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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 17, 1972)
f Editorials Vote yes' on Tuesday Oregon’s voters will decide on a proposed five cent per package cigarette tax increase Tuesday. Opponents of the proposal say you should vote against the measure to bring about wholesale tax reform in the state. They say we should take a chance with Oregon’s current programs—including the state system of higher education; take the chance that failure of the measure will put those programs in such dire financial need that the Legislature is forced into special session to enact wide-reaching tax reforms. We can’t afford to take that chance. Oregon does need tax reform, but this is not the way to guarantee it. By taking the chance the Legislature will act, you also take the chance it won’t. Should the proposal be defeated and no tax reforms enacted, it would guarantee a two-per-cent across-the board cut for the state’s already much beleagured programs. Hardest hit would be education and welfare, because they get the most money. (Since one-half of the budget for the period will have already been spent, this two per cent cut would really amount to chopping four per cent of the remaining funds.) As it is, the proposal does involve some minor tax reform in the form of property tax relief. Should the cigarette tax increase pass, it will finance increased tax relief for Oregon’s property owners. The cigarette industry’s misleading advertising campaign against the proposal has stated that voting for the measure will bring about decreased property tax relief; that just is not the case. Opponents of the measure have also charged that the tax is “discriminatory.” But what tax isn’t discriminatory? Not everyone will pay this tax because not all of the state’s citizens smoke—but neither do they all earn income, own property, drink alcohol or operate a motor vehicle. Even if it is discriminatory, the cigarette tax is not excessive—at least not in com parison to neighboring states. Both Washington (16 cents a pack) and California (ten cents a pack) already charge a higher tax than Oregon will have if the raise is approved. A vote for that raise will be a vote for the state’s current programs and institutions— especially welfare and higher education. Vote yes on Tuesday. Nancie Fadeley Paving over America The Pavers and the Paved: The Real Cost of America’s Highway Program. By Ben Kelley. Donald Brown. $5.95. Emerald readers concerned about preserving our en vironment will be interested in this account of how the highway operates on the national level. As the first director of the Federal Highway Ad ministrator’s office of public affairs, Ben Kelley learned plenty about how it came to be that we are finding more and more miles of pavement covering up the places where we used to want to go. Kelley is now ex director of that office. What was particularly striking to me about The Pavers and the Paved was that although it is the story of our federal highway system, it parallels our own situation here in Oregon. For example, the engineers who are in charge of our federal highway program seem in credibly unresponsive to the people who are affected by these highways or to legislators or even to presidents. The federal highway empire has this autonomy because it is funded by the Highway Trust Fund, money which is earmarked for federal highways and which cannot be diverted by Congress for other uses. This trust fund for highways has been called “sacred” by Nixon’s Tran sportation Secretary, John Volpe. And in Oregon, as we know, highway funds are con stitutionally dedicated for the use of the Highway Commission which may or may not listen to the legislature’s ideas on tran sportation. On the national level, we leam that Americans spend more money on highways than on anything else except war. In Oregon, our highway commission budget is our biggest budget. On the national level new high ways consume 200,000 acres of land and displace more than 56,000 people every year. We see a similar consumption in Oregon. For example, the High way Commission has $35 million in its budget to spend in the next two years on real estate acquisition—this is land that will never again grow crops, never again make anyone a home, and never again produce any property taxes. And the alarm of en vironmentalists in Oregon about how highways threaten sand spits, lakes, parks, and historic sites is a microcosm of the alarm of environmentalists all over America as they see concrete poured over national treasures. All this reminds me of a great quote from that greatest of Oregon governors. Os West, who at the age of 74 pointed his finger at the state h^hway engineer and denounced him as “one who likes the handiworks of God in making the beaches but wishes to dig them up and cart them away...God was pretty slow about it (building the beaches), but we mustn’t forget! He never had a highway engineer.” Kelley sees a pattern on the national level of new superhigh ways continually displacing the poor and the politically helpless: the person who loses his home or his business to a freeway is quite likely to be the type of person who—for reasons of age or economic status—will have a hard time getting relocated satisfactorily. This pattern is also apparent in Oregon. And on the federal as well as the state level, money goes first