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Show Janie Rcvtnn Salt akf eribtinr olhf Friday Morning, December U.S. -- Soviet Relations Worsen New York Times Service WASHINGTON The relations between the United States and the Soviet Union are getting worse by the day, not only over the control of 14, 1979 strategic weapons and the emplacement of new U.S. missiles in Western Europe but also over the human desperate in Cambodia. More Bad Marks Piling Up Against Tax Relief Law Utah's 1979 tax refund popularly referred to as rebate program is in big trouble. Having passed a court test, it is nonetheless getting an F in actual tax relief. State officials acknowledge the amount being refunded is falling well below the programs estimated $50 million cost. County treasurers concede many homeowners and renters are, through confusion, losing their refund entitlement. A better tax help method is needed. What looked like a dandy idea to Utah legislators has turned into a complicated misfit for administrators and taxpayers. To obtain a state refund from state governments surplus, homeowners and renters must file a claim based on their local property tax or rental status. First, homeowners must receive a tax notice from the county treasurer and renters need to obtain appropriate documents from the proper outlet. None of this, however, is as easy as it sounds. For instance, Salt Lake County Treasurer Art Monson confirms his office has received 25,000 tax and refund notices returned because of inadequate or wrong addresses. Utah County Treasurer Stanley Walker says hes having the same trouble, except he hasnt enough postage money left to send notices out again if the correct addresses could be found. Since the deadline for filing a refund claim is Dec. 31, current developments could mean many covered by the refund law could miss out. Complications arise because the legislators, trying to calm home-owne- rs property taxes had been raised, principally in Salt Lake County, devised relief mixing state and local money, state and county whose Defending the projurisdictions. in gram court, lawyers conceded it is of not a rebate, but a refund on local based state surpluses property tax levies. Its neither one, no help at all, for those who lose the deserved benefit as administrative snafus exclude them. Mr. Monson cited one of the programs most ironic deficiencies those vvno when he observed: understand it (the refund program) are those who dont need it, and those who really need the relief dont understand it. That isnt the sort of tax reform Utah residents were looking for last winter. When legislators convene next January, they should be ready with a substitute which both makes sense and promptly delivers a tax break to all those due ... one. Seasons Greetings When the ballots are marked next November will those 2.1 million federal employees remember the nice, $71.42 gift the boss gave them tins Yuletide? President Jimmy Carter, formally announced candidate for reelection, is gambling they will. And he is doing so with taxpayer money, some $150 million worth of it. Mr. Carter has granted federal employees, at least 2.1 million of them, an added holiday this year the Monday before Christmas. And it is estimated the chief executives generosity will total some $150 million in salaries and other costs. Pragmatically, Mr. Carter is probably recognizing that the day before Christmas in most offices, public and private, is when not a creature (is) Orltiling Paragraphs The only difference between a Moon rock anti an Earth rock is about 225.IXIO miles Defense officials say our false missile alert was "not caused by human error." Is that another way of saying weve lost control' The United States has become the Rodney Dangerfield of nations. Who are these mysterious folk who go about ami wh pressuring men to run for office don't they mind their ow n business'' Nothing is inevitable until we say it is The poH is a regular guy, but you'll never see Inm doing the polka. are fond of pointing out the cat is not mentioned in the Bible even once. They conveniently forget the cat was not Invented until 420 A D. Dog-lover- Ku 11 pro-Sovi- 120 We cannot determine, say the intelligence reports, what portion of the weapons which has entered Vietnam since March is earmarked for Cambodia and what has gone to shore up the Vietnamese border defenses against China. We suspect that most have been moved north or placed into reserve against the possibility of another Chinese attack. In contrast to Ethiopia and Algeria, where Soviet advisers planned campaigns and engaged in combat, we have no direct evidence that the USSR. is maintaining military advisers with Vietnamese forces fighting in Cambodia. The Russians are more likely to be with the troops as observers than as advisers. A group of 200 Russians