UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of February 5, 1979 Carlin must follow suit After lying relatively dormant for the first few weeks of its session, the Kansas Legislature erupted in a flurry of activity late last week. Included in that flurry was approval by the Kansas House of a bill to remove the 3 percent sales tax on food. The bill would apply to most groceries, except such things as beer and cigarettes. It is estimated that if approved, the bill could save a family of four that spends $75 a week on groceries up to $117 yearly. HOWEVER, the bill has been opposed by Gov. John Carlin, who says the state cannot afford the cut in tax revenues that would result from the The elimination of the sales tax would cut state revenues by as much as $45 million a year. Nevertheless, Carlin is not totally against the idea of tax cuts. He simply has another preference for the form the cuts should take. Carlin prefers that property tax relief come before sales tax relief, and has intimated it may heve the sales tax bill if it reaches his desk. Apparently Carlin feels the loss of state revenue from the property tax relief would not be as harmful to the state budget as the loss of revenue from the sales tax relief. That would leave Carlin with the responsibility of approving or vetting the bill, perhaps providing the public with an initial glimpse of how responsive he will be to their needs and wishes. The House's decision to eliminate the 3 percent sales tax on food is a sound and fair one. Carlin's continued opposition to the action should not intimidate the Senate from following the lead of the House and passing the bill. UNFORTUNATELY, sales taxes are perhaps the most regressive of all taxes, because the burden of taxation falls most heavily on the poor, who are the least able to pay. It is not a responsibility that Carlin should take lightly. Both the public and the Legislature have shown their displeasure with the sales tax. Carlin should follow their lead. Amtrak service cutback could haunt consumer The federal bureaucracy is constantly ridiculed for moving slowly through mazes of red tape in future attempts to solve its problems, and they have become severe, rather than before. It is a familiar sight. The public calls for action in the face of a crisis, such as oil shortages or nearly extinct wildlife. Then, a shambling old bureaucracy hauls itself to its feet and sets into motion a study of the problem. Usually bureaucracy's laggardiness is criticized after the fact. Now the public has an opportunity to watch the whole process on the issue of mass transportation, from the development of the problem to the bureaucracy's ineffectual response. Following studies, recommendations, refutations, arguments and decisions, something is finally done and the bureaucracy claims victory. Unfortunately, years may have elapsed since the problem was first noted. A report recently released by the Department of Energy predicted gasoline prices would increase at least nine to 12 cents by 1980. Long distance automobile travelers, and all automobile owners, need to look for other means of transportation. After many years, the gasoline-consuming automobile will have to be phased out, with the preliminary efforts beginning now. But currently the opposite is true. The government is discouraging the development of federally-supported mass transports and the nation's dependence on foreign oil. IN THE FACE of rising oil and gasoline prices and the increased import costs of foreign automobiles, it seems a more balanced system will become mandatory in the future. But, many will find no economic way to travel if proposed cuts in Amtrak's railway service go into effect Oct. 1. Transportation officials say the company is cutting 11,800 miles of Amtrak's service, Jake Thompson which would be 43 percent of its present total. THE STATES of Alabama, Arkansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Vermont would be either without passenger service under the state's law or Wichita, the arrest city in Kansas. The most energy-efficient method of intercity travel would disappear, forcing the use of planes. Cutting Amtrak's service now will only return to haunt the federal bureaucracy when oil production and import costs rise to projected heights. The increasing demand for fuel will allow the industry through a naturally dwindling supply or through international political pressure. A national railway system, similar to one already operating throughout Europe, wouldless the nation's dependence on foreign and domestic oil. BUT IF Amtrak's service is cut now, the federal bureaucracy will have to work twice as hard. It will be in the railway system. The government will be creating its own problems, which is certainly not wise considering the overwhelming amount of problems it already has. Will Congress allow the federal bureaucracy to paint itself into a corner by cutting Amtrak's service now in an attempt to save money, only to pay twice as much later when an efficient transportation system must be built again. The federal bureaucracy's method of saving money is obviously a shallow means of solving the problem of transportation and its costs. If Amtrak cuts back, it will cause more problems and produce more costs than Adams is currently considering. KANSAN THE UNIVERSITY DAILY Sind changes of address to the University Daily Kansas, Flint Hall. The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 60045 (USPS 650-640) Published at the University of Kansas daily August through May and September; published in print by The University of Kansas Second-class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas 60640. