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Tuesday, February 5, 1991 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Finney's tax plan Her ideas about exemptions have many flaws The largest? Positive results are very uncertain
Imagine paying a tax on the money you gave to a babysitter. Or how about being taxed for a haircut, a long-distance phone call or a cookie at a bake sale? It doesn't take much imagining for the governor of Kansas.
On the campaign trail last year, Joan Finney proposed a sales tax plan that would eliminate more than 100 sales tax exemptions now included in Kansas law. She told Kansans that the plan would generate $664 million for the state. But many people who listened said the effects of taxing items that are now exempt would drive businesses into other states, where buyers could use more of their services without being taxed.
In her state of the state address in January. Finney reiterated her plan to go to the Legislature this session with the tax proposal. And many legislators, business people and taxpayers still are convinced that her plan would have harmful results on the state's already tight budget.
The largest problem in Finney's proposal is that few lawmakers or business people can predict whether this proposal would have any positive effects.
The loopholes in her plan to generate new money for the state are abundant.
State officials have estimated that under the proposal each Kansas taxpayer would pay an extra $300 a year for these newly taxed services.
Finney said the money generated from the new sales taxes would relieve residents' property taxes an average of 30 percent statewide. It is futile and deceptive for the state to give taxpayers a break on their
property taxes only to take it back in the form of a sales tax.
Also, if the tax were approved by lawmakers, many business people claim they would not hire or expand, and those that are mobile say they would consider moving to Missouri or another state. Kansas already is losing one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives because of a low increase in state population and a shrinking economy. Finney's proposal indicates that business people might continue this trend.
Lastly, Finney has not offered any alternative proposal to generate money for the state. Instead, she has left the Legislature in a "do or die" situation. She said that if legislators did not like her plan, it would be up to them to come up with something different. If the Legislature takes her up on the offer, Finney can relinquish herself from any blame if the fiscal scene in Kansas is no better in four years.
Finney's sales tax proposal to relieve property taxes for Kansas residents is a sham. There are few guarantees that taxpayers would be saving any money, and the unpredictable effects it could have on business in the state are dangerous. Perhaps there is no feasible way to reimburse those property tax victims of the Mike Hayden era. Certainly, all Kansans should not have to pay unnecessary sales taxes so that Finney can ease the minds of a few voters who got the raw end of the property tax deal during Hayden's term.
Carol Krekeler for the editorial board
New liquor law
Stores should have choice to accept credit cards
Customers would be able to use credit cards to buy alcohol at liquor stores if a proposal introduced in the Kansas House last week is passed. Now, liquor stores can accept only cash or checks for alcohol purchases.
The bill would lift a prohibition in effect since 1949, when Kansas first allowed the sale of liquor from package stores.
This proposal should become law. Rep. Kathleen Sebelius, D-Topeka, representative of the committee sponsoring the bill, says retail liquor dealers want the legislation to provide customers a convenience. Dealers also want the same advantage as most other retail businesses and want to cut back on the number of bad checks they receive.
Critics of the proposal warn that heavy drinkers and alcoholics would face even greater problems if they could use credit cards. Kansan for Life at its Best!, an anti-liquor organization, says that any law making it easier to drink is a step in the wrong direction.
A liquor store owner runs a business and should have the same rights as other business owners. Missouri does not have a credit card prohibition. Owners decide whether to accept credit as a form of payment. This creates a disadvantage for Kansas liquor stores near the state line when people choose to enter Missouri to make large purchases with a credit card.
The state should not limit the rights of responsible drinkers on the chance that it might deter a few irresponsible ones. Unfortunately, some people always will misuse alcohol. But they will misuse it whether they use cash, check or credit to buy it.
Kansas lawmakers decided several years ago that people 21 and over are old enough to buy alcohol. They now must realize that dealers who provide alcohol run a business. Credit cards have become an efficient means of transaction for many products, and owners should have the option to accept them.
Permitting credit at liquor stores would take away the unfair disadvantage owners have and would be a convenience for those with a right to buy alcohol.
Melanie Botts for the editorial board
Today's children need peace, education for world of future
Mike said that our African-American population suffers so much in today's society because we do not provide them with adequate education. How can we expedite trees to bear fruit without first watering beer roots?
When I was little, I often heard Bible stories about the stubborn cruelty of an Egyptian pharaoh. Apparently, this guy forced his Israelite slaves to make brick without straw. This did not seem like such a horrible injustice to me, at the time. In the fashion of a true capitalist child, I wondered why the Israelites couldn't just contract out for the straw. Like any other man, I missed the moral of this one. I suppose it is because that culture is alien to my American wavs.
The other day, I was explaining to my roommate why I think we shouldn't be killed people in the Middle East. He interrupted me, though and asked, "Would you rather have Saddam controlling most of the world's oil supply and pointing hundreds of ICBM's at our apartment?"
My reply really impressed him:
"Uhhh . er . . duh . . I guess you're right."
Then it clicked. Bricks without straw. Educated people without educations. How can we expect one without the other? We can't. Stumbling upon this new analogy, I was quite self-contented. I was eager to learn how to make a smart point. Where else might I use this little gem to solve world problems and iron out rampant chaos and stupidity? Hmmm ...
However, this vignette took on new meanings for me when I recently heard our student body president, Mike Shreiner, speak at a banquet commemorating the life of Martin Luther King Jr.
I had nothing to say, for the most part, because I couldn't think of any real alternatives to war. Can anyone? Enforcing economic sanctions would only starve the Iraqi population. Saddam would assuredly laugh
Erik Ostermueller
Guest columnist
as his people starved while he gav
anted around the Arab world playing
Nanoleon.
