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Show C Il)c lMei Suit fake tribune Wednesday, February Section rji 16, 1983 A Page 14 Death Penalty Places Burden On Equal Justice Concept Although equal justice under law is a hallowed concept and lofty goal, there are notable exceptions that puncture hope of it ever being attained. There is, for example, the erratic manner in which the death penalty is decreed. The highly similar cases of Elroy Tillman and Kenneth Earl Nelson, both Utah murderers, provide timely confirmation of this point. Tillman, who stood trial last month, was found guilty of a particularly bloody ax and fire murder, and given the death penalty. Obviously the state had a good case against him. The police did their job well. Nelson, in a plea bargain, admitted guilt to an equally disgusting killing and was sentenced to life in prison. The deal was cut, according to Salt Lake County Deputy Attorney Bob Stott, because the states evidence against the suspect, contrary to our expectations, was weak. Whether the police or others botched the investigation was not established but that is certainly implied. The upshot is that the death penalty is upon one man, not because he is any more guilty but because he was unfortunate enough to be confronted by better case building. It could even be argued that Tillman, under sentence of death, may be less guilty because, unlike Nelson, he mainatins his innocence whereas Nelson confessed his guilt. Either way, both are guilty of the same kind of terrible crime but one may die while the other will live and go free at the discretion of the Board of Pardons sometime in the future. It is this reality that justifies enclosing the word life in quotation marks when referring to life sentences. Aside from the apparent dispariin ty thoroughness of case prepara- Justice would be more nearly equal if there was no death penalty and life was the maximum sentence in capital crimes. If that situation prevailed today, both of these killers would be serving the same sentence and the Board of Pardons could have years to weigh the differences that may justify letting one off easier than the other. Protection Agency: The administrator is facing contempt of Congress charges for al- legedly withholding documents subpoenaed by a U.S. House subcommittee. The . i! 1 assistant administrator su- pervising the Superfund, intended for cleaning up abandoned toxic waste dumps, has been fired by President Reagan. And a special assistant in the agency has triggered a half dozen Congressional investigations with his allegations that the EPA has been mismanaging toxic waste programs. Those allegations, in turn, led to his filing of charges with the Labor Department that EPA officials were harassing him and trying to discredit him. er, Kaufman still alleges that EPA took part in a criminal conspiracy to deprive me of my civil rights and claims he has the documents to prove it. comes on the heels of the presidential dismissal last week of Rita M. Lavelle, the assistant administrator, following allegations that she lied in testimony before a Congessional subcommittee investigating Kaufmans charges about mismanagement of the Superfund. Intertwined in this episode are reports that paper shredders had been hauled into Ms. Lavelles office to dispose of documents involved in the troubles Anne M. Gorsuch, the administrator, finds herself in with Congress. Ms. Lavelle denied any involvement in paper shredding and, later, agency spokesmen explained the mutilated papers were duplicates of the documents involved in Mrs. Gorsuchs problems. All this David K. Shipler Truth About Poor And tion, there are undoubtedly more subtle legal differences which tend to support the contradictory outcomes of the Tillman and Nelson proceedings. These are to be expected but an accused persons life should not be hostage to such variables. Slightly Untidy It is becoming increasingly difficult to surpress a sense of unease and instability about the Environmental Carl T. Rowan Sharon Quotient Still Mr. Reagan Field Newspaper Syndicate The approach of an election produces some amazing rebirths of politicians. If ruWASHINGTON - mors prove true, were going to see an amazing metamorphosis of utterly Ronald Reagan. The word is out that he is joining House Speaker Tip ONeill in a scheme to spend $4 billion to $5 billion on programs to produce Mr. Rowan jobs and otherwise help Americans who are being devastated by this long recession. Remarkable! Reagan has claimed to be puzzled over where the pollsters find all those Americans who are so critical as to give this president the worst job performance rating ever recorded by the Gallup Poll - a mere 41 percent voicing approval. But it seems clear that as Reagan ponders whether to run for a second term, he is taking serious note of these polls which show that substantial majorities of Americans want to forego the tax cut scheduled for July, favor cutting military spending but not social programs, and want a jobs program, even if it increases the budget deficit. Reagan has indicated often in recent weeks that he is stung personally by charges j that he is the president of the rich who wages brutal warfare on the poor. This has provoked him and his aides to just plain lie, wittingly or unwittingly, about what Reagan has done to poor Americans - and for the affluent. Reagan says that he has not reduced help for the poor, that he has only reduced the rate of growth of such programs. The Interreligious Task Force on U.S. Food Policy asked Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to give it a factual report on just what Reagan did for or