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Show James Heston lic January Friday Morning Section rib tin r Balt Lake 18, Bush Sits Pretty for Next Election New York Times Service WASHINGTON During the recent shuffle of the Reagan Cabinet and White House staff, little attention was paid to the fact that Vice President George Bush is 1985 Page 14 A Gov. Bangerters Budget Plan Is Responsible, Respectable The conventional analysis of Utah Norman Bangerters recommended 1985-8$2.6 billion state budis varies only slightly from get that it the $2.7 billion one left by his predecessor, former Gov. Scott M. Mathe-soIn that each could be considered conservative, such a conclusion is Gov. 6 n. accurate. Various commentators have criticized both documents from the usual viewpoints: Either the suggested spending is excessive or inadequate. Yet neither totals derived from assumptions which risked obvious revenue shortfalls. In reviving the principle that state government surpluses carried over from the previous fiscal period should e be used only on expenditures, Gov. Bangerter has demonstrated a personal administrative philosophy which differs from Gov. Mathesons. By proposing a substantially reduced bonding program for capital improvements and slight trims in public and higher education costs, Gov. Bangerter has also proved a little more exacting with a fiscal paring knife. Still, the departures arent overly dramatic. one-tim- Utahs new Republican governor hewed to his campaign pledge of not entertaining any tax increases. But Gov. Mathesons 86 budget plans also envisioned no higher state taxfes. And identical to his predecessor, Gov. Bangerter called for no tax reductions, either. In fact, during his budget message remarks to legislators Wednesday, Gov. Bangerter openly regretted that more money was not available to fund essential public services and education at levels actually required. His signal was abundantly clear: no tax cutting. than Gov. Mathesons, debatable reasonably position if a liberal interpretation of the states economic prospects were used. The Matheson budget relied on the conclusion that Utahs economy will reflect an expected nationwide slowdown this year, that employment growth will fall 2.8 percent, that wage growth will slow to 4 percent by years end, tapering off to 3 percent by the second His, no less is a quarter of 1986 and that sales and income tax collections A'ill show a consequently lower expansion rate. But if this is not the case, if Utah continues to confound estimates, as it did last year, state revenues could produce even greater surpluses using the Matheson and Bangerter economic forecasts. On these grounds, confirmed fiscal conservatives could argue for tax cuts now; those dissatisfied with even the spending amounts recommended could campaign for higher appropriations. Nonetheless, because the economic prognostications are so imprecise, the Bangerter, nee Matheson, course is the less chancy. As an example, except for a $30 million allocation from the states present budget surplus, Gov. Bangerter hasnt fully indicated what should be spent on meeting flood threats from a constantly rising Great Salt Lake. He will announce such figures later. That alone justifies resisting temptation to talk about tax reductions, since some experts claim managing the lake emergency could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Both the Bangerter and Matheson budgets adequately care lor the usual, basic state programs, whether in social welfare, public education, law enforcement and corrections, capital improvements, highway construction and maintenance. Nor is the future Lets hear it for the Wyoming Sen- Hurrah and huzzah! Those gutty lawmakers in Cheyenne refused at least for now to be cowed by the federal government. By a 2 vote, the cowboy senators defied a federal mandate that all states set the legal drinking age at 21 or face loss of federal highway funds. Our admiration for the senators extends to Gov. Ed Herschler who also opposed raising the age limit and instructed his attorney general to file briefs in favor of a South Dakota lawsuit challenging the federal order. It is not the fact that Wyoming will to drink continue to allow which our stirs intoxicating liquors as are There many unprovable praise. arguments against lower age limits as there in favor of higher ones. That discussion can be left to others for now. The most obnoxious spinoff of the age limit controversy is federal government oppression. It takes on overtones of rank blackmail and extortion not to mention trampling yet another area of regulation historically exercised by states. There is no logical connection between Wyomings legal drinking age and whether the equality state receives its full share of federal highway funds. The federal demand for compliance and the certain punishment for those who refuse to get in line constitute autocratic central government meddling on a distressing scale. Worse, it is an expansion of earlier successes in this form of pressure application on states. Not long ago Salt Lake and Davis Counties were forced to set up an annoying and as yet unproven auto emmissions testing program on pain of losing federal funds. The same tactic has been used in other areas of federal aid, sometimes with justification. But the drinking age 17-1- strong-aimin- g is inrisable. Office. That's precisely the way he wants it. He says not a word even privately about the changes. He supports the president publicly on whatever his skipper does. He praises the old boys who are going and the new boys who are coming, but remains the quiet survivor of the original Reagan White House team. Looking to the future, that is to say to the next presidential election, which has already started, the vice president is not only sitting quiet but sitting pretty. He has estabished a confidential and trusting relationship with the president. The other influential