The Naples Daily News from Naples, Florida • 4

TIMOTHY A Publisher THOMAS HAYER Executive Editor FRANK WILLIAMS News Editor MARSHALL WYATT Advertising Director JC FREEMAN Circulation Manager Mon Apr 16 1673 Capital Gains: Fair Or Unfair? NOW FOR THE GOOD KEVIN PHILLIPS 'Morality Belt' Politics In recent testimony before committee Ross Perot chairman of the board of Electronic Data Systems Inc proposed that every American be given the opportunity to accumulate a lifetime total of $100000 in capital gains tax free Above the $100000 threshold capital gains income would be handled as it is now Perot likens the flow of capital in the United States to the Mississippi River It seems inconceivable that the water in it could ever dry up But the Mississippi depends upon innumerable springs creeks and small rivers Simply by clogging and damming these tributaries it would be possible to turn it into a ditch In the same fashion he says if we should clog the springs and other tributaries of our capital market it too could turn into a dry and empty ditch at a time when we are going to need more money than has ever been raised before to modernize our industrial capacity to allow the working American with his high standard of living to compete effectively with his counterparts around the world The current catch phrase "Money made by money should be taxed like money made by is invalid he argues because it equates two totally different types of money It assumes that jobs will always exist to allow "money to be made by and assumes that the capital money rivers will always flow "The most valuable resource in the American economic system is the working says Perot "If we are to raise the capital requirements for our future the working American must be given opportunity through our tax laws to become a participating capitalist" Like the annual reappearance of the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin tax reform talk time again in Washington High on the agenda is the subject of capital gains under which income derived from the sale of such assets as stocks bonds and real estate is taxed at a lower rate than income from wages and salaries The rate is about 50 per cent that of ordinary income the object being to encourage and reward investment that will help develop the US economy Yet it seems that almost nobody likes the special treatment accorded capital gains A number of groups such as Common Cause Ralph Tax Reform Research Institute and the AFL-CIO have mounted campaigns to revise the capital gains law most glaring inequity in the present tax code is its application of different rates to different kinds of says Fortune magazine editor Richard Armstrong pretty hard to justify treating a capital gain differently from ordinary says Rep Wilbur Mills D-Ark chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee never felt there is anything more sacrosanct about the profit from the sale of an asset than from the sweat of your But then the congressman proceeds to offer justification by adding "If people had to pay regular tax rates on cpaital gains never sell (their assets) freeze them in their present At least one businessman suggests that rather than shrink or close the capital gains it should be vastly widened LM BOYD Democrats) the New York Times' James Res ton writing from St Paul Minn pondered the emerging liberal Democratic strength of the upper Midwest and this oft-expressed notion that new power centers were developing within the two national parties the GOP base being in the Southern-Southwestern "Sun of aerospace retirement resort and military coloration More broadly one can assume a larger division a cleavage between the Belt" and those parts of the nation actually on the sociological firing line None of this means that the GOP can afford to play around with the Watergate sort of sleazy anti-morality On the contrary But at the same time the Democrats remain in danger from a politics of righteousness not from legitimate indignation against bugging and graft but from moral elitism and an unrealistic desire to impose the views of Maine Minneapolis Harvard and Douglas Fir country on national culture and sociology After all elitist morality dwarfed the Watergate issue in 1972 "we are the upright the decent the sounds like the Civil War-era Republicans and as noted it is coming from the same regions of the country those most remote from social and fyrial pressures and currently most remote from the reality of busing welfare and crime Within the' GOP the "Morality Belt" is the stronghold of the party's fading liberal minority Besides being the area most exercised over the Watergate scandal It is the section where Republicans are most favorable to social programs But the basic thrust of "New Republicanism lies elsewhere Just list the states where the leading GOP Presidential possibilities come from: Marylaad (Agnew) Texas (Connally) California (Reagan) Tennessee (Baker and Brack) Illinois (Percy) and New York (Rockefeller) In contrast to the Democratic list the GOP possibilities come from outside rather than inside the Morality Belt Negro Senator Edward Brooke is no more plausible as a GOP Presidential than Alabama's George Wallace is as the nominee of the national ART BUCHWALD BRUCE BIOSSAT Plausibility Must Guide Watergate uiCHiNrTON The most essential endeavor right now in to evaluate properly what top Nixon aide says about italT He may have helped considerably to define the of course that in hi recent unnrecedented and uncharacteristic talk with a sizable group of Republican congressmen on aPitol gctMtto sonal responsibility for ordering directed toward the Democratic party and Us presidential SSomtetiiie he gave his listeners to neither directed nor knew about the bugging of the Democrats Watergate offices in dealing with this plausibility must constantly be sppiW-Th JJJ the the spying and sabotage efforts One influential Republican who knows some reasonably well and feels confident about thin lumber are capable of lying with ease art cnM But he makes a strong exception of talan' Soe'Xt not like would find it very difficult to lie He just not ime thff then Haldeman told it straight to those listening eJS! into lor mvdlta tow to MM high significance to the impression he left with the congreaomen involved trying to "get on top Democratic aspirants and the use of such information to pects This obviously is a good distance from simply keeping of what they were doing and saying Certainly the open probings of the Ervin committee In the Senate will draw out vastly more detail from ome of participants than we have today But ultimate goal inquiry has to be to determine who ordered the Watergate bugging and possibly other bugging still not disclosed and who If anyone might have gone beyond his orders In executing spying assignments Former Attorney General John Mitchell later heading the re-election committee plainly had substantial authority But he has denied again and again any prior knowledge of Watergate Charles Colson White House aide who hired old friend Howard Hunt convicted Watergate participant has mfcpn a lie detector test to reinforce his assertion that he in his turn had no prior knowledge (Most Washington observers are unimpressed by that test since it was taken under special controlled conditions seeming to guarantee a verdict of truthfulness) Some published accounts assign a decisive role to Gordon Liddy re-election committee aide and another convicted Watergate participant But some sources see Liddy casting authoritative weight His free-wheeling role still is one of the most puzzling He got his committee job on recommendation of White House legal counsel John Dean former Justice Department aide to Mitchell We can't forget that some of these men (like Colson and Mitchell) liked each other Rivalries may have produced more than one for the ugly stuff and the excesses which Haldeman acknowledges JACK ANDERSON Nepal War Fading WASHINGTON In moun- Nepalese authorities who never tainous Nepal least authorized the raids and feared known and least bloody war is Chinese retaliation winding down The warring We spoke to sources who tribesmen and the Central In- were invited to participate in a telligence Agency which raid on Chinese army facilities recruited them are losing in Tibet The Khampa leader interest in the adventure claimed he learned his English After the fleece-clad Red and was trained in guerrilla Chinese legions crushed a tactics in the United States revolt in Tibet in 1959 the In past years Indian In-fiercest of the Tibetan clans telligence agents were used to fled on wiry ponies into the parachute American supplies high fastnesses of Nepal to the Khampas mountain CIA agents slowly gained the bivouacs The bright orange confidence of the mountain supply parachutes were con-fighters known as Khampas or verted Into shirts by the and began or- Khampas and quickly became ganizing them against the a Badge of Courage" In Chinese In the cloud-capped Tibetan refugee restaurants in regions of Mustang and Dolpa Khatmandu the Khampas were outfitted But now the Tibetan with American saddles small refugees when they gather in arms and other equipment the restaurants for marijuana out of the craggy stew and cakes are forlorn highlands they swooped down The American aid is drying up into Chinese military encamp- and the Khampas have to ments in Tibet disrupting depend on the penurious Indian communications and stealing intelligence services for supplies This distressed the supplies This has so weakened them that the Nepal government branding them has been able to move them from the border areas XT Now when the tribesmen feel )wwf warlike they prey on peasants mh Vpar No 225 instead 01 Chincse rfdiers- 05 Thus has a faraway war APRIL 16 1973 flared up and died down vir- PuMlihad