Show 5bc Jsalt £akf Sribunr m Morning-Febru- THE GUtWABtT SEND SIX HtM-ftX- P BU-O- N to A BUNCH E66VEAK 1987 4 ary TQ KWT( ME T Wednesday IT TWT Page 10 Section A Opportune Time to Reform Regressive Income Taxes Utah legislators are prepping themselves to play hardball on the state budget Republican leaders have criticized Gov Norm Bangerter’s high tax increase promising to field a package of their own soon possibly this week Regardless of their rhetoric some of those leaders seem willing to strike a fairly reasonable stance Utahns cannot escape a significant tax increase this session Reductions in state and federal revenues coupled with increased demands for public d sereducation and other vices are too large to be handled through efficiency measures alone Even with the $206 million tax increase the governor recommends the state would be spending only as much next year as legislators originally authorized for the current fiscal year Nearly half of Gov Bangerter’s revenue increase relies on federal and state income tax reform the rest would be raised from higher sales and and other taxes He would not only take advantage of the windfall expected from lower federal income tax rates he would raise the maximum state rate from 775 percent to 10 percent of taxable income Even if Utah’s own tax system remained unchanged the state would reap between $50 and $100 million from the revised federal tax rates Additionally taxpayers would save approximately $150 million in 1987 and $190 million in 1988 But little would e be done to address Utah’s to a make situation and regresbudget sive state income tax system more fair his-torial- ly tax-resista- nt tax burden more fairly as well as d dollars for state raise services Putting off the adjustment for a year or two could kill the concept because by then taxpayers may be too attached to their smaller income tax bite to give it up Unfortunately because the governor’s proposal would push Utah income taxes closer to the nation’s peak and because it would take the biggest bite out of the state’s highest paid taxpayers it isn’t particularly popular much-neede- Legislative leaders state-funde- long-rang- Utah’s income tax structure which was set up in 1973 has not been adjusted for inflation Consequently of Utah taxpayers now pay the maximum tax rate even though many live at or below the federal povUtahns acerty level Upper-incom-e tax rates than the lower tually pay working poor With good reason Gov Bangerter believes the time is right while there’s still momentum for tax reform to distribute the state income two-thir- Knowlton House an — Franklin of the Executive Appropriations Committee for one — have proposed a number of alternatives for raising revenue including a flat-rat- e income tax and a larger sales tax increase than the governor proposes As long as those options were set high enough to keep state programs essentially intact there would be no g reason to reject them Pothough they face great litically obstacles over-ridin- Because it would hit hardest those people least able to pay a significantly higher sales tax should be the most difficult to sell Yet a flat tax rate of 56 percent or so — state budget officials say a 52 percent rate would be — could make inrevenue-neutral come taxes more progressive simple and fair Unfortunately its advocates would have to dispel the erroneous notion that a flat rate detracts from charitable contributions and home mortgages In fact the impact on such sacred cows would be negligible The state needs more revenue right away to relieve economic and growth pressures As long as legislators must change their tax laws anyway they should use the opportunity to spread the responsibility for those revenues more evenly among residents The precise amount they raise and which system they choose — a flat rate or Gov Bangerter’s three-rat- e proposal — aren’t as important at this point as the need to take decisive action this session Help Diminish Squabble The resignation of William J Casey as director of the Central Intelligence Agency has always been something of an inevitability since he was hospitalized for brain surgery last Dec 18 Besides the cancerous brain tumor the Casey had earlier suffered from prostate cancer a set of circumstances that made further governmental service almost impossible But while Mr Casey’s resignation was something of a sure bet the same couldn’t have been said of the selection of his successor It was a situation bound to produce speculation in a city like Washington where conjecture is as much an essential of life as are food and shelter The guessing about Mr Casey’s successor went in two directions it would be another of President Reagan’s political cronies or some veteran professional from the intelligence community Those of the latter camp have been proven winning speculators: Robert Gates 43 a veteran of the agency and its deputy director is the winner if that’s the right word However the change of command at the CIA has some 20-ye- ar day-and-nig- ht contrasts Casey it must be remembered was named to head the spy agency in 1981 after helping manage Mr Reagan’s campaign for the presidency Although he had World War II intelligence experience during service with the Office of Strategic Services his government service was Earlier mostly politically-oriente- d he had served as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and had held other posts during the Nixon and Ford administrations Mr Mr Gates’ appointment is by con- trast probably a timely and master- ful political stroke 14 places the CIA under the immediate supervision of a professional career officer at a time when fresh attention is being directed at the agency because of its involvement in the affair His apy operapointment takes the tion of the spy agency out of the hands of a political personage and thus works to defuse potential criticism about partisan manipulation of the Iran-Cont- ra day-to-da- CIA The CIA is still recovering from the series of shocks it experienced in the 1970s highlighted by the abuses of the Watergate period and the intelli- gence debacle preceding the Iranian revolution The apolitical nature of the Gates appointment which of necessity must also be viewed as something of a caretaker role can have some calming effect on the agitation