Show Students want food tax to go Dear Editor It is hard for me to believe that you represent represent represent sent the views of students on this campus when you say as you did in your recent editorial that repealing the food tax is not the best thing to do I would wager the author of the editorial doesn't have to buy his or her own food Maybe he or she still lives at home and doesn't have to live with the cold reality of making every penny count There are plenty of students on this campus campus campus cam cam- pus living on their own who find paying a tax ori fo food d to tobe bea a hardship So if Merrill Merrill Merrill Mer Mer- rill Cook sponsored the initiation he should be applauded for malting making the public aware that the tax is regressive and it hits the poor and low-income low people the hardest People with comfortable steady paychecks hardly notice the food tax at all and cant can't understand why this initiative came up in the first place They're just sure of one thing they dont don't want to pay any more income tax than they already do so their attitude is lets just keep things the way they are In other words lets let's keep socking it to the poor folks even if a tax on food is just one more means of oppression Ive I've lived in several other states but this is the first state Ive I've lived where there is a tax on food I think it says something about the society that creates such a tax and then continues continues continues con con- to fight to keep the tax in place even when shown the error of its ways The threat of the initiatives initiative's passage has given Governor Bangerter the justification he needed to withhold withhold withhold with with- hold funding social service programs in desperate need of money Any excuse will do these days The bottom line is if you are poor in Utah you pay for it I noticed that in your man on the streets interview the individuals who advocated advocated advocated keeping the food tax were those who are employed by the College But since many of us students are trying to work around a school schedule which means time part-time or and/or wage minimum-wage jobs and consequently consequent consequent- ly have become Utah's low income types my guess is that most students would want the food tax to go If it means that taxes have to be collected elsewhere then that's how it should have been set up in the first place Jerre JeTTe |