
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 8, 1995                   TAG: 9504100017
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BRIEFLY PUT ...

LAST weekend, a few days before the U.S. House passed a tax cut amounting to $189 billion over the next five years, Democratic Minority Leader Richard Gephardt said that the package favors the rich. It's the people's money, replied Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich, not the government's.

No more so, however, than is the $300 billion spent each year in interest payments on a national debt grown huge by the chronically big deficits of the past 15 years. Tax cuts now simply make it all the harder to whittle deficits and the debt.

WITH more than two months to go before the June 13 filing deadline, it's still early times. But a shortage of candidates so far for local School Board seats in Southwest Virginia isn't a good sign.

Let's hope that the lack of candidates reflects not a lack of interest in public education but simply a temporary lack of familiarity with the elected-board system going into effect in many districts. We've voiced reservations about that new system. But more important than how members get on school boards is getting good members on school boards - which, whatever the method of selection, requires the willingness of capable people to serve.

by CNB