Thursday, May 8, 1986/The Battalion/Page 9
‘‘enate leaders say tax bill
should be approved easily
/ASHING! ON (AP) — Senate leaders on Wednes-
lay predicted easy approval of a tax-overhaul plan, en-
I lorsed by President Reagan, that would affect the taxes
^Virtually every American — cutting rates while wip
ing out some deductions favored especially by middle-
ncome families.
jwfajority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., said, “There are
Ttrong indications this bill is going to sail through the
Seriate.” It will pass easily, he added, because it is “true
reform.”
hOmilen Bob Packwood, R-Ore., the plan’s chief author,
— jiirl he believes the bill is going to pass in much the
form as it came out of the Finance Committee
;arly Wednesday on a 20-0 vole.
fjMle proclaimed it “a great victory for America — a bill
,o| can truly defend.”
■ he Reagan administration, which is sympathetic to
I ttpM of the bill, signaled its concern about two high-
yL- trlhle provisions: elimination of the deduction for
Hr ppsi lndi\ idual Retirement Accounts and repeal of the
. raditional tax preference for capital gains.
■ven though repeal of the IRA deduction for work
ers covered by company pensions would hurt many
aimlies, Packwood said, most of them would still come
lulwinners because of other parts of the bill.
■ he bill, most of which would become effective in
1917, would cut individual taxes by about $100 billion
~ J tvei five years, with the reduction averaging 6.2 per-
:eni The burden on corporations would increase by
JCMgMQ" billion.
Packwood estimated that 80 percent of Americans
would be taxed at the bill’s lower rate of 15 percent. A
typical four-member family could earn about $42,000
before any of its income was subject to the higher, 27
percent rate.
The “winners” — and Packwood said middle-income
families would be at the top of the list — would benefit
from raising the personal exemption to $2,000 and
from significant increases in the standard deductions.
To pay for those changes, the bill would take away
some widely used deductions. In addition to the IRA
and capital-gains changes, the proposal would end de
ductions for consumer interest and state and local sales
taxes. The medical-expense deduction would be vir
tually eliminated. The deduction for miscellaneous ex
penses, including union dues and job-related publica
tions, would be killed.
The big losers, Packwood said, are upper-income in
vestors who have been able to shield their salaries from
taxes by writing off artificial losses arising from a cer
tain partnership arrangements, especially in commer
cial real estate.
Tougher “minimum taxes” will hit the profitable
companies and well-to-do investors who have been able
to save dramatically on taxes through judicious use of
large deductions.
Packwood said, “We will say to the average Jane and
Joe making $40,000 that . . . your taxes are being low
ered because we’ve raised taxes on people who have not
been paying taxes.”
icy
1
n
Earthquake
(continued from page 1)
nn§isured its strength at 7.7. on the
tpcn-ended Richter scale.
■reliminary reports from the -
\dnk Naval Air Station indicated
Milv minor damage, such as “a cou-
)le of .books being knocked off
shelves,” said ft. Col. Arnold Wil
iams, a Pentagon spokesman.
■ > eople were being evacuated to
higher ground, said Kathi Alexan
der, a civilian employee for the Navy
:ontigent of about 5,000 people on
Adak.
ShAt Atka, a village of 93 people
about 100 miles east of Adak, many
residents headed for higher ground,
■r'cesg G’odoc&adif a worker at (S/e
Death Act
village store, said he was putting
away newly arrived stock before he
headed for safety. He remembers
other tsunami alerts.
“We’ve had some before, but it
came to nothing,” he said.
Geophysicists estimated a wave
could reach Astoria, Ore., by 10:02
p.rn. PDT and San Francisco by 9:47
p.m.
The first earthquake Wednesday
had a magnitude of 4.4 on the Rich
ter scale and struck at 11:44 a.m.,
said Finley. It was followed 22 sec
onds later by a 6.0 earthquake and
two hours later by the magnitude 7.7
earthquake, said Don Finley of the
k r SGS id iVas’h/ng/on, 2?.C.
Three more quakes that struck
two to three hours after the large
tremor measured 5.9, 5.9 and 5.4 on
the Richter scale, and were not ex
pected to generate further tsunamis,
said the Warning Center.
Earthquakes of magnitude 6 or
greater are capable of causing severe
damage in a populated area. How
ever, the Aleutians are sparsely pop
ulated.
In 1964, a great earthquake regis
tering 8.5 on the Richter scale and
centered near Prince William
Sound, southeast of Anchorage,
stirred seismic waves that killed 114
people in Alaska, where it wiped out
the vthage of Chenega.
Zalif.,
:)ved bee:
her the -'
e relied “
die East,”
package (continued from page 1)
aulder fi sites, Florida, Iowa and Louisana,
:s, Hatjn combined the options concerning a
and ' proxy and treatment of comatose
;s. patients.
trfShe added that the Texas act is
now one of the most progressive and
useful of any state.
BA release from the Texas Medical
Association stated that all written di-
(rectives take effect if the patient be
comes comatose, incompetent, or
mentally or physically incapable of
communication. But the wishes of
any patient who remains competent
always override the wishes of a writ
ten directive, the release said.
iinio
jase
id
AP) - ft
, a “Tj'.Hln addition to the two protections,
Mn llin l ^ C amen( led act allows terminally ill
M1K patients to express their wishes ver-
™>llv, provided it is observed by two
’ <0 c|ualified witnesses and the patient’s
phvsician. The witnesses cannot be
v ((|r related to the patient by blood or
lid for i mai | t a g e and cannot be included in
were told lhe P^ient’s will,
fitioners
traffic
e of the F
It also allows specific persons to
carry out the wishes of patients who
are under 18.
The persons, in order of priority,
are: the patient’s spouse, if over 18;
the patient’s parents and the pa
tient’s legal guardian.
Authors Eugene Boisaubin and
Rebecca Dresser defined a termi
nally ill patient as someone who has
an incurable illness or injury, which,
in a physician’s medical judgment,
will result in death — despite life-
sustaining procedures.
Boisaubin, in a phone interview,
said that the problem now is making
patients aware of their new choices.
Boisaubin added that patients
should not write directives without
consulting family members although
the written directive would still be
technically binding.
Dr. John Hall, a member of the
medical ethics committee at St. Jo
seph Hospital, said that the law is on
the side of the patient if he was com
petent at the time of writing the
treatment directive.
“If a patient is mentally capable of
making that decision, then the doc
tor must honor that decision,” he
said. “If the physician has problems
himself, turning off the machine, he
can refer this question to the medical
ethics committee at the hospital.”
Hall, 56, said that the doctor also
can refer the case to the ethics com
mittee if the family disagrees with
the patient directive.
If the case is extremely compli
cated, the committee can appeal to
the courts, he said.
The authors noted that one of the
act’s shortcomings is the lack of
guidance concerning incompetent
patients who have no available rela
tives.
In a phone interview, Dresser said
that hospitals and physicans don’t
follow any hard and fast rules in
such a case. They have the option of
getting a court-appointed guardian
for the patient or conferring with a
friend of the patient, she said.
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