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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 24, 2001)
Ijesflay, July 24. 2(X)1 PINION Page 5 THE BATTALION I). This rateapp; an additional 51 to end to quaft WANTED RS refund goof armful to all onicle has im carriers lor if-: S500-S8(XVmc : lutes also ava u 593-2323. RCYCLE lines exhaust. ETS Kittens, Cats. I Occasions 1 thers. Brazos hs oiq, Hofianc: and accessories £ needed for saes|I (U-WIRE) BLOOM- Src^iGTON, Ind. - I feared 02. Ask forRictworst and hoped for the <as a&m Boor bt st out of President Bush’s part-time help re \i e | package. With the IRS in charge of distribution, g, apply at 113-mM , , . (delivery com P 1 “ can t expect niuch. A nd Runner-released earlier this year a dependable "Bported that IRS employees tahon and floooj S pend 5 1 percent of their on- mileage Send^ne time doing personal busi- ■lunner, 76ioEisBcss. Even worse, 37 percent eob° Wtaxpayers didn’t get their -Bills to the IRS answered, and sr, part-time, resii T i. Cali 97W6»iose that got a response were Kven wrong answers 47 per- ■ent of the time. I Could the IRS handle the ptsk of carrying out the “Eco- omic Growth and Pax Relief ■Reconciliation Act of 2001 ?” la 2X6.20,505- irn old joke says that things ndition, $4,ooc | are getting so bad in Wash- ngton that people are tracing it gpz. Runs meaning of “politics” to ts Latin roots: Poli is for nany, and tics is for blood- ucking parasites. OK, so it’s a cheesy joke, out consider the facts. At the turn of the year, tax rates, as a percentage of GDP, were the highest they have ever been [in peacetime. The govern ment took nearly 40 percent of the typical family’s income in taxes after accounting for all federal, state and local tax es. This is more than twice the rate paid by the typical family in 1955. Moreover, consider that according to congressional budget estimates, there is a projected surplus of more than $5 trillion during the fiexf 10 years. —It’s not hard to imagine why both major presidential candidates promised a tax cut in some form or another in the 2000 election. But as even the most detached political observer knows, it was Presi dent Bush that made the issue a centerpiece in his cam paign. And for that, we must give him credit. He changed the debate from if we should have a tax cut to how big it should be. People have devoted their entire lives to studying and explaining tax rates, govern ment revenue, economic . growth and how all three in teract. But to put it as simply as possible, unnecessarily high tax rates present less incen tives to work, lower produc tion and therefore lower gov ernment revenue from taxes. Conversely, a lower tax rate offers more incentive to work, produce and invest. With the increased productivity, gov ernment revenue will actually rise, even with a lower tax rate. And as an added benefit, you’ll be able to streamline s felines for adccf cept rabies ar n 10, 15-min.fnr.‘:j iSTATE )ME FOR HOHSEii leek out this toff I -acres, bamicd st minutes tan d .os Robles. Ci*. Realty. Be!) Sr i-5735 or MATES needed XSt, $250TO rf* on 676. id SbdwM DU' 979-229-2545 furnished, S200 oe- (979)777-5368. i, M/F. 4bdm'i sity Place Cona:-: tub. Call (979)7S| 7. for August move-' : nhome. $400' I, 3bdrm/2bth M bills, on bus-ro.‘ garage. (210)65 2bdrm/1bth, Uj J, $350/mo., InE' ’0. all move-in, 4-tes n, $315/mo.,sf'•' , 3 Tracy. starting AuM George Bushref •fbills. (979)® )le thru May, ft/' y furnished wW o.b.o. 764# F, 3bd/2bth17| nished excep: rd, Paul 822-156 )use 1-block-' 846-3376. )ES Driving. LoM it dismissaW/)5- rtepm-gpm), i* Fri(6pm-8?' 3at(8am-2:30f r Walk-ins t price allowed- .2 1 7. 846# CP-0017). that paragon of a government agency: the IRS. Like he promised, Bush signed the biggest tax relief package in a generation and opened the door to this need ed reform. The key to the whole idea is, obviously, get ting money back to the very people that earned it so that they can invest and spend it. But the IRS, as well as the president, couldn’t wait for you to get out and spend the rebate. So it sent more than 121 million letters (costing millions of dollars) to notify people that they’d soon be re ceiving a tax rebate. Just to make sure they knew who was responsible, President George W. Bush prominently displayed his name on the check. I got my letter last Fri day, but it informed me that 1 “will not be receiving a check at this time.” Since I didn’t pay any federal taxes, I sure don’t expect to get any back. A half-million families got a different kind of letter. Un fortunately the letter they re ceived was a lie and won’t be as big as it promised. An In ternal Revenue Service com puter glitch overestimated the rebates for those 500,000. Before the check ar rived, as you can imagine, many people went ahead and spent the extra money they thought they would have. So when the smaller check ar rives, many families will have already spent the money. Now the IRS is scrambling to send out new letters cor recting the mistake, but the correction letters will arrive much later than their small- er-than-expected rebate. The result? More debt-for 500,000 families! Ah, but the IRS wants us to know that there’s a good side to all of this. Agency spokesman Kevin McKeon points out that, “The good is that 99.5 percent of the peo ple are getting the right let ter.” They might consider the error a minor mistake, but it threatens to destroy the very purpose and aim behind the relief. Just imagine the chaos if even more families had been affected. President Bush showed courage and political savvy by winning the tax cut battle. It will give a needed boost to a slowing economy. Now he must take the next step and ensure real long-term reform in government revenue: Overhaul the IRS. Joshua Clayboum Indiana Daily Student Indiana University CARTOON OF THE DAY itomers lers y- You need body art Outdated laws against tattooing should be revised T he United States is a nation built on laws. People trust the law and expect to be protected by it and by those who uphold it. Unfortunately, more and more often people are finding that laws in their hometowns are outdated, outmoded prohibitions on practices that once were considered immoral or unsanitary. One such outdated law is the prohibition on tattooing, which still exists in many coun ties