Page 12/The Battalion/Monday, March 27, 1985
SHOE
by Jeff MacNeiiy Committee chairman wants
MOT A CHINESE. IS
RE6>TAi/RaMT AGAIN...
changes in tax system laws
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The chair
man of the House Ways and Means
sday I
Federal Reserve Board
Words affect dollar’s value
Associated Press
Committee said Tuesday he is opti
mistic thctt Congress will write a new
tax system over the next two years so
that “when people enjoy a large
profit, by gosh they pay.”
As his committee resumed hear
ings on tax overhaul, Rep. Dan
Rostenkowski, D-Ill., said the de
mand for change is being fed by the
growing perception that giant cor
porations pay little or no tax. “That’s
when the revolution comes,” he said.
“In the long haul, I’m very opti
mistic about getting legislation
passed this Congress,” meaning by
the end of 1986, Rostenkowski said.
And, he added, the chief incentive
will not be the lower tax rates con
tained in most overhaul plans but
the promise that high-income indi
viduals and profitable businesses will
have to pay their shares.
Rostenkowski got little argument
on his point that the present system
is perceived as unfair. Ten members
of Congress who have written seven
different overhaul plans testified be
fore the committee on their propo
sals, and all started with the notion
that existing tax law is too compli
cated and unfair.
But there was no unanimity on
the meaning of fairness.
“Hundreds of families earning
over $200,000 a year legally pay no
taxes at all,” said Rep. Richard Ge
phardt, D-Mo. “Some even make
more than a million dollars and It
gaily pay no taxes.”
He and Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J,
have written a plan that would dim
nate or reduce most deduction
while cutting tax rates; about 70ptt
cent of Americans would pay at a
percent rate.
On the other hand, Rep. MarkSi
jander, R-Mich., complained tin
the present lax system “is grosslyii
efficient and cletrimental to tit
economy,” at least in part becauset
is based on the notion that the rid
should pay a greater share of tlw
earnings to the tax collector.
Siljander is sponsor of a “flat Ut'
— a plan that, after allowing i
$2 ,000-per-person exemptiot
would tax all income at 10 percent
WASHINGTON — No matter what Federal Reserve
Board Chairman Paul A. Volcker says, it is still news.
Earlier this month, as he was about to begin a speech
to a group of bankers, the television lights came on and
Volcker playfully told his audience that “anything I say
that’s different in nuance or tone from what I’ve been
saying the past week is purely accidental.”
He was acknowledging in a lighthearted way his
power as an oracle-like figure whose mere words —and
the way others interpret those words — can affect fi
nancial markets around the world.
The Federal Reserve System was set up in 1913 and
functions as the nation’s central bank. It determines
and conducts U.S. monetary policy and plays a major
role in supervising and regulating the banking system.
The Federal Open Market Committee, composed of
the seven-member Federal Reserve Board of governors
and the presidents of five of the 12 Federal Reserve
banks, determines monetary policy but only discloses its
decisions weeks after they are made and then only in
murky summary.
Thus, financial analysts, brokers, traders and report
ers hang on Volcker’s every word during public ap
pearances for clues about what the Federal Reserve
might be up to.
The problem is that sometimes people hear the same
clue but interpret it differently.
In making a semiannual report to Congress on Feb.
20, Volcker told the Senate Banking Committee, “the
progressive process of easing reserve positions under
taken in the latter part of 1984 ended.”
Bond prices plummeted based on fears that Volcker
might have been indicating the Fed was going to
tighten credit. The dollar, in turn, soared on foreign
currency markets.
Six days later, Volcker gave essentially the same testi
mony to a House banking subcommittee.
Bond pricesjumped, and the dollar fell.
David Jones, an economist with Aubrey G. Lanston
8c Co., a government securities dealer in New York, de
scribes himself as “a Fed watcher who tries to put the
Fed under a microscope to anticipate its next policy
shifts.”
Court says schools
can’t bar vocal
gay advocates
Associated Press
vided Supreme Court barred Okla
homa
>upi
>uolic school boards Tuesday
Broker convicted of oil swindling
Associated Press
HOUSTON — A commodities
broker was convicted Tuesday of 17
counts in a 22-count indictment ac
cusing him of carrying out a multi-
million-dollar swindle
200,000 tons of oil.
le involving
acy to obstruct justice.
As he was chained and led from
the courthouse. Soudan said: “Noth
ing surprises me anymore. For every
injustice, there will always be a final
justice.”
Jurors deliberated nine hours be
fore convicting Frederick Soudan,
41, of counts involving wire fraud,
perjury, interstate transportation of
stolen property, conspiracy to de:-
fraud the United States and conspir-
Prosecutors said Soudan made
$4.25 million from the $56 million
scheme, which they claim was part of
a conspiracy to steal 1.4 million bar
rels of oil from European firms and
Je to South Af-
secretly ship the cruc
rica.
Defense attorney David Berg con
tended, however, that Soudan was
an innocent oil broker who was
duped in the deal by a “Greek Ma
fia.”
Berg said the real culprits in the
scheme used Soudan as a funnel for
their information so his name would
be prominent on all the documents
found by authorities.
Soudan was accused of stealing
200,000 tons of oil from its Italian
owner and ordering it delivered to
South Africa on the tanker Salem.
■ put
from firing teachers who advocate,
encourage or promote homosexual-
«y- . .
The justices, by a 4-4 vote, upheld
a federal appeals court ruling that
an Oklahoma law allowing such fir
ings violated teachers’ free-speech
rights.
Such tie votes do not set any na
tional precedent, because it is possi
ble that in some future case the same
issue will be decided by all nine jus
tices.
But Tuesday’s development
means the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals ruling that threw out the
Oklahoma law bars any attempt to
draft such a law in other states
within that f ederal judicial circuit —
Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico,
Utah and Wyoming.
The National Gay Task Force,
which had challenged the Oklahoma
law in a test case lawsuit against the
Oklahoma City school board, called
Tuesday’s ruling a key victory.
Spokesman Ron Najmau in New
York City said the court “has af
firmed that gay men and lesbians
have the same First Amendment
free-speech rights as other Ameri
cans.”
But Larry Lewis, an attorney for
the Oklahoma School Board Asso
ciation, refused to admit defeat.
“Of course, we’d rather win out
right than get a tie,” Lewis said.
“Since we didn’t have a majority on
the court against us, we consider that
a moral victory.”
Lewis said his association would
not try to salvage the invalidated law
but will “begin efforts to have the
law tightened by the Oklahoma Leg
islature.”
Justice Lewis F. Powell, who
missed hearing arguments in the
Oklahoma case in January because
he was recuperating from prostate
surgery, did not participate in decid
ing the case.
Commercia
vd 80 r
restrictions
hurt Mexico
Associated Press
MONTERREY, Mexico -
Mexico and the United State
must agree on an exchange polio
to avoid “a war on commercialrt
strictions" that threatens tilt
Mexican economy, says the head
of an exporters association.
Mexico’s decision to halt tht
importation of certain product
items from the United States it
answer to the U.S. ban on citra
imports from Mexico requiresim
mediate talks, said Jose LuisTrt
vino, president of the Monterrey
based National Foreign Coni
merce Gouncil’s northeast sec
The Mexican government ait
nounced over the weekend thati!
closed the border to U.S. impore
of vegetables.
The United States announced
in December it had again closed
its border to imports of Mexicat
citrus after high levels of Mexican
fruit fly larvae were discoveredi:
tested fruit.
Apartment hunting
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GOT YOU,SWAMPED!
Mb?
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