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Show Ben Lomond Beacon, March 1 6, 1 978, Page 2 Conflict syrfeses on The Ben Lomond Beacon is published each Thursday. Deadlines for each weeks issue is Monday at 5 p.m. We welcome all articles from those who wish to contribute. Business office is 5388 So. 1900 W., Roy, Utah Phone 825-166- 6. J. Howard Stahle Mrs. Bonnie Stahle Sue Ellen Sims Publisher Advertising Manager Editor Carol Shaw Correspondent Garn concerned about defense I am gravely concerned over President Carters Fiscal Year 1979 defense budget in the face of undiminished Soviet growth in military capability and Moscows unrelenting determination for military preeminence in the world today. Unless we take immediate action to rectify the present strategic imbalance between our two countries we can expect the Soviets to gain military superiority. In 1960, both the U.S. and the USSR achieved TRIAD strategic force status: manned bombers, Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) and missile-firin- g submarines. The United States on November 15, 1960, sent our first nuclear ballistic missile-firinsubmarine, the George Washington, into sea on its first deterrent patrol. The Soviets went to station earlier that same vear with converted Z class attack submarines carrying two ballistic missiles. However, as a result of present and past administrations decisions, I am fearful that the course has been set, at best, for a triad system where all the elements may not be viable. For the record, let me detail my concerns: e low of slightly over Our Navy today is down to an 400 ships, compared to over 900 that we had in the late g 'stre WASHINGTON Conflict over the impact of the Salt Lake District Internal Revenue Service office surfaced today in hearings before the House Appropriations treasury and Postal Service subcommittee. IRS Commissioner Jerome Kurtz claimed cutting back manpower at the Utah office would save over $400,000 while Utah Congressman Gunn McKay asserted the move would inflate operation costs and ruin the most efficient IRS office in the United States. Invited to join the Appropriations subcommittee in the questioning, Rep. McKay repudiated IRS claims that small district offices like Salt Lake would function more efficiently by stripping out a middle management layer. In taxpayer service, Salt Lake achieved a productivity standard 40 disclosed McKay percent above the national average, quoting from a January IRS evaluation. That places the Salt Lake office number one in the nation. McKay said the IRS expects a cost savings from this reorganization of around $435,000. The Salt Lake City District last year collected almost a billion dollars in taxes. It services the highest population of taxpayers among the 12 districts being streamlined. If you reduce their capacity to efficiently raise revenue, wont you lose whatever savings, c- you made?" McKay asked. Commissioner Kurtz denied it would. McKay pursued the question, pointing out that last year the Audit Division recouped over $20 million in deficient $5 million above any of the other districts to be payments streamlined. Can you definitely tell me that the seven key positions being abolished in the Salt Lake Audit Division wont reduce the productivity of the division by even two percent? he asked. Commissioner Kurtz assured him again it wouldnt. streamlining 1960s. fleet averages 16 years in age with some as old years. President Carter cancelled the l bomber and promised to replace it with cruise missiles whose technological capabilities are unproven. The president ordered the only ICBM production line in the free world to be closed. Our air defenses of North America have been virtually Our B-5- 2 25 B-- abandoned. Our man power levels have been significantly reduced, as exemplified by the decrease in the Reserves over the last two years of approximately 100,000 men. e The development of the MX, an advanced ICBM, has been delayed, despite acknowledged Minuteman ICBM vulnerability to Soviet attack. U.S. strategic deterrence is at a crossroads and the time has come for us to put a halt to practicing unilateral arms restraint. The future is ours to shape and unless we reaccess our present policies and budgets on defense, our destiny may be a lapse into a second-rat- e world power. By Edwin Feulner full-scal- When U.S. farm interests set aside the first day of Spring a tew years ago fur the observance of Agriculture Day, little did they expect the kind of controversythat may greet the occasion this year. Unfortunately, its not a situation entirely of the farmers own making. It could very well be that government policy over the years has been so badly botched that farmers 332$ XZ Its showtime? Ay Carpet warehouse Ye specialize in truckload purchases to save you $$$$$! Largest selection of displayed roil end's in the Featuring: Full rolls Remnants Discontinued Patterns and 1 of a kind's. area. Shop our spacious warehouse showroom Where you save on every roll. Here's some examples: Guaranteed Outdoor Grass 5 Year m per yd. Nylon-Plus- h Cutpile Sculptured Multi Colored Carpet NOW $L95 CO) Reg. $11.95 DOOR CRASHER SPECIAL - RUG SIZE DISCOUNTED SAMPLES OUR CUSTOM 4 $109 I FOR DRAPE4 DEPARTMENT LOWEST PRICES 100 - SEE ANYWHERE McKay then pointed out to the panel that a two percent reduction in productivity in just one of the four groups in the Salt Lake office being cut would cancel the $435,000 cost savings. An aide to Commissioner Kurtz claimed that small offices were less efficient than large ones. McKay responded that he had IRS statistics showing otherwise. He referred to an IRS study showing the smallest IRS districts