Page 4 EDITORIAL Public Injustice It finally came out. There it was on the front page of last Monday's Wall Street Journal, one of the most prestigious newspapers operating. Not only was former At- torney General John Mitchell, the President’s closest advisor in his first term in the White House, instrumental in helping International Telephone and Telegraph dodge the trust busters on the Hartford Insurance merger (remember the Dita Beard affair?), but also in helping him help ITT break the law and get away with it was the likes of Vice President Spiro Agnew, (of CBS fame); former Treasury Secretary John Connelly, (the Democrat cabinet member); former Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans (remember the $89,000 from Mexico, the Committee to Re-elect the President had to give back recently while Mr. Stans was the President’s personal bag man); and for- mer Commerce Secretary Peter Peterson, (on the White House staff when the ITT-Hartford settle- ment was made, along with Dita’s old friend, White House staffer Peter Flemming.) If that’s not quite an array of white collar some- thing or other -- but then the story goes on... The article was built in the first place around a report prepared deep in the ranks of the Security and Exchange Commission. This gives it authenticity that would even shame a Jack Ander- son column or a Dita Beard memo. The charges are not mere accusations (the Wall Street Journal would never stoop so low), but rather evidence gleaned by the subponea powers of the SEC, which has been investigating ITT for at least two years. And while the whole affair stinks of corporate- government socialism, we’d make a bet that neither the officials named, nor the White House will make any comment at all. And that’s another public injustice. 9 Day Care The closing of day care centers throughout the nation is a lethal blow not to the cause of women’s “lib,”’ but to the dignity of the American woman it- self. Last week, on a television network newscast, we heard the stories, however briefly told, of two young mothers, both divorcees, who have steady employment which they enjoy. Their paychecks are modest but with the availability of government funded day care for their children, they have been able to support their small families adequately and with dignity. Both women said that they could not their children in private schools. They noted also that they are happy with the day care centers which their children attend, and that they are satisfied with the supervision and facilities. Now, the unhappy ending: when the day care centers finally close, perhaps by June, these two young mothers say, they will be forced to give up their jobs and to go on welfare, since they cannot afford the alternatives to the federal day care pro- gram. Needless to say, they are not looking for- ward to becoming totally dependent on Uncle Sam. Mr. Nixon, in his January inaugural address, charged Americans to consider what they could do for themselves rather than what their country could do for them. It appears, however, that, the President has trapped himself on this issue. Elimi- nating the day care centers is a tragic blow to the dignity of many women who were several steps ahead of Mr. Nixon’s inaugural suggestion. We would not be surprised to find the administration’s welfare rolls growing by leaps and bounds, rather than cut back as the president anticipates. And many of the newest additions will no doubt be on the lists because they were forced to stay home with their children when they could have been paying their own way. Thissa 'n Thatta by H. H. Null, ITI Sylvia Porter, a babe who writes a sort of acknowledge as a peer in the columnist racket, makes a lot of sense. The other day, she tossed one off about state lotteries and when I had finished reading it, I almost said “Amen’’, but after consideration, find that my Pennsylvania Dutch conscience prevents me from complete agreement. It isn’t really much of a conscience, but it comes in handy sometimes when I am temp- ted to withold my distaste for a lot of beings like Sen. J. W. Fulbright, the White Knight of Chappaquaddick and other members of Con- gress, who are currently yapping their fool heads off because President Nixon is trying to reduce spending in order to keep down our taxes. Keeping down taxes is not so important to them as quibbles about the President getting too much power and any others that occur from time to time. But I must tear myself away from writing about such inviting matters and get back to Sylvia. Sylvia allows that state lotteries are a hidden tax that mount up by putting up a dollar a week regularly and at the end of the year, an unrich person can divest himself of at least $52, which ain’t hay as the feller sez. The