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Wednesday, April 18. 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Recommended Budget
The Student Senate meets tonight to begin once again the familiar process of adopting a budget. Earlier this week the Finance and Auditing committee of the senate released its recommendations for the budget. It occurred to me that some students might be interested in knowing where their $24-a-year activity fee will go.
Rather than look at the recommended budget in alphabetical sequence, it seems logical that allocations be listed for school groupings, sports clubs and selected other organizations that might be of interest to the University community.
You may make your own assumptions about the budget and should register your approval or disapproval with your student senator. You remember your student senator, don't you?
FINANCE
SCHOOL, AND AUDIENCE
ORGANIZATION RECOMMENDATION
School of Architecture $1,260
Architecture School Council 548
BIBLITICS 367
School of Business 365
Business School Council 365
College of LAHS 9,055
Physic Student Society 9,000
LA&S Program 9,000
(Courses whose instructors are funded by the senate are open to all students.) 371 Education School Council 371 School of Engineering 4,466 School of Engineering (1) 4,466
(For Engineering Exposition)
SCORMEBE 3,305
Military of Fine Arts 65
Music Collections Nat'l Conf. 65
Graduate School 3,728
Graduate School Council 3,728
School of Journalism 0
(The University Daily Kanan receives its allocation outside the school.)
School of Law 9,437
Biology and Law Students Assn. 1,927
Kansas Law Review 1,400
Legal Aid Society 4,975
Nat'l Environmental Law Society 690
Student Bar Assn. 645
School of Pharmacy 18
School of Social Work 1,270
Assn. of Black Social Workers 845
Federation of Student Social Workers 425
Sports Clubs 460
Bicycle Club 165
Rugby Club 145
Soccer Club 150
All others 0
To conclude this list of the budget it should be noted that the Curriculum and Instruction Survey, which finally is reaching a point in completion, is beneficial to the student body, has a recommended allocation of no funds.
The survey now is receiving the attention it should be by promotion and tenure committees of the various schools. There being no other method now to gauge student opinions about their faculty, it is a sorry day to see a recommendation of no funds.
Here you have a glimpse of the proposed Student Senate budget, which was compiled by two education students, two business students, and two College-within-the-College students and one graduate student.
Recommended funds for the various schools seem disproportionate, sports organizations received little or no funding and few organizations listed in the budget are accessible to most students.
Admittedly the senate finance committee had a difficult task. Not all groups could be funded. But the manner in which school-related projects are funded lead me to ask if in fact a proportional budget, philosophy existed.
Student services, the Emporium or emergency rooms seem to have suffered overly.
So student senators and students, read the budget and voice your concerns. Maybe the disproportionate allotment of funds toward interest groups will be shifted by increasing greater all-campus involvement. Once this was considered to be an all-student activity fee.
R. E. Duncan
WASHINGTON - In secret testimony before the grand jury, Watergate defendant James McCormick pleaded to be conspirator, Howard Hunt, last July feared the President's campaign chiefs were abandoning them and wrote a three-page letter to the president, someone in the White House. "
The grand jury is trying to track down who authorized the payments and whether the money was intended to buy the property or to purchase it to obstruct justice, of course, is a serious federal violation.
As McCord related it to the grand jury, he received a phone call around July 20 from Hunt. He asked me," McCord said, "What came away from the house, where I could call him, which I did. . . .
Thereafter, money allegedly was delivered to Hunt's attorney, William O. Bittman, for distribution to the defendants. Murt, Hunt, acting as the courier, arranged to meet McCord at various places and slip him cash into his account. He received around $45,000 after the Watergate break-in for "salary" and legal expenses.
"He felt the Committee to Relect the President (was) trying to do him in and to do us in for good and to put us away and abandon us. This was his, almost his exact words."
"And he said that he was going to do, well, what words to the effect that he was going to now deal with," he said in dealing with the committees.
McCord said he, too, felt "they were more interested in keeping us in jail than they were in getting them back." McCord afraid we afraid might talk."
McCord later learned from Mrs. Hunt that her husband had written a three-page letter which was read to the campaign committee's attorney, Kenneth W. Parkinson. McCord accounted, "She said that when Bitman the lawyer for Parkinson that Hunt wanted to contact someone in the White House, Parkinson said, 'Give us a week.' And Hunt came back and said, 'No, you get two days.'
Nixon Clinches 'Glorious' Victory
WASHINGTON - Republicans chalked up a victory in the House last week that has to be described - in the conservative view, at least - as nothing short of glorious. By a stunning vote of 225-188, the House refused to override President Nixon's nico
James J.
Kilpatrick
(C) 1973 Washington State University, Inc.
of the rural water and sewer program. The big spenders were routed, horse, foot and dragoon.
The victory was pleasant in at least three ways. It marked new cohesion in Republican ranks. It brought an end to a federal law without justification. And it argued for the President's determined bid to keep a lid on federal spending.
