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Friday, March 2, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tax plan
Amendment would offset reappraisal effects by altering sales, personal income tax levels
A clear approach to solving the problems of reappraisal finally has been presented to the Legislature.
Last year the Legislature removed many items from tax rolls to provide a tax break to businesses. It was hoped that the exemptions would offset the effects of reappraisal.
What occurred was a fiasco. Property owners, primarily residential and small business owners, saw their tax bills double and triple. Companies with large inventories such as the Boeing Co. of Wichita and retail stores experienced a reduction in taxes.
With the loss in revenue from inventories, the state had little money to allocate to property owners as a circuit breaker.
State Sens, Phil Martin, D-Pittsburg, and Richard Rock, D-Akansas City, have proposed an amendment, one of 11 introduced this session, that would solve the reappraisal problem for the long term.
The amendment overhauls the Kansas tax system, changing levels of personal income tax and removing exemptions from the sales tax including legal, architectural and medical services, financial, wrecker and towing, and tanning salons.
Sales tax levels would not increase, but the receipts for the general fund would increase. Such a proposal is to be commended for seeking
existing revenue sources and not raising the sales tax.
Although the income tax increase would be unequal across the board, the small amount that it would increase, less than 0.5 percent at most, would not hurt taxpayers and would replace revenue lost to property tax rollback.
Such revenue enhancements would provide a solid base of income for the state in the years to come. By eliminating exemptions, big increases in the tax would not be needed. State and local governments could begin to move away from reliance on property taxes as the sole mechanism for financing day to day operations.
The 10 percent reduction of assessed commercial property is needed and would help small businesses cope with high tax bills.
In retrospect, such a measure should have come last session in the form of several bills, either by not exempting farm machinery and inventories as the Legislature did, or by amending the reappraisal provision to lessen the burden on property owners.
However, in Kansas, the feeling that there is always next year is the rule, not the exception. If this proposal does not solve the tax problem, rest assured the task will be passed on to the 1991 Legislature.
John P. Milburn for the editorial board
Members of the editorial board are Richard Brack, Daniel Niemi, Christopher R. Ralston, John P. Milburn, Liz Hueben, Cory S. Anderson, Angela Baughman, Andres Caveller, Chris Evans, Stephen Kline, Camille Krehbiel, Melanie Matthes, Jennifer Metz and Scott Patty.
Briefly stated
Noriega trial delayed
■ Getting Gen. Manuel Noriega out of Panama was an easy task. Getting him to trial is another. Earlier this week, a federal judge postponed court proceedings for Noriega scheduled for next week and said it might be sometime next year before the case was heard. Meanwhile, Noriega sits in an Atlanta jail. Taxpayers are footing the bill while the trial is delayed.
The United States went to extreme efforts to get the general; the citizens and the general deserve a speedy trial. One would think that
the man was guilty if the United States exerted the effort to go get him and put him behind bars for good.
Liver transplant
The successful liver transplant at the University of Kansas Medical Center is something to be proud of. The ability of the Med Center to provide quality, state-of-the-art procedures to Kansans and the surrounding region is important to the preservation of life. Moreover, the education value of the procedure will help train doctors and nurses for the future.
Bush's education agenda falls short of goals
W that is to be done about education? This question has been asked time and again, but it has been met with
more rhetoric than answers. The latest addition to the long list of politicians who are going to solve our problems is George Bush.
Remember him? He is the education president, or at least that who is he campaigned as in 1988. The lack of the president's initiative toward earning that title is nothing short of amazing. Granted, it is a long and time-wasting task to campaign in campaigns that they do not mean, but that tradition should be no more acceptable now than any other time.
Every child must start school prepared to learn, sound in body and sound in mind.
To be fair, one should give attention to the educational goals that Bush finally unveiled in his State of the Union address. Perhaps one can get some insight into what Bush thinks needs to be done.
Brandt Pasco
The education system has nothing to do with this. Parents should help their kids get prepared for classes by teaching them at home, building their self-esteem and instilling in them an attitude that is conducive to a classroom atmosphere. None of this is anything that the government has had to address.
Staff columnist
The high-school graduation rate in the United States must rise to no less than 90 percent.
On first glance this looks like an ambitious plan. But it's not as ambitious as one might believe. Already, 84 percent of all Americans earn a high-school diploma, or its equivalent.
All students in grades four, eight and 12 will be tested for progress in critical subjects.
by age 24. If this rate were 90 percent, it would be a great thing. It is at least a start in the right direction. This does not seem like much of a goal but rather a checkpoint.
This sounds like a great idea. In fact, it is a great idea if there is unlimited financial backing. Reality should make us back up and take a close look at this one. It typically costs $15 per pupil for multiple-choice, computer-graded examinations. This would add up to quite a sum, but it would work if Americans wanted it. Unfortunately, this type of test encourages straight regurgitation of data without the student demonstrating a thorough understanding of material.
This problem can be corrected by using performance-based tests. Performance-based testing uses essay answers and hands-on experiments. The problem is that this type
of test costs about $50 per student.
Standard computer-graded tests are better indicators than nothing. At least we would have a better idea of what our educational problems were. This idea may be viable.
■ U.S. students must rank first in the world in achievement in mathematics and science
Now here is a goal that makes one sit up and take notice. Judgment on this one should be reserved until we hear more about how future high-school students are to become number one. What is done about this goal will show whether Bush was serious about wanting to be the education president. This is his big chance to come up with a strategy to support his rhetoric.
Every adult must be a skilled, literate worker and citizen, able to compete in a global economy.