were 25 percent more efficient than the largest IRS districts in taxpayer service. Earlier in the hearing McKay criticized the IRS reorganization procedure of cutting offices whose ratio of case hours to management hours were low. He speculated that a director could increase the IRS efficiency ratio of his office by just hiring as many men as he wants and increase the time they spend on each case without regard to the output. McKay quizzed Kurtz about a 1963 proposal to economize by combining the Boise, Idaho and Helena, Montana offices with the Salt Lake office asking why it was never implemented. I dont know why it was never implemented, answered Kurtz. Following the hearing McKay promised he would present evidence to the Committee that the IRS move is economically unjustifiable. He said the committee would meet again within three weeks. He also said he suspected the IRS was hastening its reorganization plans to head off probable congressional action. Last week Rep. McKay introduced legislation that would halt the reorganization until a thorough congressional review showed it to be sound. Win or lose well do what we can to turn it around. are almost powerless to do anything to help themselves all-tim- as iming' uj turns 1914 No. Main, Layton 825-093- 1 Hours: Mon. thru Sat. 9 til & except, perhaps, scream. Look at the record. When America was still in its infancy, approximately 85 per cent of the population worked and lived on a farm. Today, about 4 per cent of our people farm the land. One American fanner feeds about 56 people, over three times as many as 20 years ago when there were twice as many farm workers. And in the last 10 years, agricultural production has climbed some 20 per cent, on 6 per cent fewer acres. Yet, despite his incredible efficiency (and maybe because of it) today's farmer feels seriously threatened. For example, two recent court decisions United States v. Tulare Lake Canal Company (1976) and United States v. Imperial Irrigation District (1977) could spell doom to many U.S. farms, if they are implemented. Because the decisions would limit the size of farms receiving water from federal irrigation or flood control projects to 160 acres, The most productive farms in the United States could be broken up into . . . units too small to utilize the technological advances which created the American farming miracle. says Heritage Foundation policy analyst Milt Copulos. Yet, Agriculture Secretary Bob Bergland says his department plans to carry out the court's questionable mandate, and has even produced a curious departmental study showing that snpller farms could be operated profitably. 'Of course', to you and me this has to mean higher prices, because someones got to pay for the loss of technological efficiency. Take too the Governments policy on pesticides. For reasons good and bad, pesticide has become a dirty word in many circles, and U.S.D.A. and E.P.A. "experts waste no effort to get the stuff off the market or to tie up pesticide registrations in so much red tape that its impossible to get an effective product on the market. Right now, for instance, E.P.A. is ten years behind in its job, according to news accounts. The result? Inevitably, a decline in food quality, and higher prices as the bugs take over which they did in some midwest com fields this year after the only pesticide known to be effective against black cutwonns was pulled off the market. Bergland's solution? He told one recent meeting that he thinks we ought to use people power" and exploit the available pool of unemployed workers to do the job now done by farm chemicals. In other words, have people pick the weeds and swat the bugs. Last year 30 governors proclaimed Ag. Day. and joined in the celebration. Its safe to say that even if President Carter joins in this year, it wont all be fun. There are too many serious problems; and a lot of people in high places seem to have the wrong answers. (Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation, a research organization.) Washington-based Let Us Be Worthy of Them advice from two President Carter is getting conflicting about human Curtain Iron the behind prominent dissidents rights. Dr. Jiri Hajek is a Czech diplomat and senior spokesman has called on the of the Charter 77 organization which Helsinki 1975 declaration the Prague government to observe in Charter 77 took leadership His on human rights. considerable courage for Czechoslovakia is not noted for its devotion to freedom ot speech. criticized President But now Dr. Hajek has publicly human rights toward attitude h over-tougCarter for an for the political hinder struggle greater will he said, which, latitude in Communist countries. Western pressure for quick reforms in the Societ bloc will not help the dissidents, Dr. Hajek told a Vienna newspaper. It is more important, he declared, to strengthen the whole has its place. process of detente in which human rights Andrei Dr. Sakharov, surely the At almost the same time. and Union Soviet the inside probably most famous dissident in the world, wrote The New York Times, protesting against certain deletions in his Appeal to the Parliament of All Countries published last fall. While thanking the Times for printing his Appeal on the eve of the opening of the Belgrade Conference on human were made rights, he pointed out that substantial changes his approval. in the text without His original Appeal praised President Carter for making the defense of human rights a fundamental moral policy of the U.S. and then added that it is necessary actively to support these principles. The New York Times version left out the latter sentence. As Dr. Sakharov put it: The call to