of one party and the White House in the hands of the other a condition that has existed ter 14 of the past 24 years. But in the understandable euphoria over his victory, President-eleCarter needs to keep certain points firmly in ;44, z,.. ...., s , '2 tA ri.11VrtILIC"- El ''''''''' ' 11 Floyd put up $3 million of his own money, most lee it for television commercials. "The trouble was saturated the state with the commercials atict everyone mought I was running tor senator. I got tate, million votes for senator and only 30 for the schönt board. Mother is very angry with me because I usect up the entire family's trust fund and she had to AIN FR 4 down today to apply for food stamps." , : Carlton Schmidlapp was the final loser I talked to. Schmidlapp feels he lost the election because.h agreed to 'debate his opponent. He told me, "I gu guess y'y'y'you sh sh should never de de de de de b4( your opp on on on onent if y'y'y'you have a st st st st4 st stutter." r, ? 4 DOUG SIIEYD otW .c.JA Marriage WW1. Counselor - Alt rib..41 ' (ti ving ..) k ;:f' 4 : "--- 4 ,, ' dP N 4:'AI - 1r ') 4 :,....; :., 5 " ,. p I '0 ; 0:0):' 4; -- ' c ,, .,t,.. ., 41- We ,Mt,J1J e . --- - P.;:';'' ';' - ' c't13 : - 't.;:'-,..- 4 . 0 t, 0 0 01) ! In. V 4 4 I. 0,te. - -- .'.!114411111LIVI 11.0t:,44;P-,1, iv .r Z!,. ('.),...,'-.- . : p 1 - - ,,, ,- . Y. 7" i , ---,.-. - i settled the question or - , tf visitatiorfi, t - :,,,,,,:,,,,. in's tomb on' it it on Sundays." I I 1 ; I I 1191 4 t 0,1 ;.' A Z I I |