Minority Leader Gerald Ford, commanding the President's cohort, had counted on 165 votes. This would have been enough to convince the Republicans to constituted a sweet victory in itself. To his surprise, he wound up with 189. The staggered Democrats were 51 short of the two-thirds necessary to override. Speaker Carl Albert, gazing at the crowd, looked down of a quarterback rudeness dumped by the Dolphins' line.
Ford lost only 24 of the 185 Republicans who voted on the question. For the most part, the part that were Republican from predominantly white circles in Andrews of North Dakota, for example, and Wampler of Virginia, whose positions were readily understood. Otherwise, it was a more difficult effort. It was a superb piece of political generalism on his part.
The water-sweater program provides a textbook example of the truism that within the forests the budget, mighty oaks from little towns, can program started in 1961 as an act to provide loans for water
munities of less than 5,000. In that fiscal year 384 systems qualified for aid amounting to $50 million
that these services are primarily local in nature, and should be primarily a local responsibility, just as local communities pay for their own garbage services and fire protection. Resurrection of the program would serve only to keep it safe, not to aside local authorities for the increasingly powerful federal government."
Nixon was plainly right in his opposition to the program. To be sure, it has its appealing aspects. Clarke县 State Va., for example, built Millwood last year got an outright grant of $210,000, plus a 40-year $5 per cent loan of $135,000 to build a water and sewer system serving 228 families. The community of San Andreas, the city where Millwood grants of $200,000 and a loan of $500,000 for a water system serving roughly 1,000 families. Without such federal aid, proponents contend, Millwood and San Andreas would be denied the land and water they need. But such problems and needs are universal and they are no proper business of the federal government. "For many years," as Nixon said in his veto speech, "they have proudly financed and built their own water and sewer facilities. They have recognized
By fiscal '71, some 1,400 communities were leaping aboard a $300 million gravy train. Last year Congress voted to make communities of up to eligible for even greater grants and loans. Early in January, Nixon blew the whistle. He impounded $120 million in grant funds. When Congress sent him a vicepresident cised his veto power; and it wove its veto that the housing sustained.
McCord Depicts a Fearful Hunt
Last week's victory was Nixon's second such win. Earlier, to the amazement of many observers, the Senate had sustained a 56-42 vote in popular bill for vocational rehabilitation. With the House
Jack Anderson
One final point: Nixon is catching heavy flak these days for "exceeding his constitutional powers and some of the threats he faces, bombing of Cambodia and to his abuse of executive privilege—may have considerable merit. But the veto power is his. The constitution gives it to him. And it is time to restrain the lush growth of our federal jungles, he is using it wisely and well.
action on the rural sewer and water grants, he stands in an excellent position to keep his budget ceiling firmly in place.
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Not long afterward, Mrs. Hunt, using the code name "Cris" called to arrange the first transfer of funds, "I went over to her office and I told her to velope and she said, 'This is the payment for your salary for five months, beginning in July and throughout whatever it is—I think it was a little girl.'" I asked her if she wanted a receipt and she said — "".
"I asked her if she wanted a receipt and she said, no, it was not necessary, that she would be making an accounting to Mr. Bittman for it." McCord also talked to her about legal fees. He did not want the reporter reported back to him later. "If you're going to keep quiet."
Still later, Hunt brought up the same question with him directly. Testified McCord: "Hunt) said, we have legal fee money for us to run around, what goes along with it?". He has way, 'everybody's naturally interested in knowing whether you're going to keep quiet."
Mecord said he felt this was merely a maneuver to keep him quiet until the election, so he put money in his pocket and decided to go ahead and take the legal fee money." But he refused to be bound if the legal fees were offered "as a weapon to keep us from saying, anything." Hunt to go ahead and take (the money) and we'll see what happens."
The question came up again at a meeting with Mrs. Hunt on Nov. 30. As McCord interpreted the conversation, "essentially there wasn't going to be any more pressure," he agreed to plead guilty and take agreement clemency at a later time and keep your mouth shut."
He quoted her as saying, "they want to know if more than one year can be saved in jail for more than one year, and then executive clemency." McCord turned down the deal, but he argued that she not guilty and fight the case.
"And she repeated this to me three more times." he recalled.
"and it was in the context or,
well, I'm not sure they're going to give you any more money."
"The meaning was very clear, that "Unless you agree to go along with this, you can forget about any further legal fee money, or any other salary continuance." And I said, "whatever will be will be."
gate ringleader, McCord quoted MHS. Ursant say she had been told "that there were now plans to charge Liddy. Some type of plans are under way to charge Liddy stole the money and bribed the operation, to perform the operation. I said, and pass the word that I won't stand for that. . . it isn't true. It's not the way it happened." Parkinson has denied any role in getting money to the defendants. Bittman said, "We have consistently been silent on any allegations in the case. I see no reason at all to change that policy at this time."