is stationed in Ho Chi Minh City, and half of it is flown daily aboard a Vietnamese civil transport to Ihnom Penh, Siem Reap and Battambang, with the other half returning to Vietnam. Reports of Chemical Warfare There have been verified reports, according to this report to the president, that chemical warfare is being used against both Pol Pot forces and Kampuchean civilians. Some of these reports indicate the use of gas, but others are similar to reports of the use of chemical agents against the Hmong in Laos. Naturally, the intelligence services of the U S. government are more interested in the wider movements of Soviet power in this region of the Pacific. It is noted here that the Soviets have taken a number of highly visible military actions in the area. These serve several purposes: conveying a signal to the Chinese: providing general support of Vietnam and its actions; and furthering broad Soviet aims in Asia. For example, the U.S. intelligence reports note the following: The movement of Kiev-clas- s aircraft carrier (the Minsk) and several new guided-missil- e cruisers to the Pacific as a visible display of increasing Soviet naval power. Soviet-supplie- d Improve Soviet Ability Newly gained access to ports and airfields in Vietnam, which improve Soviet ability to conduct distant naval operations, including reconnaissance of Chinese, American. Australian and New Zealand forces and long-rang- e activ ilies. Modernization of the Soviet Navy in the Pacific, now regarded in Washington as essentially on a par with the U.S. Northern Fleet in that area, and extended areas of oHTation by ships, submarines and aircraft all of which are being watched in Washington stirring, at least not very rapidly. For that matter, frequently it is a day of festivity; sometimes boisterous, sometimes genteelly muted. So. for all practical purposes, particularly considering that this year is one when Christmas falls on Tuesday, Mr. Carter has seemingly concluded that on the intervening Monday not a whole lot of paper shuffling, report writing and other bureaucratic chores would be accomplished by those legions of federal workers chomping at the bit to get to their Christmas Eve festivities. Also, the distractions generally present on the day before Christmas would only be intensified by employee resentment of having to come back for one day. Many workers would get suddenly sick," just thinking about it. So, practical politician that he is, Mr. Carter quite probably decided to grant the additional holiday; a case of if you cant beat em. join em." And for a presidential candidate whose prospects, as illustrated in the polls, arent the brightest, the chance of picking up a few hundred thousand (maybe more) votes from federal workers properly grateful for another paid holiday was not to be overlooked. So, seasons greetings trmn the White House to 2.1 million federal workers seem to be Best Wishes for a prolonged holiday season. See you at the polls in November." That is what the the political Sami Catlu scientists call the advantage of the incumbency. as part of the growth of Moscows global reach and competition with the United States in the Pacific. But despite these strategic and tactical moves by the Soviets, which concern the Pentagon, it is the inhumanity of Moscows response to the tragedy of the Cambodian people that has troubled Carter more than anything else. He takes the maneuvers of power and even Moscows cunning position for granted manipulation of the crisis in Iran. But Cambodia, while part of the struggle between Moscow and Peking, is such an unnecessary human tradegy that Carter simply cannot understand what Moscow is doing. He is reported to have said the other night' "Is there no pity'1" Copyright Jamn V) i icjiliurl Political Talks Ignore Reality New York Daily News Not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt sought a third term in 1940 on the pledge that he would never send American boys to fight in foreign WASHINGTON wars has the political rhetoric in a presidential campaign been further removed from reality. It has been argued in Roosevelts defense that FDR kept that pledge in the strictest sense he didnt send American boys out to fight and die until after the United States was attacked by the Empire of Japan on Dec. 7, 1941, thus is was an American war we were involved in. Now, 40 years later, we have 13 candidates from the two major parties seeking the ten Republicans and three presidency Democrats and while there is a fair degree of difference among some of them on how to address the nations problems, they are all thus far bunched on one end of the political spectrum from the center to the right Talk of Restraint As far as federal spending is concerned, all of the candidates talk about the need for restraint and speak wistfully about a