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $2 a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $2 a semester, passed through the student office. Editor Barry Massy Managing Editor Dick Staline Editorial Editor John Whistle Campus Editor Mary Houlk Associate Campus Editor Campus Editor Carol Hunter, David Link Graphics Editor Diane Porter Make-up Editors Mary Thorburn, Sandy Herd Newry Associate Sports Editor Linda Finestone, Paul Southerland Johan Tharp Wire Editors Cyril Hughes, Barb Korke, Carciot Wire Editors Mary Houlk, Giorgia, Vincent Smith, Joe Thompson Lori Lumberger, John Tharp Chief Photographer Anthony Skunk Chief Cartoonist Bill Frakes, Trish Lewis, Barbara Kinney Dan Martin Grain Business Manager Karen Wenderott Retail Sales Manager Ron Altman National Advertising Manager Bri Harley Classified Aircraft Manager Katy McMahon Assistant Classified Advertising Manager Duncan Butler Advertising Make-up Manager Jack Knopf Staff Artist Dalia Cavanos Stuff Photographer Grant Bunker Representative Manager Jake Sales Representatives Allan Blair, Paul Knoll, Jane Knolls Brand Reporter Brandon Burns, Curtis Alter Blair, Paul Knoll, Jane Kneufs Brenda Paxton, Cindy Ray, Alison Reynolds, Joanne Smith Advertising Adviser Chuck Chowins General Manager Rick Musser Health care a right, not a privilege Suppose that education in the United States were a privilege—as health care current is—and were available only to those who could afford it or who were destitute enough to receive meager federal help to attain Suppose that 30,000 to 45,000 Americans each year found it impossible to meet educational costs because of an almost 1,000 percent increase in those costs in the past 25 years. Then suppose that in many areas there were no teachers because the schools of education in the United States severely limited the number of qualified applicants that were aceremed into these schools each year. suppositions are often ridiculous. Of course this supposition could not happen because the American people have accepted, and believe in, education as a right instead of as a privilege. BUT AFTER more than 208 years, universal health care in the United States still is considered not only less of a given right than universal education—it has been considered a privilege. Indeed, the statistics of the health care problem alone point out the inadequacies of the present system and the need for an alternative that will establish good health care as a right. The urgency for an alternative can be seen by some of these alarming figures: - Although nearly 80 percent of the population has some form of private insurance, in 1973 private insurance paid for 25 percent of the population. - About one-half of all private insurance policies limit total benefits to $10,000 or less in a lifetime, and two-thirds limit benefits to $25,000 or less in a lifetime. - THE NATIONAL Cancer Foundation estimates that a major illness can bankrupt the average family in less than - In 1976, the average American spent almost 12 percent of his income on health costs. - **Nearly 45 million Americans live in areas where there are too few doctors to treat them. Most of them are poor, and in some slum areas the problem has grown so bad that there is only one doctor for every 100,000 people.** - Between 1950 and 1975, health care costs rose more than 1.00 percent. From $10.4 billion to $118.5 billion. - The Department of Health, Education and Welfare estimates that to provide all Americans with adequate health care, an additional 50,000 physicians, 20,000 dentists and 150,000 registered nurses are needed. And the figures would be even worse if the 20 percent of America's doctors who were foreign-born had not chosen to come to the U.S. BUT THE doctor shortage problem is a self-inflicted one. The Commission on Physicians for the Future reports some 1,000 quacked candidates are rejected by the commission. The list goes on and on. And the more one reads, the more unbelievable the situation becomes. Finally, however, some effort has been made to correct the situation, and it has come in the form of a national bank. President Carter had made a pledge to Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., in December that he would reaffirm his commitment to the 1976 Democratic party platform's promise to make an emergency insurance system with universal and mandatory coverage." And last week Carter came very close to fulfilling that goal when he tentatively proposed a national benefit scheme. THE PROGRAM, called HealthCare, would sometimes down the road guarantee every American the same basic protection against illness, either through a federal-ally-approved insurance policy or a government-run program. The plan would require everyone to carry a standard benefit package that would pay at least 75 percent of the cost of all hospital bills; physician's fees; prescription drugs; out-patient, laboratory and X-ray services; and treatment for alcoholics, drug addicts and the mental ill. AND THE PLAN also would clamp government controls on hospital and doctors' fees and therefore reduce the cost of the program, which is expected to run near $40 However, the American Medical Association, persistently one of the top lobbying groups in the nation, has pledged a strong fight to block any national health insurance program. In fact, from 1949 to 1952, the group successfully blocked that was thought to be a popular national health insurance plan. DURING THE summer of 1976, the AMA gave $140,250 in political contributions to congressmen from the state of Oklahoma. Since World War II, the AMA has lobbied against public health vaccinations to fight diphtheria, venereal disease clinics, health insurance of any kind, group practices, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, social security and Medicare programs. During those years, the AMA spent $4,578,000 to defeat the plan. Indeed, there is something of a restriction—but it is restriction that the government must impose to combat the soaring health care costs brought about by the same medical community that now demands better treatment. And their track record does not end there. However, despite the AMA's continued opposition to national health insurance, $1 percent of America's doctors Already, no doubt, the AMA has gotten its strong lobbying forces out to persuade congressmen that the plan is Perhaps that 51 percent have realized that some changes are going to have to be made. CARTER'S PROGRAM, particularly because it is being implemented over an unspecified number of years, may be the program that will finally bring the medical community together with those who oppose the present system. National health insurance is on its way in—assuming, that is, that it won't be blasted away by AMA money as it has been before. And the important, overriding principle of insurance is that people should be accepted by all factions of the American public. The