for big superhighways while the rural poor remain stuck in the mud. On the national level, 20 per cent of the labor force is directly or indirectly involved in the construction or use of highways. Twenty cents of each dollar recorded in the GNP is associated with the construction and use of highways. I don’t know what percentage of the economic interests in Oregon are depen dent on highways, but con sidering the static legislators get at any attempt to modify our highway program, the 20 per cent figure seems a bit conservative. Here are some interesting statistics: —The sand, gravel, crushed stone for construction of our country’s 42,500 mile interstate system of expressways would build a mound 50 feet wide, 9 feet high, completely around the world. —The concrete needed would build six sidewalks to the moon. —Of the ten largest cor porations in this country, eight depend exclusively or heavily on road construction and use. — The biggest source of air pollution in the country is the auto. —The highway is the most common place for violent death for Americans. Kelley concludes that our high way program will continue to be autocratic as long as it continues to receive dedicated funds. With an assured income, it does not have to listen to the people whose homes and businesses are destroyed, to those who need mass transit systems, to en vironmentalists who are trying to save our natural resources or to legislators who would like to see this money go for other priority needs of our nation. And everywhere in America mass transit systems—the hope for an alternative to the pollution of the automobile—continue to be hampered by the powerful high way lobby. Eugene and the Tri Met area are like communities all over the nation which are not able to get adequate mass transit funding. Many readers will feel frustrated as they read this story of the power of the highway lobby. But Oregonians can es cape this frustration by sup porting the initiative campaign presently underway to unlock the state's highway funds. This campaign is bound to make the “Paved” all over America look upon the Oregon voter as the giant killer who takes on the concrete octopus that is the highway commission. And the Oregon voter will also attract the attention of the “Pavers” who will give our state’s economy a boost as they pour in money to fight the initiative. Letters Against McCloskey For those excited about Pete McGoskey as a presidential candidate... In 1970 he supported Governor Reagan and Senator Murphy for re-election in his home state of California. He supported the 1970 District of Columbia Crime Bill containing provisions for preventive detention, “no-knock” and wiretapping. In 1968 he backed a measure to deny federal aid to students participating in campus demonstrations. He supported the recent extension of the military draft. “Eighteen months in the army is a small price to pay for the privilege of being an American,” he has said He voted consistently in favor of ap propriations for investigative work by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). now named the House Internal Security Committee. He voted against a recent effort to eliminate 370 million dollars budgeted for the new B-l long range bomber. He backed a proposal to restrict the rights of students and striking workers to receive food stamps. It is surprising what the Congressional Quarterly reveals about McCloskey. I think anyone considering switching his registration in order to vote for McCloskey in the Oregon primary would be remiss if he did not examine the congressman’s voting record Rick Fitch graduate, interdisciplinary studies A new party “Ms Mink. On final passage have you ever voted against a Defense Department appropriation?" "No. ! have not.” Hopefully, it will soon become obvious that every other candidate who is sup posedly against the war is merely engaging in meaningless rhetoric. You can not reform either party because they have already been bought. The only hope remains a new party. I remain pledged to its creation. In the meantime I believe we should use the Oregon primary as tactic. Jerry Rubin said that if we can not beat the bastards at least we should deny them re-election. I have changed my registration to Republican in order to vote against Richard Nixon on May 23. That option is open to all of you until April 23. To vote against Nixon, it seems as if I will have to vote for Paq^N MeCloskey. I would trust my civil liberties to J. Edgar Hoover before I would trust them to MeCloskey His voting record is what you might exipect of a young military officer lawyer from a Republican district. But he isn’t going to be President no matter how many of us vote for him Our purpose should be to vote against Nixon. This will result in the election of Muskie who probably won't be any better and who could be worse. Hopefully .however, if we do obtain a large vote against Nixon in May, then all of you who believe with me that neither party will curb American militarism will band together in forming a new party that will end Oregon’s participation in the American nightmare. William B. Mills Alvadorc. Ore. hint Ah ha! We now know there is nothing worse than ostentatious fascism, not because it is fascism, but because of its ostentation Somehow, I don't think hiding a LINT agent from the public view is going to make the smell go away. Gil Johnson Class of '70