balanced budget. The Republicans, save for Sen. John B. Anderson of Illinois and Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee, generally call for sharp cutbacks in domestic programs. Among the Democrats. Gov. Jerry Brown of California is pushing for a Constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. President Carter puts a high priority on balancing the budget soon, and Sen. Ted Kennedy, while identifying with the goal of a balanced budget, would not favor severe cutbacks in domestic programs to achieve that goal. None of the candidates is calling for defense cutbacks or even for holding the line on the defense budget. All favor real increases, over and above the current 13 percent inflation rate; the only question seems to be how much over. The difficulty with this rightward shift is that the principal domestic problems facing the United States in 1980 and perhaps for the entire serious inflation, decade of the Eighties chronic high level unemployment and growing would seem to require shortfalls in energy more, not less, government control and interaction Take double-digi- t inflation, which has been with us more than a year now with the end not in sight. Does anybody really believe that inflation can lie brought under control without mandatory government intervention into wages and prices, perhaps e on full scale controls The Conference Board and its Economic Forum, hardly a left wing outfit, estimated last weekend that the consumer price index would rise by 10.5 percent next yeur ' and predicted that mandatory wage and price controls would need to be imjMi.sed Another Example The Continuing energy crisis is another example Carter and Congress have already created a liepurt merit of Energy, u new liiireuiK racy of I7.0HO persons, and legislation is pending for a government financed multi billion dollar synthetic fuel industry, which by the end of the next decade, will be furnishing less than 10 percent of our oil needs. Clearly drastic conservation will lie needed long Indore then and this means, among other things, gasoline rationing It is said by some of the neoconservatives of today that the problems of the 19K0s are not treatable by the old ldieral nostrums of the I'luis. But their remedy is to slip back to the old economic religion of the 1920s balances! federal budgets, high interest rates, tight money and government. That turned out to tie a recipe for the Great Depression of the 19:10s, and there is no reason to believe that the economic stew it will later will be any lietter produce a (Copy right y i BArr If We Only Knew the Complexities of Supreme Court Decisions Times Serv ice and Scott Armstrong have liecjM'd under the black rolie of the Supreme "ourt. and a dismaying sight it is us they tell It n "The Brethren." I have always the chief justice ailing his colleagues to irder with some somber iliruse like, Arma cano, Troiue qui or irimus ab oris, Exeunt omnes." To ihich one of the disscn-er- s might reply. "The New Yoi k Bolt tragedy The latest U.S. intelligence report to President Carter on the Soviet Unions role in Southeast Asia indicates that Moscow is not merely refusing to relieve the suffering of the Cambodian people but is actually blocking the distribution of food and medicine from other countries. This intelligence report notes that large amounts of desperately needed supplies are reaching Cambodia but they are being diverted from the people who need them most and into the hands of Vietnamese and the Heng Samrin military. The report adds that taxes and tariffs are being collected on foreign relief supplies, and charges that in some regions the Vietnamese and Heng Samrin authorities have actually prevented the harvesting of grain. Carter is reported to be outraged by this intelligence and as a result authorized the unusual step of denouncing these activities in a formal White House statement, which, incidentally, was largely ignored by most U.S. newspapers. Asks Full Cooperation "To counter this mounting tragedy, the White House statement said, we call upon responsible leaders in both Hanoi and Moscow to recognize and act upon the compelling humanitarian requirements of the Cambodian people, which they thus far have not done. We call on them to cooperate fully with the international community in opening all routes for supplies to enter Cambodia, which they thus far have not done. We call on them to take the steps necessary to speed the distribution of humanitarian aid to starving people throughout all parts of that country, which they thus far have not done. We call on them not to feed the flames of war, but use aircraft and airfields to ferry food to feed the people of Kampuchea. The intelligence reports to Carter do not claim that the Soviet Union is intervening with its own troops in the Vietnam invasion of