Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 9, 1995 TAG: 9501120041
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In the past 20 years, governmental payments for poverty programs have increased threefold, and yet the amount of money getting into the hands of those qualifying as needy hasn't increased at all. Obviously, increases have gone to buy more bureaucrats and case workers. Callahan seems to believe that every penny expropriated by the government flows directly into the pockets of the poor.
It has come to be recognized that past tax policy has been developed without employing dynamic models; that is, a failure to realize that a change in tax policy will have an effect on the way people behave.
A look at page 108 of the 1995 World Almanac reveals that between 1981 and 1989, tax receipts to the federal government nearly doubled due to Reagan's tax-rate reductions. Conversely, the 10 percent luxury-tax increase a few years ago put most middle-class persons engaged in the manufacture and selling of pleasure boats out of work. People simply refused to buy boats. The luxury tax had negative results. The paradox is that the fairer the tax policy, the more money pours into government coffers.
It has to be determined if we want to punish the rich, or if we want to maximize government receipts. It's impossible to do both. Rich people and struggling entrepreneurs are those producing most of the new wealth creating jobs. When they're overtaxed, they don't create jobs. Although there are thousands of dedicated government employees whose services we can't do without, government jobs aren't the answer. If those jobs were truly wealth creating, each Third World government would fall all over itself to hire its citizens into everlasting affluence.
It seems to me that we would prevent a lot of misunderstanding if everyone entering the welfare bureaucracy should first have to submit a book report on "Atlas Shrugged.''
FRANK M. DERK
SALEM
Show more respect for the deceased
THE GRIEF one's family must endure when a tragic death occurs is made even worse when you must watch a family member being carted away from an accident scene by emergency personnel, as is the case in practically all fatal accidents recently.
It was a disgrace to watch emergency personnel ``haul'' away the lady who was recently struck and killed on U.S. 419, Gary West and the family in Vinton, and to watch again New Year's Day when they hauled away victims of the mass shooting in Southwest Roanoke.
Can emergency personnel not have a little more compassion for the deceased and their families by placing the deceased on a stretcher of some sort, rather than practically dragging them to the ambulance in a body bag? I'm sure emergency personnel wouldn't want their last memory of a family member to be that of having the remains hauled away. How undignified our society has become.
LEISHA S. COOK
ROANOKE
Protect funding for public broadcasting
I'M VERY concerned about what the upcoming Congress is going to cut. The federal government is spending approximately $1 per capita on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, around $300 million a year. Some Congress members claim it's an oversized bureaucracy that's wasting public money. Without this federal funding, a large number of children and adults will not benefit from the educational programming on radio and television that this money helps support.
Republicans claim that by privatizing it, the CPB can make more money. I ask these Republicans to name one other network that's commercial-free, violence-free and can be seen by people who don't have cable. Yes, there are people who don't have cable - they cannot afford it or they do not live in an area where they can get it.
I ask government to think about the people when they start cutting programs to pay for more military spending. If the state and federal governments continue to cut funding for educational programs, which seem to be a trend, we'll need to build even more prisons.
SCOTT W. LUDWIG
BLACKSBURG
by CNB