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Show The Public Forum The Salt Lake Tribune, 10, 1986 Wednesday, September A9 Tribune Readers Opinions Opposes Head Tax like to say a few words to those propose a "head tax" on children to pay for their education No one has children so they can have a tax deduction. Children are too much work and worry. The deduction received is a pittance compared with the cost of raising a child, 2. Educating our population is good for all of us. (Try staffing your organization with a bunch of people who can't read, write, or understand mathematics.) If people only want to pay for programs they personally need, thats great with me. No one in our family gets welfare, food stamps, medicare, aid to dependent children, social security or student loans. We ll just pick up the tab for our children's schooling. Our taxes would go down. 3. Taxing churches also is a poor idea. Churches receive money from donations. People who give money already have paid taxes on it, so they would be taxed twice once on thier income and again on donations. 4 Deductions for children were given in support of the American family. As a nation we decided families are important. If no one were willing to raise children our nation would soon cease to exist. d I who 1 The size of ones family is a personal decision. Government has no business in it. It saddens me that some of Utah's population feels angry about helping to educate the upcoming generation. I feel it is a shortsighted view. P.J. BROWN West Jordan Inmates Perspective The editorial Too Successful ImAug. 27, was welcomed prisoning" as refreshing factual interpretation of overcrowding at the prison. As an inmate at Utah State Prison I can appreciate the difficulties confronted by prison authorities and the irony of their predicament, while at the same time I am in a better position to understand the problems created for inmates. Overcrowding has developed intolerable conditions at the prison. fed up with crime" Taxpayers must eventually come to understand that longer prison terms and retribution against offenders is not always the cheapest and most efficient method to solve the problems of crime. Indeed, longer terms without possibility of parole and community service are a contributing factor now being experienced in the increase of crime in Utah. When men are incarcerated for extended periods of time, and no benefit of rehabilitation and preparation for a return to society are provided, the result can be disastrous. Long-terincarceration does not only punish the offender, but the community as well. Men who lose their jobs, families, homes and future, then become a liability to society that extends far beyond the time they spend in prison. Families of these men become a welfare burden and taxpayers are compelled to spend Tuge amounts to house and care for the offenders. When the offender is finally released, he returns to a world without opportunity and where society shuns him. Society must accept the fact that the responsibility of repeat offenders rests not only with the offender, but with the community as well. It is a problem that will not cease with longer terms, bigger prisons and the warehousing of human beings. It will cease when all concerned work together to provide the proper funding, care and future planning necessary to protect the rights of all those concerned, offenders and society alike. KERRY ROSS BOREN President Utah Citizens for Inmate Rights Utah State Prison For Ilis Information I take exception to comments made by Norm Zober, president of National Medical Enterprises Speciality Hospital group, in the Business section of the Aug. 27 Tribune. Holy Cross Hospital, the University of Utah Health Sciences Center and McKay-De- e Hospital in Ogden, have provided outstanding rehabilitation services to this community and geographic area since long before it became popular to do so because of their exemption status. As an employee of eight years for two physicians specializing in rehabilitation medicine I have seen many patients who, after sustaining head and spinal-cor- d injuries, multiple trauma, or who suffered strokes or other disabling illnesses, received caring, expert, quality service from these facilities. Patients requiring rehabilitation services in our area have been anything but underserved as noted in the article. In fact, they have benefited from the dedicated service of physicians, therapists, nursing staff and other support personnel. SHARON SMITH a Forum Rules Public Forum letters must be submitted exclusively to The Tribune and bear writers full name, signature and address. Names must be printed on political letters but may be withheld for good reason on others. Writers are limited to one letter every 10 days. Preference will be given to short, typewritten (double spaced) letters permitting use of the writers true name. All letters are subject to condensation. Mail to the Public Forum, The Salt Lake Tribune, P.O. Box 867, Salt Lake City, Utah file, the two with the highest delegate votes should appear on the ballot. Or, perhaps, there should be an open primary just as in municipal elections. I wish to thank those w ho voted for me. although I would have represented all the people. I thank Dan Berman and his very capable staff associates, Tom Mitchell and Blake Atkin, for graciously volunteering to represent me in court. Judge Billings is to be thanked for having the courage and conviction to bring justice to the political process They all combined to prove that the law is greater than party power. The Salt Lake County Democratic delegate selection subcommittee was only following previous practice when it improperly selected delegates not living within their own voting districts. There was no malice intended The law is now clarified for both Democrat and Republican parties Sam Says Thanks The apathy of the voting public was again demonstrated in the recent primary election. The primary date should be changed to September. Primary races should be offered in as many categories as possible. There is Superfund Solution The Tribune's Aug 13 editorial expressed concern about the lack of progress in Congress to complete the reauthorization of the Superfund cleanup program. Financing the $8 5 billion program is the single remaining issue, but indications are that a speedy resolution of the impasse will not come easily as funding options narrow. General revenues are the most assured and equitable source of funds to clean up environmental problems generated by insolvent or unidentified polluters. The only appropriate alternative to general revenues is some form of broad-basetax. d Neither the original 1980 legislation, the administration's 1985 proposal, nor the House version create a fully accurate, fair and reliable method of taxing users (or dumpers) of hazardous wastes. The House version calls for a substantial increase in petroleum taxes, a course that will lead to further devastation of the al- Wagner tion on a head tax. It may or may not have one when the Legislature convenes in January. Nevertheless, after accounting for resentment the predictable, built-ir of taxes, the two essential sources of Mormon directive present doctrine and the current would seem to church president find favor with a head tax. The first principle of the church's a welfare program is concept requiring each individual to be as productive as possible within the family, and for "every man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, and thereby provide for himself, his wife and his family " Church leaders repeatedly warn against the dangers of "the dole," government programs that give to the idle earnings taken from the industrious. "That which one man receives without working for it, another man must work for without receiving it," proclaims one church manual No LDS Church president during his lifetime has been more wedded to this idea than Ezra Taft Benson No church president has written as many books warning of the dangers when r government takes an share of the public income generally to disburse specifically And though none of President Ben And there is nothing about the public school system. Parents, excepting those on government welfare, supply their children's every other need. Their education, however, it is now said by head-taopponents, should be wholly a public responsibilself-relia- n ever-highe- x ity "self-reliance- x e Instead, Utah's current tax structure requires less of those who place the largest burden on, and receive the most from, the school system. To the extent that children are ar income-ta- x exemption, the large family receives part of their schooling without working for it, while the small family works for that schooling without receiving it How does the Mormon legislator reconcile that? Rodd y Certainly, the public in general benefits by educating its next generation. But the families whose children are schooled gain not only the general benefits of living in an educated society, but the specific rewards of having their children among the educated There is nothing unethical in asking they pay for what will quite likely be but a fraction of that schooling, proportionate, as all taxes are, with their ability to pay. In the last analysis, if the LDS Church is to have a position on the head-taissue, its past teachings imply it would favor the proposal. Placing it in the same league with the church-opposelottery not only distorts the issues, but threatens to kill what could be a means of making the education system more responsible to its patrons and by Mormon crimore ethical. teria x d ever-large- d