Cambodia. But they make some important points about Moscows intentions in that part of the world, including the following: The key Soviet role is in the supply and air delivery of food, fuel and ammunition to those forces which are fighting against the Pol Pot guerrilla troops. The pace of Soviet shipping to Vietnam since the Chinese invasion in March has been intense: Between then and the end of 200 Soviet general-cargknown arms carriers and about 70 ships, lankers have been in Vietnamese ports. The United States has little or no evidence about the types of equipment currently being used in the Kampuchea campaign, but at the outset of the operation it was clear that most of the weaponry being used was captured U.S. materiel aircraft, trucks and guns, drawn from depots in the south of Vietnam. November, Over Woodward d vir-imq- ountervailing prece-ten- t of Shorter v. U.S 'hicken defies ornri," or words cer- to that el feet Thereafter, I thought, dcli.dc most reach plateaus of a wisdom to rinzlc the Harvard (acuity "As Chief Justice Marshall wrote for the minority in Dred Scott v. Consolidated Iisioii "Begging to disagree with my recondite brother, I hold the Frankfurter opinion in Whimsy v. Persiflage to be absolutely on the hntioax corpus in the absence of any evidence that duces tecum was beyond the purview ol due process in seeking redress of petition Not Like That at All Well, it's not like that at all. according to Woodward ami Armstrong All it is is nine elderly gents acting pretty much the way any other nine aging men might act if they had to agree on five or six decisions a week Suppose, for instance, that Justice Brennan msts a note on the bulletin board .suggesting that the whole court go to the Washington Redskins game on Sunday. Justice White sees the proposal and, being a former football star, telephones Justice Blackmon he may say, "I think we ought to m "Harry along with Brennan oil tills Redskins decision Why don't you try to gel Burger to line up Powell and Stevens so we i .111 get a maimitv lor going to tlie game " x lustn c Blackmon . yoursell another stooge, Whlzer Where were you last October when needed your vote to get us a trip to the World Series?" White1 Youre against Brennan and me on the Redskins proposal Blackmon "And what's more I'm taking Powell and Stevens with me " 1 "Ill yeah" "Oh yeali' " "That's what you think, buddy At the Water Cooler Justice White asks justice Stevens to meet him at the watercooler He knows Stevens is a hockey nut "Ted," lie savs, "it yon vote with Brennan and me on the Redskins mutter. I'll ll.X you up with good seats fill the Stailh v Clip lllials " Meanwhile. Justice Brennan lias been li.iv mg eolfee with the I afetel la Rehnquist ll Is heavy going Justice Relmqiilst likes the Redskins but tie likes policemen even more He is alraid the police will he otlendcd if they have k lo evil. i men to vvnik the stadium on a Ju-dK- 111 Sunday lo provide added security for the Supreme Court "1 understand how you feel, Bill," says Justice Brennan. "Its a matter of principle Ud me buy you a piece of blueberry pie " "Ill buy. say s Justice Rehnquist "Dont Ih silly," says Justice Brennan "What's a piece uf pie between two friends Which reminds me, I thought your dissent on the proposal for the court to attend the basketball championship playofts was the finest legal prose I've read since Justice Holmes was making the language sing Brennan. While. Stevens and Relmqiilst now lorm a tootball blue, but they still need a fifth tustice lo get to the game. They consult then-ladel ks about the possibility of gelling Justice Marshall on their side. Their law clerks know ill Whats mole, half of them tell all to any newspaper reporters who laithers to ask What limit Ihe Chief? 5 on most he kidding. Marshall savs one ol Die liesi miormed law clerks "Marshall's so lav lie Won't even gal off the couch on Slllldav afternoon lo turn on the Redskins on tils TV " "Maybe we can get the Chief." says Brennan. "Better sound him out delicately," says a law clerk. "If he gets the idea you need Ins vole, he'll insist that you let him write the mainrity opinion " Groans arise from the entire company at this literary prospect, since it is widely rumored that Chief Justice Burger doesnt know a tight end from a writ of mandamus, not to mention the buck lateral. Delieately, Brennan approaches the Clnel "llowre you planning to vote on this Redskins thing?" he asks. "I'll wait to see how the law clerks vote and then vote the other w ay," says the chief justice. Before the law clerks can vote, however, the i lock strikes 5 p m scattering all of them to coi kt. ids with Washingtons most affluent lawyer lobby s)s, whose firms they hoe to join next year There, most of them are able lo i .ulie lii kets to the Redskins game on Sunil. iv d opyrighl , |