White House advisers of the first term Messrs. Baker, Deaver and Meese have either moved on or moved out, and he gets along with Donald Regan, who will be the new chief of staff. More important, of all the potential presidential candidates in 1988 in either party former Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee, Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas and Rep. Jack Kemp of New York on the Republican side, or Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York and Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey on the Demo side Bush has more experience m the conduct of foreign affairs than any of them. In addition to his service in the House of Representatives and as chairman of the Republican National Committee, he has been head of the CIA, envoy to China and the United Nations and a member as vice president of all the National Security Council committees on foreign and defense policy. The chances are that the control of nuclear weapons and the control of budget and trade deficits will be the presiding questions of the second Reagan term. And with the secretaries of State and Defense fussing with one another on these subjects, the president may very well have to turn increasingly to Bush, who is well liked in Congress, for the experience he will need as his years go by. Nevertheless, the vice president has two problems. He is too moderate for the Republican conservatives, who tend to dominate Republican presidential nominating conventions, and he has been so loyal to his conservative presidents policies that the Republican moderates wonder what he really believes. Similarly, he is a Connecticut Yankee from Texas, a Yale man with a Dallas Cowboys stance, who hasnt yet won enthusiastic support either place. He worked tirelessly in the 1984 campaign and helped the president but didnt help himself. For he seemed out of character much of the time, a cheerleader rather than a candidate, whose party loyalty outran his a New England papersonal convictions trician with a mucker pose. In the second Reagan term, however, he will be concentrating on Reagans policies and in and not on the presidents the process may have a chance to demonstrate his strengths, which are considerable, rather than his political weaknesses He sits in on Cabinet and National Security Council meetings and therefore is as well informed as any vice president in recent years. But unlike former Vice President Walter Mondale, he seldom participates directly in these debates but states his opinion privately to the president when asked to do so or when he feels strongly about a controversial issue In the first term, he was asked to take on several specific short-terproblems that could be performed without interfering with his presiding duties in the Senate, and it may be that he will be asked to do more of this in the second term. But like all vice presidents he has responsibilities that put severe limits on his political ambition. He is not, for example, as free as Howard Baker, Bob Dole or Jack Kemp to campaign for the 1988 nomination. He is reorganizing his staff and will probably play a more public role in the next four years than he did in the last four, but he will do so only if urged by the president. Even with increasing influence in the White House, Bush, like former Vice President Hubert Humphrey under Lyndon Johnson, faces formidable political problems that he is not likely to resolve unless he is permitted to play television politics which, as Reagan has demonstrated, is the way to the top. ignored. Gov. Bangerter obviously supports the concept that Utah must involve itself in promoting continued economic growth so that opportunities for local employment and tax sources will uniformly expand and increase. He stressed that point in his initial address to the Legislature Tuesday and followed up in budget recommendations which endorse larger appropriations for community and economic de- velopment. With a balanced, careful and conservative approach, Gov. Bangerter has identified the states obligations to provide effective public services on a scale affordable by all taxpayers. He has set the 1985 version of the states Legislature a task of responsible, re- spectable and even proportions. money Lars-Er- ik Nelson Closing Tax Loopholes Is a Tall Order If Wyoming refused to meet federal highway building standards, Washington would be justified in withhold-in- g federal The Elders flexible Stand Firm, Wyoming ate still presiding almost invisibly down the hall from the Oval cratic for the construction. But there is no such direct line linking refusal to raise the drinking age to highway building and maintenance. The fact that some drunks drive motor vehicles on highways is too remote a connection to justify a federal funds ban. By their resistance, South Dakota, and now Wyoming, are striking blows for preservation of what is left of traditional state authority to deal with local issues on a local basis. Ride 'em, cowboy! New York Daily News WASHINGTON Under current law, you cannot claim tax relief for accelerated depreciation of any manufacturing equipment you have installed in a spaceship. Fortunately, Rep. Herbert H. Bateman, has moved to correct this injustice. Bateman is the sponsor of House bill 5975, which would extend income-ta- x benefits the tax credit, the investment tax credit and accelerated to articles made aboard depreciation American spacecraft. And you thought that the Congress and was especially the Republican minority trying to simplify the existing tax code, not extend existing loopholes into space. Didn't the Treasury just propose eliminating all these loopholes in return for lowering tax rates? And isnt Rep. Jack Kemp, sponsoring a bill that would do the same? research-and-developme- The answer to both questions is yes. The Congress appears to want a simplified income tax but in the meantime, as a barkeeper in Derry, Ireland, said