After the break-in squand was arrested in Democratic party headquarters, McCord testified, higher-use first wanted to blame it on CIA, but neither Hunt or Gannon said that cover story. Then there was talk about blaming the whole affair on Gordon Liddy, the Water-
Copyright, 1973,
by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
I'll agree. It does indeed sound like that.
Perhaps it is beyond Kilpatrick's research capabilities to consult the Wall Street Journal or the Commercial Bank for guidance directly to the reports of the bond rating agencies, Standard and
Readers Respond :
Prof Disputes Kilpatrick's Logic
Using his rabbit-out-of-hat and income tax bracket figures, Kilpatrick concludes that: "The wealthy individual who bought the $400 he would have had at 4 per cent. If he's then taxed at a 50 per cent rate, he still has the $400 he would have had to begin with. It sounds like something out of cost and Costole, or the Marx Brothers gone to the races."
To the Editor:
To prove that the very rich should be allowed to enjoy this special tax exemption privilege, we must use three basic assumptions, all of which are false: the taxpayers who buy municipal bonds are in a 50 cent federal income tax bracket; that the taxpayer owns a municipal bond is "say four cents;" and that fully taxed bonds "would cost me, 8 per cent." Why "say 4 per cent" and why "say, 8 per cent," doesn't Kuliparchit cical actual hypothetical rates?
Over the years I have read a seemingly endless number of rationalizations as to why the bonds of states, municipalities and other local governmental jurisdictions should be exempt from federal income taxes. The latest of these pleadings for the attention to come to my attention in the Kulipatrick's "Tax Loopholes Have Two Sides," printed in the April 9 Kansan.
Poors or Moodys, or to obtain actual rate data.
On a recent date the rates of new issues of Aaa rated municipal and corporate bonds in 2014 were 6.35 per cent and 7.50 per cent respectively. The spread between taxable bonds and comparable credit nontaxable was therefore 9.45 per cent per cent Kilpatrick conjured up.
His assumption of a 50 per cent tax bracket for the municipal bond purchaser is equally accurate as that for the tax exempt municipals are sold to commercial banks and individuals in tax brackets of 48 per cent for the banks and up to 70 per cent for the government. He does not pay individuals in the lower tax brackets to buy tax exemps. The average tax bracket for the purchaser of municipals is closer to 50 per cent than to 50 per cent.
But the argument against continuing this tax loophole is valid at a rate of 50 per cent or any other rate that enables the taxpayer to avoid tax burdens to the shoulders of the lower income groups.
The real question of course is not, as Kilpatrick states, that municipal borrowing costs would be increased if the exemption
The increased cost to
municipalities is $22.50 per year
per $1,000 of indebtedness (.075-
0.525) 1000. And the increased
federal taxes which would be
the rich, if there were no
nax tax exemption would be $7.50 per
year per $1000 invested. (.075
(50) 1000).
Using Kulipatrick's 50 per cent tax bracket assumption and the correct figures on interest rates) we find that the tax advantage to using a tax-free scheme is examples of $15 per year (50% invested, (0.625, -075, (50) 100).
from federal income taxes were eliminated. Rather the question is the fairness of the total tax burden, federal, state and local, as distributed among individual taxpayers. It is an institutional fallacy to discuss tax burdens in terms of municipal or other local taxation. Individual Taxes, all taxes, are paid directly or indirectly by people, and we are all federal as well as local taxpayers.
From the above calculations we can conclude, therefore, that local borrowing costs (and taxes) are about $2.50 per year per $1000 borrowed if tax exemptions were eliminated. At the same time, however, federal axes would be reduced by $7.35 and the government would position to profit through investment in tax exempt bonds. The net tax reduction to the lower income groups is thus $15 per person, which would reduce indebtedness, ($7.50-$22.50).
A more accurate figure (than the $15 figure cited above) of the intent to which the total tax burden would be shifted from the lowest to the highest income groups would be 28 percent per £1000 of local in-lobedness. This assumes that he average tax bracket of the
present holders of municipals is about 60 per cent.
At the end of 1971 state and local indebtedness amounted to approximately $173 billion. Total indebtedness is now probably in excess of $200 billion. In other words, it was one of the very rich of this anachronism of tax exempt bonds at least $4 billion a year.
Eliminating tax exempt bonds, however, could not constitutionally be made retroactive, and would therefore be only marginally beneficial to the lower income groups for many reasons. It is not an argument against the elimination of tax exempts; rather it is an argument that this reform is long overdue.
Kilpatrick, exhibiting his usual economic naive argues that, "Because of the attractiveness of the tax exempt feature, municipalities have been able to market billions of dollars of bonds." This he says, "is how much money we have to spend. It should come as a great purpose to Kilpatrick, therefore, to learn that all things can be bought and in a market at a price, even fully taxable bonds.
Leland J. Pritchard Professor of Economics
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Griff and the Unicorn
By Sokoloff