This is a tough one. Nice goal, but it sounds sort of pie-in-the-sky. Perhaps there is a way to achieve 100 percent literacy in our nation, but the president is relying too heavily on the
'1,000 points of light' we heard about during the election.
Every school must be drug-free and offer disciplined environment conduct to learners.
It is undeniable that it is hard to learn while on drugs, but, unfortunately, this goal will probably take precedence over the other five. It is not proper to fight drugs in the name of education when that fight takes money away from education programs. The war on drugs has squandered quite enough tax money without expanding into new arenas.
The educational goals stated by President Bush are, in short, irrelevant, not enough, ineffective, too sketty, impractical, or misplaced. The testing idea is good, but it does not solve anything. It is good to know where you stand, and knowledge in itself does not solve anything.
Sorry, George. This plan comes out flat.
▶ Brandt Pasco is a Lawrence sophomore majoring in political science.
While attending the KU-MU basketball game on Feb. 13, I witnessed something almost as difficult to stomach as the defeat. The KU Spirit Squad debuted their new flag — a good idea ruined by someone who values a few dollars more than the integrity of the University of Kansas.
Emblazoned on the blue field of the new flag is "J.C. Penney," almost as prominently as the
KU selling out
"KU" it is under. Where is the Spirit Squat and/or the Athletic Department going to draw the line on selling the esteem of the University to the highest bidder? Maybe they can get Sears to buy a spot on the basketball players' or the Spirit Squat's uniforms, or some space in the middle of the field house floor.
The people responsible for such decisions owe it to the students and the alumni of KU not to commercialize the University at every opportunity. It is a great idea to encourage spirit at basketball games with a KU flag, but selling advertising space on the flag is an embarrassment to the University and to those of us proud to be associated with it.
Margaret Townsend...Business manager
Tami Rank...Retail sales manager
Misey Miller...Compuse sales manager
Kathy Brown...National sales manager
Mike Lehman...National sales manager
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Scott C. Long Lawrence law student
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Parents try to cope with death of child
It was the big annual Chamber of Commerce dinner, and more than 500 men and women had come to the Holiday Inn banquet room. Vincent and Jo Black knew many of the other people in attendance — the Mansfield, Ohio, area is a rather close-kit community — and the conversation before and during the meal was pleasant.
March 15, 1988, Meg Black, 17, was killed in a traffic mishap, the kind sometimes referred to as a freak accident. She and three friends were driving on the highway when their car hit a guardrail. They left the car unhit and ran into another car hit the ice, spun and Meg and her friends. The others were injured, but they survived. Meg died instantly.
At one point, another couple spoke with the Blacks for several minutes and then walked away.
"Their son had a locker next to Meg's," Vincent Black said to his wife. One no one else in the room heard him cry, and which was how the Blacks preferred it.
Bob Greene
Syndicated columnist
Sympathy abounded in Mansfield. But that was almost two years ago, and the Blacks have attempted to continue their lives. Vincent Black.
What happened to the Blacks — the sudden loss of a child — is not uncommon, but it is terrible beyond explanation. Vincent Black firmly believes that one who has not gone through it can't truly understand.
"I will admit right now that I have not gotten over her death," he said. "I know that people expect you to get over it eventually, but it's inconceivable to me that I handle the word on Mer's death. Even the words sound wrong — 'Mer's death.' I know it happened, but I do not accept it. I love my
47, is a school administrator in town,
and at the Chamber of Commerce
dinner he said hello to the many
people he knew.
daughter."
when he is working, he said, he is able to put her out of his mind and deal with the tasks at hand. During meetings, though, she filling his thoughts.
"I don't think that anyone ever really knows what I'm thinking," Blake said later. "At least I hope we will know all learn how to mask things."
"I just have to get up and leave the table," Black said. "Not that they're doing anything wrong — it's perfectly natural for them to talk about their kids. But Meg would have been a student at Ohio University this year, and I am unable to sit there and listen."
"If I'm driving home, and I'm at a stoplight, I'll think of her," he said. "It won't have anything to do with the specific moment at hand. Just a memory of her will come back to me. When Meg was 5, we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and she insisted on eating with chopsticks. I used regular utensils, but Meg was determined to master those chopsticks. Those are the kinds of thoughts that will come back."
He has kept Meg's room pretty much the way it was when she was
Sometimes Black will be sitting at a table with friends, having lunch, and the discussion will turn to the cards and how they are doing at college.
living.
"I know some experts say that you shouldn't do that," he said. "But I can't help it. I feel near Meg when I'm in that room. Her bookshels is still there with all her books and her collection of records. She collected the stuff and stuff clowns. The clowns are there. If I just sit there, I can be there for hours.
CAMP UHNEELY
"But if I pick up one of her school notebooks, it just hurts too much. I'll see her handwriting and the little cartoons she drew in the margins, and 10 minutes is about all I can take before I have to leave."
"Usually I can fall asleep all right," Vincent Black said. "For me, the mornings are the hard part. The alarm will go off, and for a few seconds I'll be greggy. And then I'll remember that Meg is gone and that there is a whole day ahead of me. There are some woods near our house, and Meg and I used to go for walks in the woods together. It is hard for me to go for walks in the woods now."
And then they return home.
Bob Greene is a Chicago Tribune columnist.
EVERYONE ON
ARE MY
CAMPUS KNOWS
LECTURES
THAT IF ANYONE
CAN PUT PEOPLE TO
THAT
SLEEP WITH A
BORING?
LECTURE, YOU CAN
HAVE YOU EVER
CONSIDERED SELLING
TAPES OF YOUR LECTURES
FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE
TROUBLE FALLING
AGILEP?
BY SCOTT PATTY