action was replaced with a call for yet another declaration. I consider such a change in my text completely inadmissable, distorting its political sense. Furthermore, the Times left out the names of whose humane and lawful activities had been specific-individual- repressed. Dr. Sakharov made the crucial point that these repressions are not simply routine violations of the right of freedom of conscience, but a defiant act on the part of the a test of the resolve of the West to insist Soviet authorities the principles proclaimed at Helsinki. of on the fulfillment The Soviet scientiest referred to the difficult struggle for publicity by dissidents and the heavy sacrifices they demand. He mentioned a hunger strike of political prisoners throughout the USSR, not for themselves but for the principles which should be dear to all freedom-lovin- g peoples." i.et us. he declared, be worthy of them. In the face of this compelling appeal. Dr. Hajeks call for moderation in human rights seems inadequate, if not apologetic. Yet there are signs that the Carter administration's listening ,to .Hajek rather, than Sakharov- or. is at Jeasti so confused by the differing advice as to apply its human rights standards very unevenly. For example, the U.S. State Department has given visas to Australian-bor- n journalist" Wilfred Burchett, and the Peruvian revolutionary, Che" Hugo Blanco. Burchett made a propaganda tour of the U.S. although it has been established by testimony before the U.S. Congress and court hearings in Australia that he was (and probably is) a KGB operative. As for Blanco, he led a terrorist raid in Peru in 1962, resulting in the murder of three policemen. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison but was icieased in 1970 lluougli an amnesty. He immediately resumed his revolutionary activities. Phillip Abbott Luce, editor of The Pink Sheet, confronted Blanco at one of his university appearances, demanding: Jimmy Carters State Department recently blocked antiblack Rhodesians from entering the communist, United States to present their case. How can it justify doing that, while letting in someone like Blanco? No less lopsided was the State Departments allowing Soviet citizen Boris Ponomarev, a member of Stalins Comintern during his bloodiest days, to visit the U.S. but denying entry to the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Arc we so afiaid of offending the Peoples Republic of China, which has practiced genocide in Tibet for nearly 30 years, that we will not let that mountain country's religious leader visit our shores for a few- months? Sen. Henry Jackson is the g author of the Jackson-Vani- k amendment which prohibits any Most Favored Nation (MEN) trade treatment for the Soviet Union until it liberalizes its emigration policies. At the annual dinner of the Coalition For A Democratic Majority, Senator Jackson suggested how the President can resolve the apparent confusion in his administration about human rights: urge President Carter to make it clear to the bureaucracies in Moscow and in Washington that we are going to implement the Jackson amendment fully; there w ill be no MFN, there will be no How of credits until there is a flow of people. If they had been present. Im sure Andrei Sakharov and the other embattled dissidents in Moscow and other Communist capitals and labor camps would have roared non-viole- nt - plain-talkin- Statewide energy program notes 600 volunteers An Energy Conservation Volunteer Program involving more than 600 people statewide was announced today. Coordinated by the Utah State University Extension and the State Division of Aging, the program will have at least two volunteers in every community in the state. The idea behind the volunteer program is to have trusted and respected local citizens telling the energy conservation story. According to Reed Searle, Director of the Utah Energy Office. A motivated volunteer can do a lot more to hu.- the energy conservation effort in a community than we could ever do working out of the energy office. Movies and brochures can help, but the real stimulus to conserve comes e from relationships. Dr. William Farnsworth, Logan, Energy Coordinator of the USU Extension, will coordinate the program. Under his direction, every area coordinator and at least one extension agent in each county has been trained to help the local volunteers. The extension service has developed four video-tap- e presentations for the program and at least five more are in the planning stages. More than twenty energy brochures and pamphlets will be published by the extension service in the next few months and will be available to the volunteer along with the manv brochures from the U.S. Department of Energy. Several movies and slide presentations are also available. Most of the volunteers will be senior citizens because the Division of Aging wanted their people to be involved in a program like this. The aging network throughout the state will be very helpful in keeping the program staffed. To help each volunteer get started off on the right foot, a series of seventeen training workshops will be held throughout the state. (A schedule is attached). 1 their approval. ' l wi - one-on-on- s Thmk ui Thank you very much for the clippings of "Remember My Valley book from your Ben Lomond Beacon. It was nice. I should get a lot of sale because of your generous article. One friend in North Ogden gave a book in a club report meeting a month ago and sale came from that. I am glad you got to see my book. They are now selling for $20. I did not have the privilege of taking one of your classes in college. Thanking you again. La Verna B. New ey Huntsville |