doily oacopt Sotur- tually Unknown to the doy in ihn oftomoon by itw American people whose dollars cdUf County bubijihing supported it and whose secret Nafto 33940 Mail wMnm agents encouraged it Baa 1737 We recently reported that most of the Nixon scandals Taiaphana 49-3101 far all fwm ny- jyatergate were ip annum' OUtgrOWtllS Of tlte 1972 susscaimoN nans presidential campaign and the TayM in Advanca corruptive method of financing By Carrier: Carriar Collect politics in this country wJil 4- we suggested that the tax payers would be better off if By Carriar: Prepaid to Offic they earmarked a dollar of their taxes for the political i siroo their choice They can do this simply by filling out the MoHSubKription: Presidential Election Cam- paign Fund Statement Form 3 Ma Jyj But a spot check by IRS disclosed that only two of 29 Mwnbt employes assigned to assist Audit Bureau of Cireuiationi taxpayers with their returns bothered to Inform the tax- MteSSbh wers of the campaign Ult for republication of all local Checkoff now item printed in tbit pwr This Would seem tO Confirm aiwalatdl APnaw ditpotdwt Democratic national chairman convUnt fiat at ilia Pon Offica at Napiai RS under Republican rule is Florida undar Act of Match 3 de-emphasizing the doilar con- 1897 tributlon because it would give the debt-ridden Democrats an even financial break A Day Of Infamy WASHINGTON For a long States and we have been time President Nixon credited personally with caus-complained that the Japanese ing the greatest inflation in the were not buying enough from United States since the Korean WASHINGTON off and running again in Washington Sen Edmund Muskie of Maine appears to be making another bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination Sen Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts is more or less the front-runner Senators Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota 'and Henry Jackson of Washington are openly interested And any list of potential Democratic nominees fa 1978 would have to include Sen Walter Mondale thanks to the buildup he is getting in fashionable liberal circles Note the home states involved: Maine Massachusetts Minnesota and Washington This is the northern tier the "Morality Beit" moot remote from the social urban and racial tensions that divide the rest of America A century ago New England the Upper Midwest and the Pacific Northwest were the strongholds of the Civil War GOP the "morality of the time But now the Belt" has become the seedbed of the Presidential Democratic Party at a time when the regions it represents are more clearly a national minority than in 19NL no coincidence that the leading Democratic White House hopefuls come from these areas In each of the last three Presidential elections the national Democratic Party has done best in New England with the Upper Middle West and Pacific Northwest (from San Francisco Bay up) coming increasingly to the fore This is the pattern of the Democratic of the liberal forces that are seizing the Presidential party from the old Southern-blue-collar-ethnic axis New Left candidates Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern won their pivotal 1968 and 1972 primary victories in New England the Upper Midwest and the Pacific Northwest and the party nominee then went on to fare best in the same sections in November Given this pattern one wonders how the Old Guard can run around so blithely talking about the of nomination An ideological excess yes A fluke no The 1972 election bespoke no shift in the fundamental direction of Democratic evolution Since the mid-Sixties the Presidential Democratic Party has clearly been homing in on the Morality Belt George McGovern is not alone in playing the politics of righteousness Edmund Muskie does much the same thing: witness his dare speech about the 1970 GOP Senate campaign (which deserved the put-down) and his whiney March 1972 condemnation of the people of Florida for supporting George Wallace Throughout 1972 Edward Kennedy who spent part of his own University of Virginia law school days running traffic lights lectured student audiences whom he accused of losing their fervor for change and social progress And Mondale a strong busing advocate likes to talk about the Democrats having the Such politicking as this the United States and were causing a serious dent in our balance of payments He urged them to purchase more from us so he would not have to impose tariffs on Japanese goods imported to the United States It could have been one of the major mistakes A secret meeting of the Japanese Imperial Economic Command was held in Tokyo last week The notorious Hoshl Hamamura who Is responsible for flooding the Western Hemisphere with tape recorders told the gathering "Honorable gentlemen the glory of Japan is at stake We have Mllions of dollars in our banks and unless we spend them Immediately we may be stuck with