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Show Page Four THE SALT LAKE TIMES FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1972 THE SALT LAKE TIMES Combiotd with The Salt Labe Mioiog & hsgol Newt Poblitbod Every PrisUy at Salt Lake City, Utah Second Class Postage paid at Salt Lake City, Utah 4 West Temple Telephone 84101 Lake Salt City; Utah GLENN BJORNN, FtUiabir This publication it sm owned or controlled by say party, dam, digue, faction or oorforadm." 711 South 364-846- Number 35 Volume 52 Transmitting Messages (Continued from Page 1) Social Security and Medicare Now Nation's No. 2 Expense a $10,800 tax base in 1973, $12,-00- 0 in 1974 and $12,600 in 1975, when the automatic cost of living benefit escalator becomes effective. The combined effect of the tax rate and the tax base increases means that the maximum tax on each employee matched dollar for dollar by the employer, will increase from $468 this year to $631 in 1973 and $702 in 1974 $234 more than in 1972. number one. By 1979, the maximum tax will be over $900 a year, assumCongress imposed the $13.9 no further changes by Coning billion tax increase on the workers and their employ- gress. Of course, thats a pretty ers to pay for a vast expansion foolish assumption when you note that 1974 is another election that took place this year. About $3.7 billion of this in- year. crease is directly related to the H.A. 1, the compromise Social Security Medicare Welfare Bill Drivers Learn Winter signed by President Nixon. The Weather Reduces remaining $10.2 billion in tax take is required to finance a 20 Visibility on Highways The Utah Safety Council is per cent across the board benefit increased in June, plus other warning drivers that the winter changes enacted by Congress in weather can seriously reduce 1971 and earlier. visibility. The new law contains a host Longer hours of darkness, combined with fog, frost, snow of major and minor changes on Social Security and Medicare. and ice constitute a major and added hazard of winter driving. The major ones involve: A special minimum benefit, When combined with slippery starting in January, for workers pavements, poor visibility too with many years of covered em- often leads to an accident where ployment at low wages. The spe- the usual excuse is I couldnt cial payment will range from see. While conceding that there is $85 a month for those with 20 years of employment to $170 for an occasional mishap under cira worker with 30 years of cov- cumstances where poor visibility might be a valid excuse, the erage. that in 0 safety official reported An increase from $1680 to a year in exempt employ- almost every case the driver is ment earnings under the retire- basically at fault. When visibility is poor, the ment test. This means that resensible driver slows down or to tired workers will be able earn more on the job and keep stops entirely under weather more of their Social Security conditions improve. If you absobenefit income. About 1.2 mil- lutely have to keep going, make lion beneficiaries will receive sure your windows are kept higher benefits in January and clean and unobstructed. Dont 450.000 more will be entitled try to be a peep hole driver. Take the time to stop and to payments. clear the ice and snow off the some 3.8 benefits for Higher entire windshield and the side million widows and widowers in January. The payment, at age and rear windos as well, and do 65, would be raised from 82.5 not forget to clean snow and to 100 per cent of the deceased road muck off the headlights, tail lights and directional signals spouses benefit. so that you can see and be seen. Reduction in the eligibility Windshield wipers have to be waiting period for disability benefits from six to five months. in first class condition; streakAs a result of this change, about ing blades should be replaced. 950.000 workers will get bene- Be sure your heater defroster is working properly, and see that fits in 1974. Exetnsion of coverage under your windshield washer solution for the Medicare program to 1.78 contains adequate million workers, under age 65, the most extreme temperatures who are totally and permanently that may be encountered. disabled. To qualify for benefits a person would have to be on the The insurance industry is aldisability rolls for not less than ways ready to swing into action 24 consecutive months. when catastrophe strikes. AdAs a result of H.A. 1, payroll justers often are transferred huntaxes on each employee and em- dreds of miles in a matter of ployer will increase 5.2 percent hours to help handle the deluge this year to 5.85 percent in 1973. of claims that often follow hurThese higher rates will apply to ricanes, tornadoes and the like. Mushrooming Social Security and Medicare programs will now gobble up $64.3 billion in pay roll taxes during 1973 $13.9 more than in 1972. Most people dont realize sow big these programs have become: it takes more tax money to operate Social Security and Medicare than any other federal government activity except national defense. Before long these social spending programs will be . as a high speed terminal Tor recording information tained from a computer, for accessing remote hies or records, and for low cost production of instantly usable microfilm records. Still in the early development stages, the experimental system uses a pulsed laser beam of varying intensity to rceord images on frames of 10 mm transparent plastic film coated with a thin layer of bismuth metal. The laser burns millions of