The Times from Shreveport, Louisiana • Page 25

No Reprieve for The Shreveport Timm Sunday, July 9, 1972 3-H A Loophole for George McGovern William F. Hucklov Jr. Spirit of '72 rn vrn inc oreat wnaics Ulall-Stanl)iirv The one solid gold achievement of last month's environmental summit conference in Stockholm was the call for a 10 year halt to whaling. One hy one the great whale species have been hunted down until their remnants grace the Little by little the analysis rolls in, to the considerable disadvantage of Sen. George McGovern who, even as he has now embraced the cause of Israel more a i 1 than anyone since Gen.

Dayan, will surely, sometime before election day, deliver a paean on the tax loophole. A fortnight ago Mr. Stewart Alsop reported that a big McGovern backer from California. 0 ft who had made a for fury tune in computers, consulted his computers feeding them one of Sen. McGovern's for edge of oblivion.

The blue and humpback are probably doomed. The bo a right and gray have dropped below their viable replacement levels. The finback and sei are fast approaching this state. And so, almost unanimously, the Stockholm mulas for i Ilk wealth to the needy, wiSV' Ml rate of income taxation by 82 for those earning $3,000 or less; by 43 for those earring $3-5 thousand; by 27 for those earning $3 7 thousands, and so on, with a reduction of 1.7 for thosd earning thousand; and an increase of 7 tor those earning $100 thousand and over. But the figures are tiresome, when put beside the principal point, which is that over the years Congress and the executive have "done what they thought best to affect the allocation of resources.

The Mellon Bank's economic newsletter sums it up. Tax Preferences For example, it (the tax law) is used to encourage home ownership, to lower the cost of borrowing to state and local governments, to increase the value of retirement and unemployment benefits, to lower the cost of medical care, and to encourage private philanthropy. Reasonable men can disagree on whether or not the individual income tax law is the proper vehicle through which such objectives should be accomplished. But it is dear that proposals to abolish the existing set of tax preferences, unless accompanied by other positive measures, imply a repudiation of the objectives which originally led to the establishment of the preferences." It is quite literally that simple: Should Congress, or should it not, encourage married couples, home owners, the sick, the economically venturesome? Candidate McGovern will in due course need to face up to the consequences of his rhetoric. Who Will Be Hurt? When he does so, I for one, wish that he might say something truly radical.

Namely that it is not the proper business of government to attempt to manipulate human economic behavior by a tissue of built-in biases in the tax law. The trouble with the idea of making justice via tax laws is that one never really knows what it is that one is accomplishing; who it is that one is hurting. Prof. Friedman has over and over again demonstrated that efforts by the government to give the little man a break by this or the other welfare subsidy end by hurting him. A true break with economic intervention-ism would see McGovern coming out against rinky-dink tax laws, against all deductions (except obviously justified deductions), in favor of the elimination of the progressive feature of the income tax, and in favor of a maximum tax rate of 20 and discovered that $42 BUCKLEY billion was missing.

I.e., thai just one of the redistributionist schemes proposed by Sen. McGoveru was under-financed by a mere $42 billion. The backer was not the man best suited to question the reliability of computers so it is not known whether he will finally back off from his computers or from his candidate. Income Tax Loopholes Now the Economics Division of the Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, in its news letter, makes a few gentle comments about the loopholes Sen. McGovern is forever talking about.

Do you remember the one about all the people who reported gross incomes in excess of $200,000 in 1970 who paid zero taxes? High indignation set in every time Sen. McGovern mentioned the matter. What he did not mention is that there were exactly 106 such cases, and that a study of them reveals that the overwhelming majority either (a) paid taxes to foreign countries receiving the usual tax credit; or (b) paid state taxes, or (c) had deductions sanctioned by law. Sen. McGovern also did not mention that there are in fact 15,000 American citizens who reported incomes in excess of $200,000 who did pay income taxes, at an effective tax rate of 44.

Nor does Sen. McGovern stress the use of loopholes to people who are not necessarily rich. For instance, the joint return permitted husband and wife, in the absence of which loophole the government would realize six to ten billion dollars in additional revenue. The new tax law of 1969, regularly disparaged as a rich man's tax law, deserves to be criticized for any number of reasons, all of them, however, more complicated than those Sen. McGovern comes up with.