across the country. Tattooing was outlawed in Massachu setts until an October court decision found the law unconstitutional because it restricted personal and commercial free speech. The fight that ended in Massachu setts with a victory for tattoo enthusiasts is now heating up in Cleveland, Ohio, where a tattoo parlor owner is suing the city with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to overturn an 80-year- old ban on the practice. Tony DeRigo, owner of Chronic Tattoo in Elyria, Ohio, claims that the ban on tat tooing in Cleveland unfairly hurts his business and restricts the free speech rights of those who live in the city. Recent years have seen large amounts of specious lawsuits against everyone but God seeking to justify any type of abhor rent behavior under the guise of free speech. However, DeRigo’s argument seems as cut-and-dry as a free speech issue can be. Tattooing is different from writing a letter or painting a picture only in terms of medium. Most Americans find the idea of gov ernment restrictions on their right to es pouse their political or religious views on paper as clearly unconstitutional and un ethical. So, it seems that there should be no problem in extending that argument to voicing such views on one’s body. Other reasons for overturning such anti-tattooing bans are the loopholes that often are found in them. In the case of the Cleveland law, tattoo artists are al lowed to practice within the city limits if IIbO they work only at trade shows that last no more than four days. This, combined with the fact that the law is part of the city’s sanitation code, seems to make it clear that the original intent of the law was to cut down on the practice of tattoo ing for health reasons. In the 1920s, sanitation was surely a much larger factor in deciding to get a tat too. However, today’s sanitation methods are far more effective. Widespread use of autoclave steriliza tion devices and sterile, disposable materi als have made tattooing tar safer than it once was. The city is still free to place reg ulations on the health and safety of tattoo parlors if it chooses to I'epeal the ban, so why not repeal it? “Hopefully, the city will be adult and modern enough to understand that (tat tooing) is very safe,” DeRigo said. Considering that DeRigo brought his case before the city in February and no resolution has been found, apparently the city was not as adult as DeRigo hoped. This case is merely a symptom of a na- ? tionwide problem. This country, and the city of Cleveland specifically, should realize that it is time . to update the books. Outdated laws such as this one only serve to make life diffi cult for ordinary, law-abiding people and deplete the budgets of local governments embroiled in legal battles to change the laws. Anti-tattooing bans, sodomy laws and the like penalize ordinary people for victimless crimes and ultimately hurt the constituency they were originally de signed to protect. Jason Bennyhojf is a senior journalism major. EN DELUNA/The Battalion Mail Call TU£ DRg* RYC£>N'wf~ Rather's silence on Levy acceptable In response to Mark Passwa- ters' July 23 column. I would like to start off by saying that 1 would personal ly congratulate Dan Rather for not talking about the dis appearance of Chandra Levy. Over the past month, the public has been bombarded with the same undeveloped story, over and over again. Every morning and every evening we here the same rehashing of the same facts and possibilities. To be quite frank, I am tired of hearing it. Why don't they use the 30 minutes to report on other events that are occurring, and that are developing. My second problem is that Passwaters complains about someone being par tial, when he is regularly par tial himself. Granted, he is only a columnist in the opin ion section of a school news paper, not a national news anchor. And as such he is of course supposed to show his view and opinion. But when all he uses as supportive sources is Bill O'Reilly and the Washington Post, we can clearly see where his lean ings are. 1 think Passwaters should take note of one of the quotes he used from Don Imus, and ask himself "when he plans to get in touch with the rest of the world?" He needs to realize that there is far more going on in the world that deserves air time besides the same old story. Nathan Bosdet Class of '02 Marriage a social, not religious, institution In response to July 23 mail call. Contrary to Gardner's be liefs, marriage is not just a religious institution. It is a social institution, so there fore society should see fit to change it. In no way does this infringe on the rights of some religions. Christians do not own marriage, it is not something one group can own. The government is not saying that all marriages must be same-sex. By not allowing same-sex marriages we are violating the rights of homo sexuals (yes, they have rights Mr. Gardner). Isn't everyone entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The stats that Gardner in troduces would be funny if they were not so bigoted. Where exactly did you learn that homosexuality leads to beastiality and pedophilia? If a Catholic priest commits a sex crime against a child,, does that mean all Catholics will do the same? Let us look at the crimes that are a result of the hetero sexual lifestyle. Heterosexuals are far more likely to commit rape and spousal abuse. Does that mean that we should op press heterosexuals? Mr. Gardner, even if you believe the homosexual lifestyle is something that people choose to do, then why not let them choose that? Is not one of the great things about being an Amer ican the right to choose? If you do not like the homo sexual lifestyle, then do not participate in it. But do not oppress it. That goes against everything that United States stands for. David Cirkin Class of '02 The Battalion encourages letters to the editor. Letters must be 300 words or less and include the author's name, class and phone number. The opinion editor reserves the right to edit letters for length, style and accu racy. Letters may be submitted in per son at 014 Reed McDonald with a valid student ID. Letters may also be mailed to: The Battalion - Mail Call 014 Reed McDonald Texas A&M University College Station, TX . 77843-1 111 Campus Mail: 1111 Fax: (979) 845-2647 E-mail: battletters@hotmail.com