Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 13, 1994 TAG: 9405130090
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Last year, we started accepting Discover Card for paying taxes and utility fees, and also have an arrangement with four local banks to allow payment at their facilities. We take payments for decals in a cooperative arrangement with the state's Department of Motor Vehicles, and during tax season have a clerk stationed at Vinton Town Hall to allow payment there.
Bank cards, such as VISA and Mastercard, charge a fee for each transaction, which is generally passed on by merchants to their customers. Obviously, local governments cannot do this, because there's no overhead in which to bury the charge. Bank-card companies won't allow us to add the charge to the tax bill either, so we haven't been able to accept VISA and Mastercard. The companies do allow Arlington County, which has been doing this for some time, to add this charge.
Currently, there's pending federal legislation that would compel bank cards to allow all local governments to add a fee for using VISA and Mastercard. If this legislation passes, Roanoke County will also be in a position to accept bank cards. And we plan to do so for everything, including utility bills, taxes, decal fees, etc.
ALFRED C. ANDERSON Treasurer, Roanoke County ROANOKE
8th-graders aren't really bubbleheads
AFTER READING the March 31 commentary, ``8th-graders are like, so funny'' by Elizabeth Schuett, a teacher in Ohio, I feel she portrayed the wrong image of an eighth-grader.
In her commentary, eighth-graders were painted as airheads who only care about socializing and using ``cool'' language. Actually, they have to keep up their grades, start thinking about what college they want to attend, and what they want to be when they grow up.
Sure, they like to play sports, socialize and want to be cool. But in reality, eighth-graders have a lot more to worry about than who said what or who's going with whom.
NICOLE CARROLL ROCKY MOUNT
Christian schools have the answer
I'M 16 years old and go to Christian Heritage Academy in Franklin County. At our school, we don't have to worry about guns, drugs or anything of that sort.
What's different? We're taught morals from the Bible. If sheep have no fence for a boundary, they'll wander off until they die of hunger. The Bible is a good boundary for teen-agers today.
Since the Bible was taken from schools in 1962, SAT scores have dropped and crime has gone up drastically. Our public-school systems should learn from Christian schools.
TIMOTHY RICHMOND ROANOKE
National debt answers frustrating
IN 1983, Social Security was going broke. Congress said: ``We must build a surplus so that our grandchildren will not be heavily taxed when baby boomers retire.'' Then it passed an obscene increase that baby boomers won't recover in a normal lifetime.
Since then, Congress has invested $50 billion to $70 billion in excess collections in government bonds and spent the cash to reduce the claimed deficit caused by their reckless spending and pork bills. In the Nixon days, the Supreme Court ordered that presidents must spend every dime Congress appropriates.
I've written our senators since 1993, asking them who now will be heavily taxed, not only to pay interest on their obscene national debt, but to redeem those bonds, plus interest, when baby boomers retire.
Volumes of congressional budget estimates have been included with three- and four-page replies, such as, ``In my view, our Social Security reserves are legitimate and important assets of the U.S. government'' and ``Congressional action should enhance rather than depart from the policy of building up a sound reserve.'' (Don't government bonds sometimes not even pay the inflation rate?)
After my third request for an answer to that question, this is part of Sen. John Warner's reply: ``Obviously, the young people of today will eventually assume the responsibilities of American taxpayers. These responsibilities not only include paying taxes in April, but also making their views known, loud and clear, to their elected officials.''
Will that be 30 years and $4 trillion or $5 trillion too late? Will this government be bankrupted and defaulting on its debts as many have done since World War I?
GEORGE F. SNYDER VINTON
Drivers shouldn't criticize smokers
ANYONE driving an automobile spewing its toxic pollutants into the air, which we must all breathe, has no right to criticize smokers and smoking.
LOGAN BLICK ROANOKE
Sen. Goode needs voters' help
THERE'S a man who could help us who needs our help. Longtime state Sen. Virgil Goode needs name recognition and voters to go to the polls June 14 to help him defeat Chuck Robb in the Democratic primary. In return, Virginia gets a senatorial candidate we can be proud of.
Unless people just like complaining about the moral character of our expected choices or we enjoy witnessing dirty campaigns, help give us an honest, respected candidate for the U.S. Senate by voting. We won't have a choice if we don't all help.
LES HUTCHINSON ROCKY MOUNT
by CNB