Then it clicked again. Bricks without straw. Educated people without educations. Peace without peace-makers. How can we expect peace without peace-makers? We can't. Not now, at least. Much to our detriment, many power-grappling institutions that advocate war choke our country's hope for peace. They are highly influential and are either directed, financed or supported by our proud country. However, those institutions that support peace are fiscally strangled by our proud country and are without significant influence.
Let's see how the odds are stacking up: We have the Peace Corps, Greenpeace and Amnesty International. We have Dick Gephardt, peace protesters and I guess that's about it on the peace side of things.
Let's check out the war (slaughter) side of things. They have the Department of Defense (Offense), the CIA and the NSC. The Navy, the Army and Ollie North. The Marines, the Air Force and fifty National Guards (I'll spare you the listing). McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed and all the rest. The odds are obviously stacked in war's favor. For the skeptic, time, war has a few redeeming values: The Army Corps of Engineers helps to build civic projects, and spin off war technology aids industries unrelated to premeditated death and destruction.
Let's look at the not-so-positive things about our nation's mammoth investment in war (death): Our children learn problem-solving from GI Joe and Robocop instead of Gandhi or King. Our industries and labor force thrive on military contracts
and we pay to see war at the movies. Our Department of Defense (Offense) is the conductor of a multi-billion dollar institution that designs innovative ways to kill people and to destroy things.
What do we get from this trillion dollar investment? We get Saddam's nose out of Kuwait and lots of oil for ourselves. A nice, but short term benefit. We get to spend billions of dollars destroying billion-dollar military equipment and personnel that we and our allies have supplied to Iraq. Then, when we finish stripping it off, we get other medical supplies and other conveniences, we get to spend many more billions of dollars rebuilding everything we destroyed on those neat sorties (missions of death).
I'm embarrassed that this is the best solution our country can come up with for such a problem. Simply protesting against our government, the mother of modern war, will certainly relieve frustration and anger, but it will not change much. You, the unorganized peacemakers of the world must accept tough challenges: Teach your children peace, not GI Joe. Become part of our government and have lots of important votes for peace instead of few insignificant ones. Refocus technology's frontiers away from weapons that destroy societies and toward advancements that enrich them. Inspire the masses to thirst for peace and develop a real, peaceful alternative to war. Provide educations for the uneducated and straw to build bricks.
I will only mention the loss of human lives that this investment brings home to us. The problem here is self-evident. Last, but not least, while driving ourselves into spiraling debt and ignoring catastrophic problems on the home-front, this investment allows us to piss off an entire nation and its allies who do not seem too likely to forgive and forget.
Erik Ostermueller is a senior major ing in computer science.
Effective teenage pregnancy preventions needed
In 1899, Kansas teenagers had 1,488 babies. One new mother was just 10.
Only about 4 percent of babies born to single teen and preemothers are relinquished for adoption. In 1985, Kansas legislators spent about $144 million on aid to Families with Dependent Children, food stamps and Medicaid for families started when the mother was under 20.
Those huge public costs of teen and preteen learning likely are higher now. More state money is spent on such families through child care, housing, education and other related programs.
Michael Brown
Guest columnist
The Kansas picture may get worse if we do not use more effective teenage pregnancy-prevention pro-grams.
In 1989, Kansas taxpayers helped pay the $2.15 billion that went to AFDC, food stamps and Medicaid for U.S. teen families.
abortions, including 38 second or third abortions.
The media reported that a parental-notification bill would be introduced in the 1991 Kansas Legislature. Preventing abortions for pregnant minors likely would add to the state taxpayers' already-high price of school-age parenting. However, preventing school-age abortions by reducing pregnancies among minors would slash that public expense.
For example, a women's group, along with students' parents, helped a program in Denmark, S.C., in 1982. In some cases, the rate by a starting 63 percent.
In 1989, Kansas teenagers had 488
'The Kansas picture may get worse if we do not use more effective teenage pregnancy-prevention programs.'
Because of the program the rate of pregnancy fell even more in the next two years.
Effectively helping Kansas school-age teenagers to prevent unplanned pregnancies would reduce the number of school-age parents, lower the number of abortions among minors and probably reduce the numbers of
sexually spread infections.
The Children's Subcommittee of the Social and Rehabilitation Services Task Force voted to introduce in the 1991 Kansas Legislature a bill that would implement locally funded school-age pregnancy prevention program in one or more Kansas sites.
Readers can write letters with suggestions or testify before the pertinent legislative committees on how they think the bill should contain
Michael Brown is a Topeka graduate student.
Other Voices
Germany offers little
The biggest disappointment, before and now, is Germany, whose total contribution to the allied effort (in the Persian Gulf War) so far is $272 million in cash and $80 million in kind. The US-backed coalition exas East Germany army that it no longer needs.
However, these are but paltry gestures from the richest, biggest country in Europe.
From the Straits Times, Singapore
by David Rosenfield
KANSAN STAFF
CHRIS SIRON
CHRIST SIRON
Editor
RICH CORNELL
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
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Business staff
Editors Business staff
News. Malenia Matthes Campus sales mgr. Sophie Wiehne
Editorial. Tiffany Harness Regional sales mgr. Cammus Drench
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Sports. Ann Bommerthal Kali Engler Marketing director. Kait Enkholder.
Photography. Melissa Unterberg Creative manager. Chrysta Hlats
Graphics. Jill Hartingman Classified manager. Kim Crowder
Features. Jill Hartingman
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