already stirring and that is certain to increase as more is revealed about the CIA and the Iran-Contr- a affair The Tuition Monster Grows Uglier By Lawrence E Gladieux And William Hoffman Special to the Los Angeles Times “There is no free lunch someone has to pay the bill" said a Reagan administration official in defense of the latest proposal to aid reshape college-studeIndeed someone has to pay College costs must be shared by parents students and taxpayers The administration wants to shift most of the burden to students through borrowing Minimal grant support (between $200 and $2100) would be available for those with family incomes below $20000 with market-rat- e loans covering the rest for low-n- d moderate-incom- e students The administration hopes to cut more than $3 billion in student assistance the Education Department's contribution to deficit reduction College loans along with government and household debt have ballooned in the past decade Today’s students are borrowing to an extent unknown among previous generations There are risks for individuals and society if the prospect of heavy borrowing casteers students away from public-servic- e reers or deters others from entering higher education at all College enrollment among minority groups has been sliding as it is Loans are an inescapable element in meeting college costs but how far are we going to push debt financing of students? And which students will be saddled with the biggest debts? The administration’s answer to these ” concerns has surface appeal: loans designed to ease the burden for those less able to repay Monthly payments for borrowers with low earnings would be reduced and stretched out over more years This seems to make a lot more sense than the straitjacket of current federal “income-contingent- loans which must be repaid in equal installments within 10 years after graduation But the approach is untested likely to be much more complicated to implement than it appears at first glance Meanwhile the policy drift in student aid continues The federal commitment to educational access has been turned 180 degrees In 1965 the government undertook to remove barriers to higher education for the while needy through grants and work-stud- y helping the middle class with basically un- income-continge- nt La wrence E Gladieux is executive direc- tor of the Washington office of the College Board an association of schools and colleges that administers financial-aiservices William Hoffman is the board’s assistant for government relations d subsidized loans of convenience to meet cash-floproblems In recent years grant assistance (once 80 percent of available aid) has become more scarce (now less than 50 percent) and needy students increasingly have had to resort to large-scal- e borrowing famAt the same time middle-incom- e ilies are being squeezed out of the Guaranteed Student Loan program which was originally designed for them Now subsidized to keep private lenders in the program GSLs cost the government up to 50 cents on every dollar Soaring loan costs have gradually forced Congress to limit eligibility many students with family incomes of more than $30000 will lose their GSLs this year Instead of concentrating so heavily on loan subsidies what about more support for students working their way through college? Oddly the administration proposes to abolish federal work-studaid Some students already are working as much as they can w y but surely we should be broadening not constricting student options for combining part-tim- e employment with academics One way to strengthen the tie between work and college aid may be through national service Students would receive benefits in return for a commitment to serve the nation or a community either through the military or some other area of public need And shouldn’t family savings figure in the tuition equation? In the past the administration has proposed “education savings accounts” which would give tax breaks to parents who put money away for their children’s education But the recent movement in Washington seems to have pushed this idea aside States and institutions are advancing their own strategies including plans Parents could invest in a fund that would guarantee college-tuitiopayments for their children Duquesne University in Pittsburgh was the first school to announce such a program Michigan has led the way in developing a statewide plan The good news is that this “tuition futures" concept sends the right signal to the public: Plan ahead The bad news is that there is no certainty about the key assumption that earnings on the invested funds will Such plans will help only the be small proportion of families who have current resources to invest The drawback is clear: Parents who buy tuition futures will have predetermined their children's college choices and the state plans will likely restrict students’ mobility To equalize college opportunities we need national policies to address a national priority Don’t be surprised as 1988 draws near if presidential candidates float some of these proposals tax-refor- tuition-prepayme- nt n pt US Lacks Will to Match Japan in Classroom News America Syndicate kind of group discipline the Japanese impose is a function of a highly homogeneous cul- One of the most fascinating of life’s mys- ture teries is the rhythm of history or as the poet put it the manner in which “what goes around comes around” My example of the day concerns the masWar II Japan sive resurgence of and the fact that so many Americans have come to envy the Japanese way of managing or marketing or educating The simple and stunning truth is that many of those practices Americans admire in Japan were borrowed from the United States Japan is having great success and fun outdoing America with ideas it got from us No place is that fact made more poignant than in the present debate over the degree to which we in the United States should be emulating Japanese education The basic structure of the postwar Japanese education system owes much of its origin to our own Of course the application of those ideas is American pluralism requires approaches more consistent with our own heritage What we should strive for is not Japanese methods but Japanese results Those results can be achieved by means that would make sense to Americans