to poor people in his first two years as president. That report shows that: Spending on programs restricted to persons with low incomes fell from roughly $100 billion to less than $82 billion, a reduction of 28 percent. The food stamp program has been slashed by more than $2 billion a year, with almost a million recipients terminated and many others suffering a reduction in benefits. This countrys basic welfare program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), has been cut by $1.5 billion a year. Some 365,000 families have been slashed off welfare rolls and another 260,000 families have had benefits reduced. Rents are being raised for all 3 million e families who live in subsidized housing, and sharp reductions have been made in the number of housing units financed by the federal government. Child nutrition programs have been cut by $1.5 billion, or 30 percent. There are 3 million fewer children receiving lunches through the school lunch program, and more than a million of them are youngsters. Money cuts of 20 to 40 percent have been imposed upon these programs for the services, maternal and child health, -- Totally unrelated to the problems All is not well at the EPA. of Kaufman, Ms. Lavelle and Mrs. Monday the EPA and Labor D- Gorsuch are a couple of other investiepartment reached a negotiated gations involving EPA people. John agreement on charges brought by the P. Horton, the assistant administraspecial assistant, Hugh B. Kaufman. tor of administration, is being invesKaufman had alleged that EPA offifor habitually using an agencials had him and his wife followed tigated cy employee to conduct personal and had also given him an unfavor- business. This is obviously untrue able performance rating in his perHorton. Peter N. Bibko, the adsonnel record for using agency time says ministrator of the EPAs and telephones to criticize the agenregion, is being scrutinized on cys operations publicly. This, he charges of using public funds for perclaimed, was in retaliation for his sonal purposes. He has yet to make criticism of EPAs handling of the any public response to the $1.6 billion Superfund. allegations. The settlement includes a stipulaAt the moment it would seem that tion that the EPA has no disciplinary action pending against Kaufman, before the Environmental Protection that there will be a suitable discus- Agency can really get about the task sion of an assignment for him and of effectively cleaning up the nations that his performance record will be environmental messes it will have to revised. Kaufman, in turn, agreed to clean up its own administrative messes. There seems to be some reimburse the agency for the personhe will and of its use al telephones question whether the people currentEPA. all ly there can do it. Perhaps a new community health services, preventive grievances against drop health care .... broom and operator are in order. Not content with this win, howev Mid-Atlant- ic low-inco- low-inco- l poor-lega- Federal financial aid for low- - and moderate-incollege students has been cut by 25 percent. The record is clear beyond doubt Reagan has succeeded, deliberately, in not only reducing the growth of many social programs, but in lowering the level of federal spending in such areas as education, job training, employment services, welfare, food stamps and legal services for the poor. He wants to reduce legal services money to come 4 ju ff Hi pwr v' zilch! Frobably no statistic says more dramatically what this administration has done than one indicating "transfer of wealth, a phrase usually tossed about by rich people hitching about how much taxes they pay. This report for the Interreligious Task-Forc- e says that in two years Reagan has widened substantially the income gap between poor and rich Americans, with $17 billion taken away from the poorest 20 percent of Americans while an additional $56 billion was given to the richest 20 percent (Copyright) New York Times Service JERUSALEM Prime Minister Menachem Begin s willingness to retain Ariel Sharon in his Cabinet, even after insisting that he resign as defense minister, appears to have grown out of both political calculation and personal sentiments, officials here say. According to several people acquainted with Begins thinking, the prime minister was motivated by a desire to avoid defections from his government and a crisis in the governing coalition that would have resulted had Sharon been forced out of the Cabinet. In addition, despite reports that he was annoyed recently by aspects of Sharons behavior, Begin is said to have acted out of a combination of personal loyalty, awe of military men and admiration for Sharons tough determination in carrying out hard-lin- e policies. How the shift will affect policy making depends in some measure on what new role Sharon manages to carve out for himself within the complex political dynamics in the Cabinet. He has both strong opponents and strong supporters among the ministers, and is widely disliked in the army. Sharons departure from the powerful position of defense minister may have some bearing on the tactics and tone of Israeli actions in the international arena, officials say. But it seems unlikely to have substantial impact on policy, since the basic structure of Israels approach to major international issues, such as Lebanon and the West Bank, has been determined principally by Begins concepts, which remain completely intact. The most immediate effects are likely to be felt in the negotiations with Lebanon and the relationship with the United States. Primary responsibility for the Lebanon negotiations, which seek to create conditions under