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Show PDMflQM Sun Advocate High 4b Tuesday, October 23, 1090 tax pitch Advocates of high taxes can always find someone to concoct figures they claim prove" that high taxes are better for the country than are lower taxes. A recent study released by the Congressional Budget Committee claims that cutting capital gains taxes, which President Bush says is a top priority, would not be a shot in the arm for the economy. The study said lower capital gains taxes would create a tax incentive for corporations to retain earnings rather than pay dividends and would provide an impetus to tax shelters that does not exist under current law." Thus, the study said, It is uncertain whether cutting capital gains taxes would cause capital to be allocated more efficiently. For these reasons, cutting taxes on capital gains could not be counted on to significantly boost output and increase economic growth. Even if there is a silver lining, the study insists, it is inside a very dark cloud. "Moreover," it says, even if cutting capital gains raised the GNP somewhat, it is unlikely that the increase in income would generate enough additional tax revenue to pay for the revenue losses estimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation. The authors of the study conveniently are forget- that the capital gains tax cut and other tax cuts made during the first term of the Reagan administration were followed by the biggest, longest economic expansion in recent history plus a huge increase in federal revenues. Maybe they think that was just a coincidence. ting MIGHT I SUGGEST OUR CLASSIC PERSIAN GULF 89? MONSIEUR PREFER A SELECTION FROM OUR LIMITED DOMESTIC RESERVE? Moonlight toilers ... Anything under the sun Moonlighting mushroomed in the United States during the 1 980s. The number of workers with second jobs increased by half in the course of the decade, to 7.2 million, according to a survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. All told, 6.2 percent of job holders now draw at least two paychecks the highest rate in more than three decades. Wherefore this trend? Do Americans simply enjoy toiling longer? Does the work ethic hold more sway today than it did yesterday? Alas, such a spin on the data would be Pollyannaish. Rather, far more plausibly, the numbers point to the troubling underside of the economic expansion over the last several years. , ,M A good many jobs simply dont pay as well as the old jobs did. So despite this countrys vgfteer of prosperity, more and more workers have been finding it harder to make ends meet. Hence, they increasingly resort to second jobs. Women particularly seem to be feeling the pinch. The number of women with two jobs more than doubled during the 80s. Whats more, they are working longer than they used to. Back in 1 979, half the women moonlighters held two part-tim- e jobs. Nowonly athird do so;the rest workfuil time at least at one of their jobs. Not so long ago, quaintly, futurists were predicting that Americans would enjoy more and more leisure time. Today, the opposite seems true. Previously, an ounce of work may have yielded a gram of the good life; now for many Americans, that same ounce yields three-quarteof a gram. So the moonlighting trend is reason to fret about the fate of the country. It belies the idea that the standard of living will constantly improve for workers an idea central to the promise that is America. If citizens increasingly can make ends meet only by working both night and day, then the country is moving backward, not forward. The new data on moonlighting amount to an alarm that the country must heed. ... OR WOULD Weve got an attitude Parents of students in the Carbon than the rest. This is highly competitive County School District will soon receive a stuff. When kids hit junior high, they are report card giving them basic information about the district, as required by Utah ready, for independence. If Mom should show up at school, her teenager would law. As the school board and superinten- just die." Papers and homework become dent reviewed test scores which will be the sole property of the child, hidden away published in the report, they were once in bookbags and lockers. Because there are seven teachers again discouraged by the downward trend in the scores ofjunior high andhigh school instead ofpne or two, its hard for parents ' students. " tamake good personal contact often shake' heads and wonder their enough to understand what those teachThey why the little kids do so well and the older ers goals are. If they approach a teacher kids are falling down in scores. I blame for help with a student problem, the our culture. Educators keep trying, but teacher has so many students in a day its they are locked in a battle with prevailing difficult to focus on the one that needs attitudes of teens and their parents. attention. Occasionally, a secondary We are a society of parents who push school teacher regards parental contact our children to read by age three or four, as a challenge and becomes defensive to be able to count to 100 before they enter rather than helpful. Sometimes parents preschool and to begin simple science are combative. In either case, the child before they are in kindergarten. But when loses. The special relationship parents, they approach junior high, we back off. teacher and student enjoy in elementary In the elementary schools, parents are school erodes as the kids are asked to take busy volunteering as reading partners more responsibility for their own educaand spelling assistants. Members of the tion. Are the kids ready for the responsicommunity come in to assist with enrich- bility, or do they need more family ment programs, and learning becomes a involvement and structure in high school great adventure. and junior high? Mom meets little Johnny or Susie at I know as my children have become oldthe door to see what they