post-Worl- d strictly Japanese If anything about the Japanese and education is to be admired in the United States it is not their system but their discipline and determination Their system while owing some of its structural origins to ours differs markedly in its approach to the individual child Most of what Japanese children learn is by rote All children learn the same things at the same grade level and in the same manner There is virtually no variation for the unique capacities and personalities of each child It is one hard drive from kindergarten to entrance exams and another to college entrance exams The college a youngster enters determines the rest of his high school life The pressure under which Japanese students live is unrelenting from kindergarten to college It is the kind of pressure some children cannot take Violence and behavior have become a problem serious enough to spawn a reform movement aimed at relieving some of the pressure Indeed one of the reasons we know more about how our system stacks up against theirs is the result of two independent studies conducted simultaneously Japanese educators asked to take a closer look at our system Our Department of Education asked if a group of distinguished Americans could look at their system The result of the American study is an excellent document “Japanese Education Today" published recently by the US Department of Education As others have done before this study makes it clear we could not emulate present Japanese educational practices even if we wanted to And we shouldn’t want to The anti-soci- Those have mainly to do with our own national will We have to decide as a nation from the president on down that education is crucial to our national destiny We cannot maintain our place in the world with a massive pool of illiteracy in our midst In Japan success in education is considered synonymous with success in life Because every Japanese child knows this the competition for educational distinction begins early And mothers in Japan who tend more often than American mothers to remain home work almost as hard on their children’s math as the children do One result of all this intense interest in education is that 90 percent of all Japanese high school students graduate ready for -level employment Only 78 percent of American high school students graduate but a considerably smaller number is ready for entry-leve- l employment entry- The appropriate lesson to take from Japan is this: Any nation can improve its education system It need imitate no other nation to achieve that It can be excellent in its own terms if first it has the collective will to excel A Friend to Someone in Need Is a Friend Indeed A girl who lives in the wealthy Chicago suburb of Wilmette has sent me a letter that shows that kids can sometimes have more sense than their elders "In one of our elementary schools" she writes “there is a boy who has AIDS "A lot of my friends their brothers and sisters and their parents are against his be- ing in school “There was a meeting for parents the other night and there were a lot of parents who want him out of the school "So far 23 parents have pulled their children out of school until this matter is settled "I know that AIDS is a terrible disease and that the boy might not have many years to live “The thing that's really bugging me is what all the parents and their families are putting the boy and his parents through “No one will let their child play with the boy and there are even some bad rumors about him going around "I know that these people are concerned But for heaven's sake why can't they try to make the boy's happy? le "How would they feel if their own children suddenly through a blood transfusion got AIDS agd then with all the trauma when they needed friends the most they all became afraid and wouldn't come near them? "I don't know how you feel about this but if you feel the same way I do you could write about this and tell those people what pain they are causing for the boy and his family" Unfortunately there isn't much that 1 could say to those parents that would change their thinking By now medical people have explained to them that they don't have to worry about their children catching AIDS from that unfortunate boy It’s not transmitted by being in the same classroom or the same schoo- 4 lyard Their children are not in any danger if they play with the boy Nor is there much point in telling them that what they’re doing is cruel and unfair If they don’t recognize that themselves your telling them or my telling them isn’t going to change their thinking So the best thing to do is let them indulge in their own fears If they want to pull their kids out of school they should be allowed to Remember the majority of the parents at that school aren’t becoming hysterical or irrational And what you can do is to learn something from it In your letter you questioned how someone's "friends" could desert them when they’re needed most The key to your question is the word "friends" It’s one of the most misused words in the language The people who take a walk when someone has problems aren’t friends Oh they might have given the impression that they were Dinner together? So good to see you again Golf next Sunday? Oh thanks for the anniversary gift it was beautiful Bu4 friend? A long time ago a very smart guy told me that if by the time you are getting gray you can count your real friends on the fingers of both hands you’re fortunate He may have been exaggerating One hand might do it So the people fleeing from that boy and his family aren’t friends At best they’re ac- quaintances and not worth bothering to know And their fear disgust or whatever emotions motivate them should tell you that someday they’ll suffer even more than that boy and his family Eventually they’ll have to face the same thing that boy and his family are facing Not necessarily AIDS But it will be something We’re all just passing through and eventually something jumps up and grabs us whether it’s disease accident or the vital parts just wearing out Some can handle it better than others Others start to collapse at the thought of the end I have a feeling that people who are that repelled or terrified by the presence of one sick child in their midst are going to spend their last moments kicking and screaming |