which Israel would be willing to withdraw its forces, is now expected to shift away from Sharon, to the Foreign Ministry, where a less dogmatic approach to solving some of the difficult problems is foreseen. This does not mean an abandonment of Israel's fundamental demands for a security zone in southern Lebanon and a modicum of normal relations with its northern neighbor. But within that framework, some officials believe both Begin and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir will be more willing than Sharon to seek compromise solutions. Sharon was adamant in his insistence behind a contingent of soldiers and intelligence men at three outposts in southern Lebanon to coordinate patrolling and monitoring with loli militia forces. The cal, la was unacceptable to both Lebanon and the United States, and other plans are now likely to be considered. that Israel leave pro-Israe- In addition, Sharon had badly embarrassed President Amin Gemayel of Lebanon by disclosing the existence of a working paper, supposedly agreed upon by both sides, even before the start of direct negotiations. Begin had ordered that it be kept secret. In recent weeks Sharon caused relations with the Lebanese Christian to worsen by threatening them with a withdrawal of Israeli protection if they did not persuade Gemayel to be more forthcoming In his public and private comments Sharon was also responsible for much recent friction with the Reagan administration. It remains to be seen how much influence he will be able to retain. Without the defense job, he immediately loses control over the army and, presumably, relinquishes his seat on the Ministerial Defense Committee, a five-ma- n group within the Cabinet that has special authority over security and military matters. He is no longer expected to be automatically d information privy to that is circulated only within a restricted circle. Pha-langis- highly-classifie- t Nevertheless, his strong personality, his passion for authority and his activist e approach to politics argue for a effort to hold onto significant power. Officials say Begin is likely to consult him on military matters. a high-profil- (copyright) William F. Buckley Letting Inflation Collect Tax Is Simply Unconstitutional Universal Press Syndicate Pete Domenici? Howard Baker? Gerald Ford? What diversity do these fine gentle- men have in common, as revealed during the past three days? Senator Domenici is the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and he expressed himself as pleased with certain proposals made by Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The idea is to tax more money in order to pay for the measures Congress has enacted. On Rosten-kowski- s list of things to do is to repeal the measure that beginning in 1985 would provide for indexation of the tax exemption, the tax threshold and the tax bracket. Senator Baker is quoted as agreeing with this proposal. And two days later, participating in a public policy seminar at the Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Mich., along with Jimmy Carter, Mr. Ford said that he also believes in repealing the indexation provision. Now concerning most questions it is true that there are two points of view that are defensible. It is very difficult to find a means of defending a rise in the rate of taxation by authority of inflation. In fact it is so difficult to find a defense of taxation by bracket creep that it hasn't ever been done. They don't talk about the desirability of bracket creep. They start at the other end and talk about how awful it is to have a huge deficit, and how important it is to raise money. That is called reasoning a posteriori, or from the particular to the general. It is the logical equivalent of reasoning that Tony Bonn is a public menace and therefore somebody ought to shoot him. If anyone has defended taxation, by bracket rreep, out of inflation, through a priori reasoning, kindly advise me and I will send the finder a $100 bill and the paralogist back to school. Here, dry bones, is how it works. 1) The Constitution of the United States authorizes Congress to tax. It is the duty of Congress to specify what that is to be. That duty is discharged with reference to a number of considerations: the need for money, the evaluation of capacity to pay; whatever. 2) Congress must defend existing lax codes, and can honestly do so only if those tax codes reflect conditions that obtain at the time the thinking was done. This principle is acknowledged in excise taxes that are set as a percentage. If Congress reasons that the bare cost of raising a child is $1,000 and therefore authorizes a $1,000 deduction per child, how is its reasoning at this point going to apply in a situation in which the cost of living has doubled (as it did between 1972 and 1980)? And of course the argument proceeds in the matter of rates of taxation. In 1972, the bachelor who earned $20,000 was in the 38 percent tax bracket and was required to pay a tax of $5,230. By 1980, that man, in order to enjoy the same purchase power, needed to earn $40,000, but now he found himself in the 50 percent bracket and having to pay a tax of $13,500. logically Who legislated that increase in lax0 Not Congress. What do you mean, not Congress! Article I, Section I of the Constitution says, "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States." And Section 8 reads, "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises. What Messrs Roslen-kowskDomenici, Baker, and Ford have approved of is a delegation of legislative power to inflation. Its easier that way than to raise taxes, but It's also unconstitutional (Copyright) i, |