principle is that good medical care for every American is a right, not a privilege. BY FRANK GOHRE N.Y. Times Feature Bv FRANK GOHLKE WICHITA FALLS, Texas—When I first began to photograph grain elevators in 1972, they were little more to me than libraries of forms, textures and modulations of light that I could make into pictures. In the area of Minnesota where I lived there were a couple of elevators in town that was in fact a whole city within the city, built for grain instead of people. After a time the awesome scale of the structures, which had drawn them to them in their own way, was lost. There were some obvious or easily uncovered facts that seemed like answers: Grain elevators are big because a lot of grain is grown in America. Tall, narrow containers make sense because they protect the grain (very little surface area is exposed to gravity) and gravity is required to get the grain out (they unload from the bottom). GRANIARIES BEGAN to grow tall in the 1800s, when the vertical bucket conveyor belt (the elevator) was invented. They were huge boxes constructed of thick planks and heavy steel beams. When they gone now, being prone to fires and explosions and thus impossible to insure. The new technology was refined and perfected rapidly, and what we now think of as the characteristic grain elevator shape is a horizontal west and in every port and distribution center. By 1910 they were so common that European architects could point to them as quintessentially American buildings, the offspring of technical ingenuity and pragmatic, functional aesthetics, on whose ground only modern architecture might be modeled. BUT MY researches, such as they were, only made the surface of things more detailed. The grain elevators themselves seemed to stand behind this accumulation of light illuminated by some light whose source I had not yet located. It was only when I began to travel the prairies that I saw the connections I had sensed must be there. I realized that space out there was not a passive container of objects but an active force in the landscape. Now when I drove the plains of Kansas or the Texas Panhandle, I felt the presence of space rather than the absence of things. I savored the distance from where I stood to the horizon. I found myself building a house on top of an old, overboxed, anything to get higher and see more. Finally I took the obvious, ultimate step and assumed the definite prairie vantage point at the top of the grain elevator, army Tent. IT HAD BEEN a hot, clear, brilliant day, the constant wind surprisingly gentle, and in the middle of the afternoon high, puffy clouds had begun to move slowly across the sky. I had been in motion for a sation; it was as if all the bonds that kept me together and separated from my surroundings had dissolved and the matter in my body was racing toward the horizon; at the same time, I was holding it, as if to take myself as compact and was holding it, as if to make myself as compact and solid as possible. The view back toward the grain elevator may not be as overwhelming as the view from the top, but for the inhabitants it is more central, and it includes more. The vastness of the space that surrounds the grain elevator directly proportional to the space it contains. The connections between them are as straightforward as the yield of the land or the price of the stones, but as the monoliths of Easter island or the mute circle of Stonehaven. In order for the world the gram elevator serves to function and prosper, the space inside must be filled and emptied in the same way that the growth, ripening and harvest of the grain. Vertical storage has real advantages, but it is nevertheless a choice worth remarking in places where there is little else but horizontal snace. IF THE storage and distribution of grain were the only functions the elevators served, however, they would not have the prominence within the landscape that they do. A community of practical farmers does the same: a tower 100 feet tail for the sake of a view. Perhaps they remind people what vertical is. A friend of mine who grew up in South Dakota told me that the grain elevators were necessary simply for orientation; the roads run straight along the section lines. You can almost always see an elevator that provides relief for eyes desperate for something to fix on; it tells you where you are. THE MONUMENTS of other cultures propigate the dead, curry favor with unpredictable gods, commemorate great feats of arms, or direct us to the contemplation of a better life beyond this one. Their purpose is to present a moment our connection with the everyday. The great distances and sparse population of the Midwest seem to have strengthened the sense of community rather than eroded it. The large scale of the instrumental in that process. Many elevators are owned cooperatively by the farmers whose produce fills them. Like the grain itself, the shared knowledge of generations is collected and dispersed at the elevator. PHYSICAL orientation is never far distant from spiritual orientation. When a woman in Plainview, Tex., told me: "Our churches don't need tail steeves; we have the grain elevators," she meant that the grain elevator had taken over the steeple's function not only as landmark, but also as tool and measure of the soul's aspiration. Grain elevators exist in the present, testaments to the timeless but immediately crucial powers of soil and sun, water and earth. Soil can be harvested next year his harvest, not eternity. They inspire a kind of democratical awe, which takes account of the ordinary people with their ordinary motives behind these far-from-ordinary structures. The dignity of grain elevators, the precision, intelligence and grace of their formal language, their majestic presence within the landscape all seem to confirm the faith that, given the right circumstances, we make a kitchen photo of grain elevators in their photographs of grain elevators are on exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Letters Policy The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters 'to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affluent, it would be wise to should include the writer's class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansan reserves the right to ^dit jetters for publication.