That tax law reduced the Forum of She (times over-all communications required at the national convention. Service for others-such as candidates, radio-TV, wire services, newspapers is being paid by those individual users. WILLIAM R. BENNETT District Manager South Central Bell 614 Crockett St. Shreveport, La.

71130 McGovern Needs History Lesson conferees asked for a ban on the slaughter. Their call for a moratorium generated a brief surge of hope that has now been rudely shattered by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). When Russell Train, President Nixon's envoy to the IWC's annual meeting in London, raised the moratorium issue 10 days ago, he was rebuffed by the Russian and Japanese delegates. Train couldn't scrounge up a single supporting vote, moreover, when he asked the IWC to open its star chamber deliberations to the press. Some Killing Banned Grudgingly, the IWC did ban all further killing of bowhead, right and gray whales.

It refused to spare the finbacks, however, agreeing only to reduce the yearly catch by about a third. Thus the IWC has stoutly prolonged its record of presiding over the commercial extinction of the great whales and granting them a reprieve only when their economic usefulness has been destroyed. But the real lesson of the IWC maneuver is the hollovvness of the resolutions passed only two weeks before in Stockholm. At that glittering ecological talkfest, the call for a whaling moratorium was the one brave move to rein in a runaway industry. The rest of the proposals were, by comparison, lemon meringue.

Blubber Quota Meted Out Now that Norway, Japan. Russia, Canada, Panama and their allies have meted out next year's quotas of whale blubber, we can "forget about Stockholm and turn once again to the tough, unglamorous task of environmental reform here at home. The First Environmentalists: The whaling story is a story of private greed having its way with a public resource, and it throws a peculiarly savage light on our routine economic assumptions. How much more civilized was and in many cases is the Indian-American's view of nature and natural resources. Some time ago we wrote a column about the first American environmentalists, noting that most of their descendants had embraced the exploiter's ethic while some had not.

Unlike the Yankee, Japanese and Russian whaling fleets, for instance, the Indian hunter killed only the game his clan needed for food and clothing; he respected the need to preserve a healthy breeding stock of wild animals for the future use of his own aid other clans. Indians Restrained Although the early Indians lacked the technology to commit large-scale mayhem on their surroundings, their religious sense restrained them even more. Today we speak of safeguarding the "public interest" and the rights of unborn generations. Indians took this obligation seriously long before the first Europeans arrived with entirely different notions of the way life was. As refugees from feudalism, the colonists came here to get their own piece of the action.

They hacked into the eastern forests and began decimating wildlife with no regard for the rights of their heirs. In most ways admirable, they were also the spiritual forebears of all the polluters and resource raiders who gouge the land or plunder its wildlife for profits today. "Sell the country?" Tecumseh asked a party of acquisitive whites 150 years ago. "Why not sell the air, the clouds, the great sea?" The warrior-chief's question was left unanswered, a wisp of smoke at our backs. Restoration Croal Today's environmentalists are trying to restore and modernize the communal ethic, the lack of greed and egoism, the sense of responsible, interrelated life Mick Thimmesch George McGovern was flying high between San Antonio, and Little Rock, recently when he cut loose ers of war being held so long and so barbarously incommunicado." As a presidential contender, McGovern's words influence the North Vietnamese, and Javits makes a good point.

One reason that the North Vietnamese Communists feel McGovern is their pal, is that he rarely criticizes Fischer Should Be Reprimanded For 'Juvenile Behavior in Iceland' Editor, The Times: I am 19 years old and have been playing chess unpr.ifessionally for about eight years. I am fairly acquainted with FIDE rules, and feel that due to Mr. Fischer's gross misbehavior during his recent trip he has indeed done a grave, injustice to the United States. He has not only publicly embarrassed the Russians, but I feel that he has made a serious misrepresentation of the people of the United States as a whole. I feel that in all due course, Mr.