worthless Tishi Tojo the architect of the Greater Wankel Engine Plan said have bought up all the lumber in the United States as well as soybean crop for the next four years Our agents have also put in a bid for their entire 1974 beef Oki Moto chief economic war planner said people have contracted for all the coal and steel produced in 1974 in the United States as well as cotton eggs butter cheese and nylon is all said the notorious Hoshi Hamamura "but it is only a drop in the bucket We must do more for the Yushi Suzakl the miHtant Minister of Color Television Sets said "My agents are buying radium glass aluminum and cardboard cartons The prices have skyrocketed in the United war" Nashi Namura the cruel Director of Culture reported have bought every painting we can get our hands on in the United States Next week we will make a Ud for the Metropolitan Museum of Art" mean all the someone asked mean the museum and all the works going to bring it here stone by stone and rebuild it next to the emperor's they sell not? The Met has sold everything gentlemen" said the notorious Hoshi Hamamura accounts for only 1220 billion We still have $150 billion stuck with" Kosi San the evil Minister of Real Estate said have no choice Gentlemen we must buy Pearl "Pearl Harbor?" everyone said It would make a marvelous rest and recreation center for our loyal and industrious Japanese workers I have the plans here Once we own Pearl Harbor land values will fall and we can get the rest of Hawaii for a song" will the Americans sell Pearl Harbor?" will make our bid on Dec 7 a Sunday morning when everyone is sleeping' Our kamikaze contractors will build their hotels before anyone is alerted By then the President will have no choice but to accept our check in Washington Are we all agreed?" "Banzai!" everyone shouted "Let us drink to our next meeting in Hawaii at the Day of Infamy Hilton Collie Least Apt To Bite Few dog experts agree but Post Office spokesmen who should know now contend that dog least likely to bite is the collie true the ladies who drive cars get into just as many fender-bending accidents as do the men significant though is the girls have only half as many fatal crashes Moat young women prefer loose casual waves in their hair Most older women prefer tight set waves Explain the why of that please It was generally recognized in the Old West true or otherwise that the best bronc busters came from Montana No matter where he asked for work if he identified himself as a Montana cowboy the notion was generally accepted that he knew his horses In Europe this was also true of the Hungarian drifter And in Asia of course the Cossack SQUARE DANCE Three times a month is how often the usual square dance club member goes out to do-si-do still said the city of Fort Worth claims the wealthiest bachelors Average mother is age 44 when her youngest child leaves home now The need for power the need for achievement and the need for love These are what most motivate men Or so says a Harvard professor Power boys are those who greatly desire to have an impact on other folks Achievement boys want to get the job done whatever then go on to something else Love boys presumably hugging and kissing a lot look for affection Everybody says this savant has a little of each but is dominated by one in particular of these urges Classify yourself sir QUERY FROM CLIENT "Was Peggy Fleming ever beaten in amateur ice skating A Not after she won her first world championship at age 17 Five times United States champion three times World Crown winner Immediately after dusk sometimes in the Sahara Desert travelers there hear what sounds like volleys of rifle fire Ominous But I understand the natives ignore those noises knowing them to be just stones exploding The sudden drop in temperature does that TIm Mtadotea Pm Today is Monday April 16 the 106th day of 1973 There are 259 days left in the year highlight in history On this date in 1917 the Communist leader Nikolai Lenin returned to Russia after years of exile to assume his role as revolutionary leader On this date: In 1521 Martin Luther arrived at Worms after being summoned to appear before the Diet to justify his attacks on the Catholic Church In 1789 George Washington left Mount Vernon for his inauguration as the First president of the United States In 1862 Napoleon III declared war against the Mexican leader Juarez In 1906 the Pacific cable was completed between the United States and China In 1947 more than 600 per sons were killed in explosions and fires that ripped Texas City Tex In 1962 the Roman Catholic archbishop of New Orleans Jo-seph Rummel excommunicated three segregationists because of their attempts to keep blacks out of parochial schools Ten years ago: It was announced in Havana that Cuban Premier Fidel Castro would visit the Soviet Union One year ago: The US Apollo 16 astronauts were launched toward the moon from Cape Kennedy ir a.