lady is perfectly right about it, except that she hasn’t taken one thing into considera- tion—that a lottery gives you something for your money; whereas your taxes give you no- thing, except the dubious pleasure of watch- ing legislators and bureaucrats spend your money at a constant increase in tempo, while you have to keep trying to get enough for them to do so. : Sylvia failed to take into account the fact that, assuming the lottery is honestly oper- ated, you might win, in which case you might even win enough to put you among the people whose net worth is in the hundred thousand dollar class. If you don’t have a rich uncle Maximilian, who might or might not consider you as worthy an heir as a cat hospital, it is absolutely the only honest way you can see of making it. The unrich person who doesn’t want to possess a couple of hundred thousand inflated dollars is a very rare bird indeed. So, if you are not only unrich, but down- right poor, you sensibly forego lesser plea- sures in order to now and then take your chances with Lady Luck. Whatever Sylvia's notions-on the subject, I would never think of trying to dissuade even the veriest pauper from laying 50 cents or a dollar on the lottery whenever the amount can be scraped up. TRB from Washington President Nixon has distorted the whole issue of taxes in an audacious and inflam- matory manner. He can hardly make a state- ment these days without invoking the fear of higher taxes; it is like a voodoo chant. The sorrowful thing is that Congress crouches and cowers whenever the unspeakable tax demon is summoned in the Nixon dirge. Now White House sorcerer’s apprentice Ehrlichman has joined the incantation. He told a TV audience in retrospect that ‘‘that was the campaign issue, the principal, central campaign issue on the domestic side in this past Presidential campaign.” The President’s second term commandment is, in short: Thou shalt not raise income taxes. Much of the White House ritual is setting up and knocking down straw men. A good deal of the economics invoked in the rites is clap- trap. The real issue, of course, is whether we are going to have tax reform; whether the rich are going to be taken off welfare. If this is done it will, indeed, raise taxes. The burden of American taxes as presently distributed is outrageously unfair. I don’t think there is a responsible economist in the country who doesn’t know it and assert it. Harvard pro- fessor Stanley S. Surrey (assistant Treasury Secretary, 1961-69) simply testified to the Ways and Means Committee the other day that the present system is “immoral.” Period. The financial journals are filled with articles telling in effect, ‘how you, too, can cheat on your tax returns.” It must be a very innocent reader who Guest Editorial from the Harrisburg Evening News EVERY DAY in Pennsylvania an estimated 115 acres of land, including 100 acres of cropland, is taken from agriculture. One mile of interstate highway takes 40 acres. It just isn’t the farmer who is caught up in this rapid urbanization, but every Penn- sylvanian. Nowhere is this more apparent than here in Central Pennsylvania. Forty years ago Lower Paxton Twp., for example, was totally rural. By 1990, if not sooner, Lower Paxton will be totally urban. Already on weekends, more traffic clogs Colonial Park than Harrisburg. Down in Lancaster County some Amish— after 250 years of peaceful settlement in which they made their land the best farming east of the Mississippi— are leaving. It is just not the 3 million tourists who come to gawk, but the Amish are unhappy about being surrounded by housing tracts and the garish, neon-lit life that others call civilization. The Amish are also put-upon by high taxes and land values that are in excess of $4,000 an acre. Like many other farmers, they sometimes can sell their land for much more than they could earn on it in a lifetime of working the soil. It is vital to “America the Beautiful’ with “amber fields of grain’ to preserve green space in and around urban areas. The They are buying hope, which is worth every cent of it. Of course, there is something cynical about the Shapp Chap promoting this lottery with the unexpressed thought that people are always willing to pay for their naughtinesses; so we might as well garner some cash for the use of the State Profligates, just as has been done with the smoking of cigarettes and the drinking of alcoholic potions. For the future, we will be able to suggest taxes on other forms of gambling and maybe a brilliant mind can come up with a way of getting some tax money from that other outlet of naughtiness known as sex. Let us keep thinking about it; there is a sucker born every minute and there must be some way the State can milk more money from each of them. Knowing