Fischer should be publicly reprimanded for his juvenile behavior in Iceland. BRADFORD D. ARKLE 2915 June Lane Bossier City, La. 71010 with a of his thoughtless, extreme statements, this one comparing U.S. bombing in Indochina with "Hitler's efforts to exterminate the Jews in the 1930s." McGovern's i d-less rhetoric has always been fierce, but when he put the Vietnam ordeal in the same TfflMMESCH Shreveport Fire Fighter Urges Renewal of Ad Valorem Taxes Editor, The Times: lama fire fighter on the Shreveport Fire Department, having chosen this as a career.

I was employed, June 22, 1970, and am assigned to the newly opened Station No. 17 in Southern Hills. On April 20, 1971, a special election was called to renew five vital tax propositions. The fire fighters were put on notice (as were other city employes) that if these measures failed, approximately 75 fire fighters would have to be laid off since our Public Safety Department atone would be cut by $1,030,533 (as per Public Safety records). I was among this group.

Unfortunately these failed. Our Caddo Parish tax assessor, Charles R. Hennington, made special provisions whereby he would accept the tax rate after the deadline for submitting tax rates to the assessor. After much consultation and deliberation, a study committee recommended another special election be called. This was set for June 29, 1971.

In this interim period the need for these taxes was thoroughly discussed and explained and the civic minded people of Shreveport gave overwehlming approval for a period of two years (as a stop-gap measure) to let our city fathers show their willingness and ability to do their best job possible. Almost immediately after the taxes were approved, the American Insurance Association, which regulates our fire insurance rates, placed Shreveport in Class III instead of Class IV which puts us one step closer to the top resulting in lower fire insurance premiums. As a career man on the Shreveport Fire Department, I want to personally thank The Times for your favorable and encouraging comments in view of the tax election. Also, I thought Pap Dean's illustrated cartoon was well presented. Recently, upon returning from National Guard summer camp at Fort Polk, I enjoyed reading your editorial in the Sunday Times, dated June 11, 1972, encouraging the good people of Shreveport to go to the polls, July 11, 1972, and pass these taxes to be renewed for a period of five years (no new taxes).

I sincerely hope we don't have to go through with this possibility of layoffs again. Thank you, again, for your aggressiveness and your favorable position. BOB ROBINSON, Jr. 3052 Sandra Shreveport' La. 71109 Color of Clothing Worn by Hunters Not Business of Legislature Editor, The Times: I note in The Shreveport Times where the state Senate has passed a House-originated bill to require the wearing of 400 square inches of hunter's orange while "stalking a deer" in the state next seas-son.

I want to congratulate my own Harold Montgomery, and Sen. Brown of Tallulah for casting the only dissenting votes. What does the term "stalking deer" mean? Does this mean that if I am in the woods hunting squirrel, see a deer, slip a buckshot in my gun and kill the. deer, I have violated a law? Or, if I am jumping shooting ducks, or wading cypress brakes for duck, and dogs run a deer out by me I can't kill the deer because I do not have on 400 square inches of hunter's orange? Anyone that goes after squirrel or duck, wearing 400 square inches of hunter's orange, deserves to not only be shot, but also committed. "Stalking a deer?" A cousin of mine, five times removed, told me of his father going squirrel hunting with a lever action 30-30 caliber carbine When I mentioned to him that I thought his father was a little overgunned for squirrel, he said his mother was always complaining of the game being shot up, so his father just aimed at the limb of the tree, right under the squirrel's head, pulled the trigger and the bullet kicked up a piece of the limb and broke the squirrel's neck.

That ended the problem of shot-up game. Would he have been arrested for not having on 400 square inches of hunter's orange? Remember, he would have sworn he was squirrel hunting. What is "hunter's orange" anyway? I am almost completely color-blind so I couldn't tell whether the hunter was wearing red, yellow, or orange. Are there any color-blind game wardens? I am certainly no attorney, but I don't believe the law would last through one appeal to a court higher than a local justice of the peace. What the law will do is Impose a financial burden upon a lot of people of limited means, who have several boys at home and who will have to shell out pretty good money for caps and vest of hunter's orange to comply with the law.