tiny holes of varying ob- diameter in the metal coating, creating a transparency instantly and without chemical or physical development. The result is an extremely fine pattern of dots similar to the dot patterns that create newspaper and magazine pictures. By changing the intensity of the laser pulses, the area of the holes machined in the bismuth him can be varied. In this way, it is possible to achieve a wide range of shades of gray when ordinary light is directed onto the array of holes to project an image onto a screen. Solar Energy na-tin- os $2,-10- Heating and cooling for homes and small commercial buildings will be the hrst important use of solar energy in the United States. Solar energy, the most abundant form of energy available to. man, was examined recently in the Science Magazine. The energy fr,om the sun sunlight hitting less than one percent of the land in the United States is more than enough to meet the total needs of the country until the year 2000. Sunlight is diffuse and intermittent, however, and large areas are required to collect and store enough energy for heating, cooling, or producing the electncity. Heating systems solar collectors are usually black metal surfaces that easily absorb sunlight and are covered with several panes of glass to reduce heat loss. A green house effect is created by the glass which is transparent to incoming sunlight, but absorb the longer wavelength radiation emitted by the hot metal. The heat is collected in water or air that is circulated by the collector during the day. Some of this energy is stored for use at night or in bad we ather. Already solar heaters are in commercial use in Florida and in several foreign countries. The most difficult challenge is not heating or cooling conditioning systems are still in the preliminary evelopment states), but electricity. Some engineers favor small generating units located where the electricity will be consumed. They prefer the use of power turbines that operate at temperatures lower than those common in nuclear or fossil fuel power plants. Others propose large solar thermal facilities modeled after todays power . . anti-free- ze stations. Solar energy has the fewest environmental problems of any major energy source, but it is not faultless. Collecting surfaces absorb more sunlight than the earth. In household or other small scale use this is not likely to alter local thermal balance. The larger collecting surface of a central power plant might change the balance; the effects, while expected to be minimal, will depend on local weather conditions. The key elements of the necessary technology have not been perfected, but it seems that we have been successful enough in the practical testing of solar energy to warrant increased implementation and research effort. 0 860 Where thousands of listeners enjoy concert music and news every day! H- alt ASED GRflPEVIftIF The Salt Lake County Trea- surers office is trying to count the money and at the time pre-pa- rt a delinquent list of the 1972 property tax persons still owing money. It was estimated that by the deadline for receiving tax payments the treasurers office reported about $60 million in property taxes but had processed only about $45 milloin. It is estimated that Salt Lake County will collect more than $80 million in property taxes with approximately $14 million in auto and other taxes. Problems for private parking operators came up when they tried to give individuals parking tickets. The Salt Lake City attorneys office said that operators of private parking lots in the city do not have the power to issue tickets levying fines. Mr. Cutler of the attorneys office said, Persons who receive these notices should not pay them because the organization issuing them has no authority to levy a fine. Only the courts can do this. Salt Lake City is figuring another way to license persons. The newest ordinance about to go into effect is thta of having professional dancers in taverns, bars, cabarets and similar establishments will have to obtain a license for the license department in order to dance within the city limits. The ordinance provides for an annual license for $10 for an individual performer to be paid on application while the annual fee for an agency is $50 and $10 per performer represented by such agency. Once again that old problem of the paid is up again for com- ment. This time the Utah Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union said that it will conduct its own investigation of the conditions of the Salt Lake City and County jail. The ACLU said, County authorities have the opporutnity to conduct their own investigatoin and to correct abuses, if any. The ACLU will investigate reports of brutality and inhumane conditions which have surfaced during the recent publicity of the operation of the jail complex. City-Coun- ty Mrs. Millie Oberhansley Bernard and Reuben Mulcock were named to the Salt Lake County Planing Commission after about 10 months of indecision as to whether to appoint them or not for third terms. A quorum of two County Commissioners, William Dunn and Philip Blomquist. who had opposed any two term limit, approved the The term of office wifi expire Feb. 1, 1975. Chairman of the Salt Lake City Housing Authority, Commissioner Jennings Phillips Jr., said that low cost housing for the elderly is gradually approaching reality. Construction of 300 units in high rise apartments by the city and county housing authority costing is scheduled to begin on 1. April $5,-400,0- 00 |