have learned in er, I have been less involved with their school that day, poring over the papers to learning. Im not proud that the oldest make sure the kids are keeping up. Spe- - child had my full attention as a first gradrial projects take priority because parents er and now that she is in eighth grade, I want their little one to appear brighter hardly know her teachers names. , . rs -- Its regrettable that many ofus parents and demanded excellence who pushed from our ds expect much less as the kids get older. Frankly, the adventure of watching a child learn often gets lost in the drudgery of years of homework. I wonder, too, if some secondary teachers are more blase about teaching than the energetic teachers who lead little kids through their first expirations o fractions, division and big words. After, all, how many times a day can you teach the same lessons and still remain enthused? Do teachers also lose their enthusiasm in the drudgery? A little childs primary work is schooL In our society, a teen is expected to live in a social whirlwind, hold down a part-tim- e job, do home chores, be active in church reponsibilities and more. Our society, in general, does not place great emphasis on high scholastic achievement for teens. Its not High school is most important for what it contributes to social life. There are parents who insist on nothing less than the best, so their kids excel and come to the top. Too many others who are bright and have great potential sink to the bottom. I dont think the school district can change an attitude. Whatever action is taken to improve secondary education may help, but it will never eradicate one of the primary causes for lower academic performance in grades 7-1- . 2. TURN IN A PUSHER The Information gathered as a result of the folllowlng Is confidential and will not be divulged to anyone outside the CarbonEmery Drug Task Force. Action will be taken on every submission. Thank you for your cooperation. Name of suspected drug dealer: Nickname: Sex" Wl Age Description: Ht "Eves "55? DOB Hair Home Address: Business Motor Vehicle: Make Year. Color ' License Associates of Dealer Method of dealing:. Location of dealing Drug(s) being dealt: Amount: Price: Main purchasers: (I.E. school kids, truckers, etc.,) unfairly rapped for his refusal to go along with congressmen who want to raise the taxes of the wealthy. But by backing away from the proposed tax hike, he has shown himself to be both com- passionate and politically astute. Unlike Congress, Bush senses that soaking the rich would unleash a furious political backlash. We would turn on our TV sets and see hordes of angry ladies in mink coats leaping from their Lincolns and Cadillacs to picket the White List anv other suspected Illegal activities: Code name vou wish to be known by: NO May we contact you? YES If yes, then how: by mall When by phone If we may contact you by mall, what Is your address? House. not. then will you contact us again uslna the same code name, NO should you have further Information? YES If If Yes Call President Bush is being 637-847-7 Please take a few minutes and Invest 25 cents In a stamp. You can help In the fight against drugs. Take a stand and get Involved! The life you save may be your child's. Please mall to UPS Sun Advocate Box 870, Price, Utah 84501. The letters pages of newspapers would be filled with outbursts from readers saying things like: President Bush has betrayed every wealthy family in America. By raising our taxes, he has made sure that this will indeed be a cold and bleak Christmas for my immigrant cleaning lady, since I will now have to cut her from five to four days a week and omit her holiday bonus. Wake up, Americas rich! Do you want to scrub your own floor?" The timing for such a tax proposal could not be worse, as Bush surely recognized. This is the season whenmost country clubs hold their annual membership meetings. And in clubhouses across the nation, men would be jumping up and shouting: Tie upon the motion to repaint the ball washers blue. There are more urgent matters at hand. Isay that we, the members of the Ye Old Thinn Lipps Country Club, send a resolution to Bush condemning his treachery and revoking his standing as a WASP, a golfer and a member of our social class. The man is nothing more than a Bolshevik in Brooks Brothers clothing." . V I 4Ns -- And it isnt only the rich who would be against increasing the tax on the rich by three or four percent. Take Bill Bentback, who has swept floors and emptied wastebaskets in the same factory for 35 years. When asked about the proposed tax hike, he said: No, it would be a terrible thing to do. The spendable, income of the man who owns this factory would shrink to only $480,000 a year and when I go in to clean his office, he would become grouchy and not say hello to me. And without that, I dont think I could go on. I would much rather they find some way to increase my taxes. After all, Im already on the cutting edge of being poor and miserable, so I might as well go all the way. Instead of feeding scraps to my old hound dog, 111 get rid of the dog and eat the scraps myself." Bentback touched on a key economic truth that Bush apparently understands, as did Ronald Reagan, who cut the taxes of the wealthy while clipping the middle class, which didnt seem to mind, since they kept voting for him. And that economic truth is . that no matter what you do to the taxes' of those who are stretching to make ends meet, they will still be stretching to make ends meet. So as Dr. I.M. Kookie, the noted expert on a lot of stuff, has said: The ends will never meet, so they might as well keep stretching. Its good exercise." . On the other hand, by taxing the rich, you run the risk of making them not rich anymore. It was put most succinctly by the valet in a movie called A New Leaf." His rich employer squandered his fortune and he wondered what would become of him. The ed on Pago 6) |