It will also be good business for the clothing manufacturers in the east that will reap the profits from supplying our state's hundreds of thousands of deer hunters. To me, and most important of all, it takes away from me just a little more of my precious personal freedom; freedom that the Founding Fathers placed so much emphasis upon, and freedom that the Paces have enjoyed in these United States since 1623. The very idea of the state telling me what I can wear while deer hunting! I once shot a duck on Black Lake Creek, in 21 degree temperature, wearing only a hat and pipe. Of course this was before the 1972 legislature started messing with what a hunter could, or could not wear while hunting. I do not intend to buy, or wear any hunter's orange clothes while hunting, unless I like the color more than I think I will.

I intend to do like some of the so-called civil rights leaders I am not going to obey this law because I think it is wrong to legislate clothing a person can, or cannot wear. What 'Silent Cal' Coolidge Had To Say About George Washington Editor, The Times: I enjoyed your editorial July 6 "Silent Cal" Coolidge. It reminded me of a story I once heard: A gushy visitor had just "debunked" the greatness of the Father of our Country and asked Coolidge for his reaction. Silent Cal" looked out the White House window and remarkel' "I see the monument is still there." An independent democrat for Nixon. JAMES M.

BENSON Stephens, Ark. 81764 league with the holocaust of people ordered by the mad race policies of the Nazi dictator, well, South Dakota's junior senator reveals himself to be the ruthless lightweight he really is. McGovern, once a professor, needs a history lesson. McGovern, always righteous, needs to know the difference between a doctrine of deliberate, planned murders of millions, and the unplanned and regretted deaths of Vietnamese civilians Dy a U.S. bombing policy which has been restrained, to say the least.

Planned Extermination Hitler not only planned war, he planned the extermination of "inferior peoples," the incurably sick, the infirm aged and children, gypsies, Slavs and Jews. Annihilation of Jewish people became an official state policy of the Nazis. Hitler's program of human carnage was at its worst in the '40s, not in the '30s, as McGovern said, and was conducted all over Europe, not just in Germany as McGovern also said. It came to include all those despised by Hitler Communists and other "political enemies:" Catholic priests and nuns who wouldn't buckle under to Nazi policies; conquered people who refused to "Germanize," such as the Dutch, Luxembourgers and Danes. When tha last body was burned, and the final blood spilt, Hitler's "master race" policy yielded 12 million victims murdered, to say nothing of the 15 million military men who died and the millions of civilians who perished in the horrible war Hitler started.

Those who survived Hitler's death camps and those millions of now middle-aged and older Europeans who suffered through World War II expect a them. In South Carolina last week, one Democratic delegate pressed McGovern as to why he wants the United States to do all the giving in to North Vietnam, and McGovern responded that "begging is better than bombing. I would go to Hanoi and beg if I thought that would release the boys one day earlier." If he ever gets to Hanoi, McGovern might also beg the Communists to stop their merciless shelling of South Vietnamese villages, part of their deliberate, long-standing campaign to kill and terrorize civilian residents. And therein lies a difference. Bombing Military Targets In World War II, the air forces of Germany, England and the United States deliberately bombed civilian populations, and hundreds of thousands of people were killed in Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Though McGovern and New Lefters would have you believe otherwise, U.S. bombing in Vietnam, enormous as it has been, has been directed at military targets. This is not to say Vietnamese civilians have not been killed. They have, in great numbers, when they are near military targets or when wayward bombs, particularly from B52s, fall near them But this was not deliberate bombing of civilians. Indeed, the new "smart" bombs have reduced the risk to civilians even more.

The U.S. bombing of Vietnamese military targets is debatable in terms of its usefulness in ending the war. Sen. Javits and others who deplore McGovern's statement are also against the bombing of North Vietnam. Airmen dispute this view and feel if they had had greater opportunity to bomb military targets several years ago, North Vietnam's ability to make war would have been greatly diminished.

Idealistic Notion Another point for McGovern to learn is that the United States got involved in Vietnam in the early '60s, not as a calculated effort to conquer and exterminate (as Hitler did), but out of the idealistic notion that we were helping a harassed small nation. That notion, as expressed by President John F. Kennedy and since restated by Presidents Johnson and Nixon, could well be wrong. Our right intentions might have resulted in the long, bloody ordeal which is Vietnam. Again, North Vietnamese Communists had something to do with it, and it is they who variously infiltrate and invade South Vietnam.