to a thirsty reporter early one Sunday morning: We dont open for another 45 minutes, sir. Would you like a drink while youre waiting? The agenda put forth by the House Re- publican Research Committee this flat-ta- x bill, which the Kemp-Kaste- n rate to 25 would lower the top income-ta- x 50 of current instead the percent, in percent, exchange for removing most tax loopholes. Yet, in the same breath, the Republicans e Individwant to raise the ceiling on ual Retirement Accounts, opening that loophole still bigger. weeksup-port- s tax-fre- Senate bill cited by the House Republicans would institute a new tax credit for businesses that employ displaced homemakers divorcees or widows suddenly forced A into the workplace without skills. Youd have to have a heart of stone to vote against that one. Sen. Alfonse DAmato, wants to give tax incentives to private companies that build prisons. A Democrat, Rep. Dave McCurdy of Oklahoma, wants to give tax breaks to businesses that hire science and math teachers for summer jobs that expose them to new technology. the Even. Rep. Richard Gephardt, bill, has a sponsor of a proposal for a new loophole: Tax deductions for contributions to Individual Training Accounts, which an unemployed worker could use to pay for his own retraining. A similar tax deduction is proposed by Rep. Lynn Marfor contributions to college-tuitio- n tin, accounts. Who will have the courage to vote, somewhere down the road, to remove the tax break for a deaf persons teletypewriter? high-scho- R-Il- Russell Baker Hi Falutin Media True English-LanguaNew York Times Service NEW YORK What could be harder than the journalist's life? Days when you are not being browbeaten in court by lawyers and politicians who lust for your millions, you sit in the office being abused by experts on the English language. These people scan the press daily in search of grammatical lapses, misspellings, erroneous punctuation and all the other telltale signs of an American education one, write gleefully to call the journalists attention to the utter inadequacy of his education. Not too long ago an adequate education could disqualify a person for a career in journalism. Total illiteracy was not highly prized, but reporters who had been to college often tossed in a deliberate grammatical screamer to suppress suspicions that they were unfit to cover the juicier murders. Everything has changed. Reporters, who used to work for wages, now earn enough to berpublicans. Nowadays i journalist not being sued for at least a million scarcely dares show his face at the press club. This is a long reach from the day when a politician's only possible vengeance for an unflattering story was to sneak into the press room and cut the brim off the authors fedora, because there wasnt a reporter in town who had $2 to lend until Friday night. But back to the language experts: here is a barrel of mail most of it signed Irate English-languag- e Authority provoked by my recent use in this space of the expression Hi Falutin. Some of these irate authorities say I betray ignorance by dividing the word hifalu-tiinto two words and the correct form is highfalutin run together in one word, and others say it is highfaluting" (one word with a "g" on the end), while still others say it is high faluting (add "g" on the end and split the word in two). Why am I so amused by these experts? Because I have baited this trap for them and they have taken the bait, as I knew they would when I wrote Hi Falutin" in the first place. In fact, I have met the Hi Falutin whose family has contributed its name to this colorful piece of English speech. Mr. Falutins n ge first name is Hiram, and he descends in indi12 generations from Hiram of Middle Wallow in the English Faluting Cotswolds, where he was generally known in the early 17th century as "Hi Faluting. The Faluting family had migrated to England from France, where the name had been Falutin, without the "g. Noel Falutin of Amiens had decided to settle in England because he could not bear the French pronunciation of this name, which sounded more or less like "fowloo-tan.- " rect line through Moi, I want to be called Fahloot'n inhe told the immigrastead of Fowloo-tan- ,' tion authorities at Dover, when asked his reason for entering the country. In the usual manner of immigration officers, they ignored his request, stuck a g" on the end of his name and said, Enjoy your stay in England, Mister In the Cotswolds Noel Faluting soon became known as No Faluting, so it was inevitable that when his grandson was named Hiram this young shepherd who was destined to walk around the Cotswolds with his nose in the air because he thought he was too good to mix with the other shepherds should be called Hi Faluting. In sUceeding generations, Falutings be Authority came proud of their place in the English language and did everything possible to maintain the purity of the name line. Thus they moved out of Middle Wallow and settled in High Wycombe. In 1845 Hiram Faluting VI immigrated to the United States, settled in Tennessee and might have stayed if someone hadn't pointed out that it was located in the lower Mississippi Valley. Rejecting Maine tit was Down East) and New York City (all the excitement was in Midtown), the Falutings moved to Upper Darby, Pa. By this time, of course, exposure to the speech of the American South had eroded the g from Faluting, and the name was at last pronounced exactly as old Noel Falutin had desired when he left France. Such has it been ever since. The only threat to the name's fame occurred when Hiram Falutin VIII, who loved a joke, gave his only son the name Lowell. Authorities on the language argued so heatedly whether he should be called Lo Falutin, lofalutin or Low Falutin that Lowell went to an early grave, leaving no son but only a daughter named Media. Thus did Media Falutin enter the language, so from now on keep' your letters to yourselves. |