that some such thinking goes on in minds that are groping for ways to fund the State’s extravagances, it kind of hurts to be used as a dupe and characterized as ‘‘a will- ing taxpayer’’, when purchasing a lottery ticket with the full knowledge it will probably be another loser. Still, as I mentioned, there is the matter of hope on sale with the ticket and you just might win. How nice it would be to get a check for a hundred grand against all of the probabilities, and to then go forth and could really, truly, afford it. Even without such bootless speculation on the future, there is the comforting thought that your other taxes just might be a little less when the lottery take is thrown into the State revenue pot. Likewise, the comforting thought that you are participating in a scheme that is billed as taking money away from organized crime and diverting some of their ill-gotten gains into the hands of those who despoil us legally. It makes one glow with a sense of virtue and righteousness. So, much as I admire the omniscent Syl- via, I have to differ with her on her expressed attitude toward state lotteries. I guess that I have had many more years of experience her picture presents her as still a seductive- looking dame. Those years have taught me that Luck is the most important factor in human happiness or lack of it and that Luck has never been and cannot be defined. Also, it cannot be eliminated, ghecause it starts before you are born and #%.jou come into the world with a sharp brain like Sylvia’s, you do so with the help of good luck. If you come forth hopelessly diseased, hopelessly crippled or hopelessly poor, you have been the victim of bad luck. Therefore, when an opportunity for countering your bad luck is offered by a charitable Commonwealth and you know that you can afford an occasional flyer, don’t build up a guilt complex because you buy a chance from your friendly newstand or grocery. Remember it might have saved you from spending a dollar foolishly—for food or some- thing. / 78 FE SOLVES. > TIES” SHAVE “TREDRUR 2ST doesn’t know, by now, the disparity of income statistic, the richest tenth of the population get 29 percent of the personal income and own 56 percent of the national wealth, while the poorest tenth get 1 percent of the income, and are in debt. It is this disparity which is per- petuated, if not increased, by the present tax structure. The unfairness of the tax structure was increased by the tax cuts of 1969 and 1971. These gave a couple of dollars of tax relief to the prosperous for every dollar to the worker. I won’t bore you with the figures but the truth is incontrovertible I believe; the tax burden has been shifting from the corporations and the affluent to the middleclass and above all to the worker who gets hit by the implacable payroll tax ( deducted at the source and from which there is no loophole) and the social security tax. The poor are taken care of by the sharply regressive sales taxes. The sardonic fact is that while Mr. Nixon is saying “no higher taxes,” the built-in regressive social security taxes are automatically increasing every year. Just do nothing and the workers will pay more. On the financial side, the failure to raise adequate, appropriate taxes from the corpo- rations and the tax-sheltered affluent has resulted in Mr. Nixon’s tangled economics: four huge, consecutive end-to-end Federal deficits that have helped promote inflation and two devaluations of the dollar. And when Mr. Nixon raises his ululating chant of ‘“‘don’t raise taxes,” what he is really saying is, New Tax alternative is a concrete tombstone. It is similarly vital to preserve the food supply of the nation. The agricultural breakthroughs in hybrid corn, artificial breeding and other achievements have been impressive, but they are not guarantees. The flood of 1972, for example, knocked out some of Pennsylvania’s agricultural production. Today’s high food prices are a reflection, in part, that the demand for good food exceeds the supply. How to save the open space and farming land is the issue. It is complicated, because the sale of land—not steel, coal or railroading—has made more money in Pennsylvania than any other form of com- merce. The tax structure and all the other pressures encourage land speculation, not the proper use of land. : The Legislature last year passed a con- stitutional amendment resolution was ap- proved a second time last week, so it can g on the ballot in May. t On the face of it, the tax plan is a good one. Farmers are caught in rising land values and consequent higher taxes, as their neighbors sell out to shopping centers, industry and housing projects. Bucks County was a breadbasket for the American Revolution. It now faces the threat of no farming at all