The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 107, No. 3, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 16, 1997 Page: 4 of 24
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THURSDAY 16 IANUARY 1997
field
llOtOS (continued)
opinion
.RECORD
knowing that the folks who are going to have to live with it are the same
ones who are going to make that determination.
IF WINTER DRIVING CONDITIONS have you packing blankets
and rations every time you take a road trip, you may want to heed these
words of advice. The story is told by Speedy Nieman at the Hereford
Brand, and reached my eyes via the Perryton Herald:
Joe took a job working alone in Alaska’s frozen tundra. “Here’s your
emergency survival kit,” said his boss. “It contains a box of flares, a
radio and a deck of cards.”
“What are the cards for?” Joe asked. ? c
“In case the flares don’t work and the radio freezes up,” replied the
boss, “just take out the cards and play solitaire. In about a minute,
someone will tap you on the shoulder and say, ’’Put the red nine on the ^
black ten."
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letters
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Texas taxes and the White House
Shame on you if you have participated in or are aware of who has
written graffiti on the piers of our new bridge and not reported it. Our
community does not tolerate graffiti in our schools and other public
places, and should carry through in this area. This is destruction of
public property and should upset each of us as if it were written on the
walls of our homes.
The old bridge underside was loaded with obscene graffiti, an em-
barrassment to our clean cut community. This was finally eliminated
-with the removal of the old bridge supports. Unfortunately, fresh
graffiti has already plagued the newly constructed bridge.
The sandy road running parallel to the bridge has always been the
horseback riders’ and hikers’ connection between our wonderful rodeo
arena and the beautiful river. Many guests, including young children,
see this area. The massive concrete piers below the new bridge will be
even more visible in the future with plans for the renovation of the
original Canadian River Bridge. Let’s keep it respectable.
Please, if you are frustrated, perverted or trying to slam someone’s
reputation, seek help in counseling instead of bashing public property.
Make your folks proud._
“A River Rider”, CAROLINE CORNETT
To the residents of Canadian:
The City of Canadian has much to be proud of and can thank their
County and City employees for a job well done in their recycling efforts
and other areas of waste management. In the recycling world of the
Panhandle, Canadian by far exceeds most of its sister cities in the areas
of handling recyclables and diverting from its trash mainstream. This
is accomplished through many dedicated and hard-working employees
in the City and County.
Canadian’s recycling program is unique in two ways:
1. It is the only city in Subregion II, and possibly the entire Panhan-
dle, that gives its residents curbside recycling. This not only allows
convenience for the consumer but also results in quality control of the
materials being gathered! (If by chance you are not currently taking
advantage of this curbside program and would like to, contact City Hall
for more information.)
2. Canadian is well ahead of its sister cities in that it is able to bale
your recyclables, which giving several advantages in the endproduct of
the baled material (making it more attractive to markets and easier to
handle).
If you have not visited the transfer station, you might want to call
for a “guided tour.” The station, which bales the rest of the trash
produced as well as the recyclables, is something the City and County
can continue to be proud of as it still exceeds area efforts by leaps and
bounds.
Last, but not least, the citizens of Canadian should also be com-
mended for their voluntary recycling efforts. Currently, approximately
14% of the trash produced by the citizens of Canadian is being recycled.
Could Canadian do better? If you would like a program on “How to
Recycle” for your club or group, contact City Hall for more information.
But Governor Thompson does his budget cutting
in Wisconsin, where government programs are more
generous than in the state Molly Ivins describes as
“Mississippi with good roads.” To provide for a tax
cut here, Governor Bush grabbed for the budget
surplus — and shattered any illusion that he, Laney,
and Bullock are collaborating on tax reform.
Bush’s decision that presidential politics are more
important than bipartisan collaboration might serve
both the political interests of the Democrats and the
public interest. Local property taxes provide $9.1
billion (53 percent) of the funding for the state’s
public schools. State taxes and revenues provide $8.1
billion (only 47 percent), in a system that each year
grows more dependent on property tax. But the great
public uproar the Governor claims to hear might be
more audible to him than to Bullock or Laney be-
cause most of the complaints are coming from Repub-
lican Party constituents living in white-flight
suburban school districts.