james r. McCarthy Taxation Director American Petroleum Institute meetneed to hold candidate-peopleings in auditoriums where the issues can be discussed before larger Asks Respite groups. Where available, voters self-servin- overwhelming "moral interest in op- sons speeches come to mind on the posing the system. Money is a con- exact point, conservatives generally cern to the church, but so are oilier are more likely to accept a tax (when considerations. a tax is needed) that is tied to those it It should first be pointed out the benefits gas taxes to fix highways, church currently has no official posi- - criminal fines to operate courts So. why not a head tax to finance educa-tion- . n ready terribly depressed petroleum industry. The tax reform bill will cost the petroleum industry a minimum of $10 billion part coming from energy specific taxes and part coming from industries generally of the $120 billion increase in business taxes. This new levy should rule out further tax increases on the petroleum industry as a funding source. If Congress and the administration wish to overcome the Superfund impasse, they will direct their focus on general revenues to pay for hazardous waste site cleanup or, to the degree general revenues are not acceptable, a broad-basetaxing mechanism. s should be allowed to ride UTA buses to go to and from the polls. at e The present delegate g rule is corrupting and and should be eliminated. If two candidates file, they should be automatically on the ballot. If three or more Let s assume from the outset that Utah does indeed need more money for education and that we are, perforce, facing a tax increase when the Legislature next convenes. Where, then, do we get the money? If the answer is new, not yet tapped alternatives, the two most are a state lottery and a head tax. Unfortunately, they are often put in tandem, as if overcoming resistance to one would ensure the other. And they are also tied together because of the perceived same source of resistance the Mormon Church. In fact, the two are very much separate in both their political prospects and response from the church. (Anyone who misses the connection between the former and latter hasnt lived here long enough.) The lottery simply will not pass unless or until church members lose their majority in the Legislature Considering that Mormon doctrine stands "unalterably opposed to gambling in any form," odds favoring a state-rulottery equal those of a swaybaeked nag in the Belmont Stakes. But while similar deduction s on the head-tausee, icfiex-like- , question, theres room for reasonable demur. After all, Gov. Bangerter is quoted as assuming the I?DS Church would reject a head tax The conventional logic seems to run: A) Mormons generally have more kids, B) a head tax would require more of parents proportionate to the size of their brood, C) therefore, the church must be against the head lax. Definite holes appear, however, in this logic, the largest being that Mormons would consider nothing more than the Almighty Dollar in forming their public-policattitudes Financially, the MX missile would have been a windfall for Utah's economy and for Mormon financial interests generally, but the church found an SAMUEL S. TAYLOR capital-intensiv- 84110. No Reason to Oppose Head Tax Please stop publishing, or at least give us a lengthy respite from, letters from verbose, arrogant, supercilious, vexing, boring Charles Freed. JOHN L. PAXTON Holladay Differing Point of View A Cannon: Partisanship Not Motive Several errors marred your editorial knocking me, "County Attorney Antics," Tribune Aug. 31. That "Republican official who tried, fruitlessly and at no small price to taxpayers, to nail County Treasurer Arthur Monson and his deputy. Lonnie Johnson, for misusing public funds, no less" in your editorialists words, was merely, had you ever taken the trouble to find out the facts, backing the judgment and recommendations of his subordinate Mike Christensen. Mr. Christensen was the sole prosecutor involved in investigating that matter and the staff attorney who lost the best and most viable of the Monson cases, involving allegations of running a private drywalling business out of the County Treasurer's Office partly at Mr Christensen, at last report, was of the opinion that that series of cases was not pursued far public-expens- fortably sensational for us as they can. I can understand it when one or two staffers, apparently motivated by a burning desire to be Bernstein and Woodward all rolled into one, begin to slant their allegedly objective news coverage in a particular way critical of an entire office andor a particular officeholder to keep the story alive. For an entire organization to do so, is, as Talleyrand once said of one of Napoleon's gaffes, worse than criminal, it is stupid." Worse