Rut for McGovern to characterize the military conduct of the United States akin to that of Nazi extermination of the Jews is sick business indeed. And for The Washington Post, which shills for McGovern, to not print the AP account of McGovern's farfetched comparison is also pretty sick. Rut McGovern and his elitist allies are so desperate for that Democratic nomination that they do sick about it at times. which governed the Indian-American two centuries ago and which still governs the Taos, Eskimos, Santo Domingos, and other tribes today. By instinct, religion and intelligence, the Indian understood long ago that land was the ultimate home, "a community to which he belonged," in Aldo Leopold's phrase.

He lavished on it all the love and respect we need to revive today if we intend to preserve what is left of our free gifts of air, water, land and wildlife. Doll Family House on Fannin Should Be Priority for Preservation Editor, The Times: It is very inspiring to learn that the people of Shreveport and North Louisiana are going to band together to save what historical sites and buildings remain. Regretfully, many which were of importance are now gone. But a number still remain. One may not be standing hng unless action is taken very soon.

I refer to the Doll Family house on Fannin St reet! here could you find a more deserving building? It is without a doubt a grand example of a past era when elegance was vogue. Sitting high on a hill iiverlooking the grand town, with its tower for a queen and the marble steps leading to the front door. It has a grand staircase leading from the first floor to upper floors. As many know, this once grand house may soon be part of the new federal building. With any luck, it will probably be just part of the parking lot! Why could there not be parking elsewhere and restore this house for future generations? Why does it have to be only part of some parking lot, which Shreveport does need, but not here? There are plenty of other spots which deserve to le parking lots.

This letter is an effort to awaken the pnple to band to save this house from destruction. It can never be replaced. Regretfully, Shreveport lost the last riverboat captain's house. Please contact a member of the historical committee with your picas to rescue this valuable house tor tomorrow! Local Telephone Manager Disagrees On Column's Claim of Favoritism Editor, The Times: Jack Anderson's June 28, column concerning telephone service for the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach. is dead wrong in implying that the Bell System is providing service to the Democratic party under preferential rates.

Here are the facts: The rates paid by the Democratic National Committee for its telephone service at its convention aje the same rates that any other customer would pay for the same service. The rates are based on costs and follow normal tariff regulations. Further, the Democratic committee agreed to pay in advance for any service provided by the Bell System in Miami Beach and has paid all charges due amounting to about $90,000. Incidentally, charges on the same basis are being made for service for the Republican National Convention, also being held in Miami Beach. And, if anyone else wanted to hold a convention in Miami Reach and nrder the same telephone service, the charges would be the same.

Mr. Anderson implies favoritism. If so, then we favor each of our customers. It should be pointed out that service exclusively for the Democratic National Committee, which is discussed in this letter, is only a minor portion of the M. L.

PACE Jr. P.O. Box 821 Springhill, La. better sense of history from an American presidential aspirant like McGovern, whose wild declarations are aimed at younger Americans who don't know what World War II really was. Javits' Criticism McGovern's remarks provoked one of the Senate's leading Vietnam dives, Jacob Javits of New York, to respond because he knows his history.

Javits deplored McGovern's comparison of the U.S. military in Vietnam and the extermination of Jews, said it "is just too simplistic" for such a terrible crime as genocide. He also noted: this comparison by clear implication, would accuse our own flyers of crimes against humanity, and might be exploited by North Vietnam to support the so-called "war crimes" charges against them that have resulted in these American prison The views of letters to the editor are not necessarily those of The Times. We invite the views of all, including those who have different opinions than those expressed in our editorial columns. Letters should be concise and courteous and must be signed, but names may be withheld in rare cases and for sufficient reasons at the request of the writer.

The Times reserves the right to edit all forum letters. F. RALEY Jr. It Won't Be Long Until I Have the Whole Place to Myself! 613 McDade St. Bossier City, La.

71010.