In fifty mid-wealth school districts and the state’s
fifty poorest districts, since 1991 the average tax rate
has increased from $0.90 to $1.40 per hundred dollars
of value. But in the state’s fifty wealthiest districts,
the average tax rate has increased from $0.37 per
hundred dollars of value to $1.38 per hundred dollars
of value. That’s an increase of almost 400 percent
among suburban Republicans, who began to see their
school taxes soar after the Legislature complied with
state Supreme Court rulings and equalized school
funding. That’s a political problem for a Republican
Governor and a liability for a presidential candidate.
Democrats, on the other hand, might realize they
have a little to gain by adopting the Governor’s re-
form package. The combination of sales and business
taxes included in “the plan” currently circulated
among select legislators shifts much of the tax bur-
den from homeowners and businesses to consumers.
What would Democrats gain by shifting the tax
burden from suburban Republicans to families with
lower incomes?
Governor Bush calls consumption taxes “volun-
tary,” which may be somewhat true for him, because
his income allows him to spend only a small percent-
age of his earnings on items covered by sales tax. But
low-income families typically spend about three-
quarters of their income on goods and services sub-
ject to sales tax. In fact, according to the
Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities:
‘The sales tax burden as a percentage of a family
income is four-and-one-half times greater on a Texas
family in the state’s lowest income group than it is on
a family in the highest income group.”
Continued from Page 3
A business activity tax — known as a value added
tax — also falls heaviest on those who are least able
to pay. ‘The Congressional Budget Office calculates
that a national VAT like the one being considered for
Texas would take 4.8 percent of the annual income of
a family in the middle-income group, and only 1.5
percent of the income of the highest-income fami-
lies,” according to Dick Lavine of the Center for
Public Policy Priorities.
And the biggest losers of all, if the Governor has
his way, will be renters — who represent 40 percent
of all the state’s residents. Homeowners will at least
get property tax relief. Renters will get only two tax
increases: increased sales tax and the new’ value
added tax increases businesses will pass on to con-
sumers.
“It just won’t w’ork — the poorest areas are going
to suffer,” El Paso Representative Paul Moreno said
after listening to fellow Democrat Rob Junell lay the
plan out for the El Paso Chamber of Commerce. “We
just have to face the reality whether we like it or not,
Texas has to put a personal income tax on the ballot.”
I HAT’S THE ONE OPTION that’s not an option.
I In 1991, Bob Bullock made the case for a state
income tax, then waited for Democratic Governor
Ann Richards and other leaders in his party to back
him. After waiting a year, Bullock recanted and pro-
posed a constitutional amendment that would re-
quire voters to approve of a personal income tax. The
amendment was easily adopted by the voters who are
not going to approve a state income tax even if the
Legislature were to put it on the ballot. And yet it
might be easier to sell a tax increase to voters than
to Republican legislators, because many of them take
great pride in the fact that they have never voted for
any tax increase. So the Governor might find a tax
increase a hard sell in his own party, where he will
have to sell it. A legislative budget draft released
January 7 does not provide any of the $1 billion he
requested for tax relief.
Where does that leave us all if the Legislature fails
to enact the plan put together by the Governor and
his surrogates? Well, the Center for Public Policy
Priorities — the only progressive group doing seri-
ous research and advocacy on tax issues — has found
that the property tax, for all its flaws, is fairer and
less regressive than both the sales and value added
tax. So no progress is better than the progress prof-
fered by the Governor. And if Bush fails—well, John
Sharp, Garry Mauro, Jack Kemp, and Phil Gramm
can each begin to look toward their next campaign.
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Ezzell, Nancy & Brown, Laurie Ezzell. The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 107, No. 3, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 16, 1997, newspaper, January 16, 1997; Canadian, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth738119/m1/4/: accessed July 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Hemphill County Library.