than either, it brings public discredit on what should be the aspir-utionrole of the print media, to truly be the Fourth Estate, to really print only "All the news thats fit to print." to inform and advise the public as to what is really going on, not to become a vehicle for the peevishness and petty personal dislikes of its staffers I am the fourth gencra- low-lev- enough If vour paper chose to castigate me for consistently backing the somenot olten. but sometimes times flawed professional judgments of my staff that would be fair To cite our ai tivi long lustorv of ties in this office or anv of them as i M r having been motivated by particonsidei ations is not san political onk inaccurate it is irresponsible " ov The allege fire investigation mv en up" is. as you well know1, an Ihetc t ii in of one of your staffers never was, is not now and never has but of course, been anv cover up that does not make sensational opv to plug your vawrung columns wlm h dailv must fe filled with something to cover the advertising i a Salt Lake County Attorney Cannon takes issue ith a Salt Lake Tribune editorial. Here's his rebuttal. Lake newspapering family and am more sorry than I can say to see this happening, and to see those supposedly in charge of the content of a major newspaper condoning it by doing nothing to curb tion of a Salt edi-ton- it To cup the public display of his i in a rale A member of vour slal moment of un haractciistu tesimess ( Ted iled to me the unw isitom of f gilt vv it h u king tio bu s ink bv someone w Every person v in public the barrel Lie is all eadv w eli aw al e of this But most of us ate not deterred Imuii do able thing mg the right and aware in a w e aie w vi n t ten, vatu e that some b men!-- of the me dia will t w t w lial w e do and slant Hu II i ov age to make it ,o (UK om i j, 11 lark of information apparently proceeding from a desire not to have the facts lest he become confused since his mind was already made up your editorialist concludes his creed with efullv researched this paragraph If Mr Cannon s sin cessor doesn t defang the p ditical squabbling that has vexrd the Countv Attorneys of fli i' the past several vents a move to ei nr c this particular local g'vem merit vulnerability to parti sanslnp t ould develop Although the tab on- tltlltlon now inquires that oft-ce- I ( 'iii.Mi tin- 'io s fie ( e( arm ndment pi m ess taints I ,,!' v lie i u e o ould ei d H to current proposals to examine reinstitution of the district attorney system (in a better form than it used to exist in Utah) to professionalize and avoid even the appearance of in partisanship public prosecution. (The elements of one such proposal call for election of district attorneys much as we have now for judges). n Such a move, not only in your editorial writers felicitous phrase could develop, it has in fact long since already developed The interim legislative hearings on it are well under way. The proposal has strong support among a number of the thoughtful prosecutors of this state both urban and rural. I personally support it Your scrivener could have found this out with a phone call Too busy pontificating to find out the current facts, one supposes To cap it all. you conclude that the (state) constitution now "requires that county attorneys be elected" and the "amendment could certainly " change that Wrong twice The present constitution, as already amended. requires only that public prosecutors" be popularly elected, a change fought for long and hard by all the prosecutors of this state through their professional association The Statewide Association of Prosecutors has long been hosted out of this offu e and its strongest supporter and chairman of the board is the tin del signed It is not entirely comi dental that the present language of the constitution Judicial Article to which you are referred, opens for the district attorney changi already so thoroughlv afoot No need to amend the judicial at ti le It went through more than a year of heatings and w.e apptoved bv tch-two-tim- scull Ui e otiv 1' ae Iv refits Atlanta Boston Just $24.50 to anv Delta city in Florida for v.hcn accompanied by children ages i: tat nttdMvk travel -- or id1.) 50 ea.h way n round tup Tourist ..v v'i ct d t.e o' nl i per adult Complete the tern! er 3' i!,0 Not available pj y u ; h a 'U o' Ii ;:t ,t tares Ask I. t details on a Lance ts ket::.i', d iys of travel and other te juav mer.t . i 1 ; DallasI tWo:ti Lnulerdalv Ni",v 'deans 2 ! 1 1 ) 7.-;- ( 2 'll. it. ,1m ( L it ! t v . I C endum in 1984' How about Sumo objet live repot! age ind espotisible and t.u tuallv up t to date editor ml t omita-non the s If f e (" 'cunt V t "I ( A ( ( Gets You There A h i, i I; r i o.vm i .. k l' 11 It Silt it III) i Coiin1 v i At ' ... hall) e hange that I ir-- e brum Suit Like IN I"! to i |