because of the costs. YET THE CONSTITUTIONAL amend- ment, backed by farmers, could be an unwise ~ freeze the present tax structure in a form that pleases the conservatives, that perpetuates depletion allowance for the big Texan oil campaign contributors, and ‘that smoothes the path for certain recipients of incomes of $200,000 who pay no more tax than a garage mechanic or, perhaps (like 106 individuals in 1970) escape taxes altogether in the wonderful world of tax shelters. Efforts to save the social welfare reforms of Kennedy-Johnson days are met with the aggressive Nixon warning against ‘raising taxes.” The political device involved is enter- tainingly simple and anybody can learn it, and it forms a pattern of Mr. Nixon’s political career. Find a subject of odium and then pin your opponent with it. The transparently honest Rep. Jerry Voorhis wanted to help the poor and he was branded soft-on-Communism. So were those who opposed Vietnam. Today it is those who want to reform the tax structure: they are soft-on-tax increases. And last week there were the soft-on-crime people who wanted to support the Suprene Court’s anti-death sentence decision, and ameliorate the noxious conditions in the ghettoes, but the President blankets them with ‘‘soft-headed judges’ and a ‘permissive philosophy.” There is a modicum of truth in Mr. Nixon’s soft-on-taxes theme and in fairness it should be stated. A flabby Congress has often legislated inefficiently and wastefully. But that is no excuse for perpetuating the present system. There is the frightening specter of a one for Pennsylvania. As it stands, it doesn’t go far enough. . . Back in 1969 the Agriculture Department accepted the Wachsmuth Report. Headed by Curtis B. Wachsmuth of Mechanicsburg, a study committee recommended that farmer relief be coupled with land preservation. The plan was that large farming blocs, perhaps 4,000 acres, be set aside. Farmers par- ticipating would sign 10-year contracts. For lower, assessed-use taxes, they would agree to farm and not sell their land to speculators who would not farm. Farm improvements would be exempt from taxes for the first five years, inheritance taxes on farm land would be cut in half, and utility companies would be restricted to single right-of-way corridors. This plan, unfortunately, has been taxpayers’ revolt. It is that time again - the first robin, and tax form 1040! it is a masochistic exercise to prepare your own income tax; but thersg something rather magnificent about it, ta. %¥t rests on trust in government, trust in fellowmen, trust" in the idea that most men in.mgny circum- stances are comparatively nu America will be a different place if Whe system collapses, as it well may. At recent appearances White House assistant Ehrlichman has tried to frighten the public by implying that if you crack down on the millionaire’s tax shelter you won’t be able to make a $5 tax free gift to the Boy Scouts and so on. It is funny to see oil depletion allowances hiding behind the $700 deduction for each kid. “It makes no sense for a nation with a median family income close to $11,000,” Brookings top tax economist Joseph Pech- man testified to the Ways and Means Com- mittee the other day, ‘to pretend that it cannot take care of its poor in a gignified way, improve its education system jg@move some of the blight from its cities, ana ®pport other public services adequately because it has reached the limits of its taxable capacity. Tax rates are high in this country because certain kinds of income largely escape taxation.” That’s the story, folks. And here I have a mass-mailed business reply card from E.F. Hutton & Company, Inc., first class, pre- stamped. ‘‘Are you interested in tax free income?” it asks me. forgotten. Agreed that it would be difficult to effect and agreed that it is well beyond what most people are thinking, the plan has the ingredients of combining what is best for agriculture with what is best for con- servation. The constitutional amendment scheme, obviously politically popular, just hands out tax benefits with little public land protection in return. Pennsylvania is doing oi to prevent the gobbling up of 115 acres a day. Those who care about beautiful Pennsylvania can see, before their own eyes, what is happening in Dauphin and Cumberland Counties. They know that their children may not have the enjoyment of spaciousness they have had. per year. Call 675-5211 for subscriptions. The officers of Greenstreet News Co. are Edward M. Bush, president; and Doris Mallin, secretary-treasurer. Mrs. T. M. B. Hicks, editor Emeritus J. R. Freeman, managing editor ~ Doris R. Mallin, editor Dan Koze, advertising manager Sylvia Cutler, advertising sales Ea EEA pa
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers