Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Room 300, Erb Memorial Union
PO. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online Edition:
www.dailyemerald.com
Wednesday, April 24,2002
/
Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Jeremy Lang
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
We should be thinking
in dollars and sense
Guest Commentary
Colin
Elliott
Ican hardly believe my ears. Our
consumer-driven economy is in a
recession and people like Emerald
columnist Jeff Oliver are seeking to
take money away from consumers
and trust it in the hands of state
bureaucrats (“Back-to-school sales
tax,” April 15). An economy that
feeds on consumer confidence, activ
ity and spending must not be starved.
If our economy was a sick child,
would we, in its already unhealthy
state, deny it the resources that it
needs to survive?
A sales tax would rip funds out of
our desperate economy. Paying a few
extra pennies for fast food is one
thing, but this is not just a hamburg
er tax. When Oliver went to Michi
gan, did he try to buy a car? The
sales tax from that kind of purchase
would turn out to be much more
than his “few dollars on larger pur
chases.” For some, like me, who live
below the poverty line and work our
selves to the bone, a sales tax even
on inexpensive items steals from
what little we have earned. I budget
$2 per meal; a 7 percent tax would
make me pay for a meal I did not eat
about every 14 meals. If I keep this
meager budget standard all year,
which is very difficult, then by the
end of the year I will have lost
$153.30 (a lot more than a “few pen
nies at a time”) and not eaten about
26 meals. What about a person who
lives on the street? How much more
would this hurt them?
And what about the public school
dilemma? Would a sales tax really
help? Nationally, salaries of public
school administrators last year
increased 5.7 percent to $112,158,
according to the Department of Re
search at www.aft.org. This is more
than the average for a lawyer, a full
time professor or an engineer and
more than twice the state average
for teachers. I thought education
was about teaching children, not
about providing administrators with
early retirement.
There are 1,277 public schools in
Oregon. If there is one administrator
per school and that administrator takes
a 10 percent pay cut, the revenue
earned would be $14,322,576.60.1 did
not add in a bonus or even the project
ed percentage increase, which, when
factored in, only has them losing about
$4,000 rather than $10,000. This seems
a much better solution than picking
the pockets of the poor. Oregonians
have rejected the sales tax time after
time because it is unfair and just plain
wrong. Besides, if Oregonians “are
afraid of change” as Oliver alleges,
then why would we have “formed a
nationwide identity of being progres
sive,” as he states in the same column?
This kind of rhetoric is just as hypo
critical as the idea of a sales tax saving
education. A sales tax earmarked for
education would probably just
increase the aforementioned percent
age of administrators’ salaries. Why?
Because it would go to a department,
or an agency that could almost do
whatever it wanted with that money.
The word “earmarked” does not guar
antee that sales tax revenue would go
toward teaching children.
Trust me, sacrificing more money to
an ever-increasing government is a
bad idea. Taking this money from the
poverty-stricken, the weary, and the
heavy-laden is more than that — it’s
an atrocity.
Colin Elliott is a sophomore history major.
Letters to the editor
Picture worth
a thousand wrongs
I find Julie Lauderbaugh’s article on
the Seattle Mardi Gras celebration a
perfect example of what is wrong with
journalism (“Point/Counterpoint,”
ODE, April 17).
Yes, journalists should report what is
going on, and yes, sometimes it takes a
graphic image to get a message across.
The sad part of the story here is where
she says that the journalist who took
the photo was not acting the part of the
police because that is not his job, that
he had every right to sit by and photo
graph that woman being assaulted.
So, if you see a woman being raped,
would you just pull out your camera
and say the same thing? That is disgust
ing; How different would you feel if
that was you in the photograph? Why
don’t you let others be the judge and
print the photo in the Emerald with all
the information, like that the photogra
pher who won an award for watching
and photographing the event describes
how she tried to get away? Try, “It’s a
photo worth a thousand words and a
thousand wrongs.”
Sarah Zaleski
senior
geography
Article on Measure 20-56
helpful, voter-friendly
The article about Measure 20-56 was
very informative (“Measure would al
locate $116 million to schools,” ODE,
April 17).
It is extremely important to inform
the people about issues such as this. In
voter pamphlets, it is often hard to un
derstand what certain ballots are really
saying and asking the citizens to vote
on. When this happens, it can often cre
ate voter apathy and cause people to
make uninformed decisions.
The article explained, in an unbiased
way and in understandable terms, what
this measure consists of. Also, it is im
portant that the article mentioned con
cerns on both sides of the issue which
readers could consider. Doing that al
lows the reader and voter to decide for
themselves where they stand.
Informing people about these issues
so that they will be competent when
voting is key, and that is exactly what
this article did.
Personally, I would vote yes on this is
sue because learning environments are
important to learning and teaching alike.
Plus, if making these additions will in
crease enrollment, then it is a good idea.
Carina J. Zeveiy
freshman
undeclared
And the winner is
• • •
Did anyone hear about the Big Game lot
tery jackpot ballooning to more than
$325 million last week? It was the only
thing in the news not involving the Middle
East or the scandal within the Catholic Church.
So I will now set my sights on lottery programs,
which I consider to be nothing less than a gov
ernment tax on stupidity.
Georgia, Illinois, New
Jersey, Massachusetts,
Maryland, Michigan and
Virginia all participate in
the Big Game. The pot
reached such monumental
proportions after 18
straight drawings without
a winner. Before the April
16 drawing, which finally
yielded three winning
tickets, poor delusional
saps from each state, and
in many cases surrounding
Columnist states as well, lined up
outside convenience stores
and newsstands for a chance to beat the odds.
And what odds they are. A player has a one
in-76-million chance of winning the Big
Game. To put this in perspective, a person’s
chances of being killed by fireworks are one
in-21.8-million. And fireworks are only legal
in 34 of the 50 states!
The odds didn’t discourage many, though.
Georgia was selling some 1.5 million tickets
per hour April 16, contributing vast amounts of
money to that state’s government. Georgia, and
the other Big Game states, each pull in around
$2 billion per year from lottery ticket sales, and
10 percent of that comes from the Big Game.
Government lotteries are big business.
Oregon doesn’t participate in the Big Game
(although other states, including Washington,
will join soon), but it does make a pretty penny
off its own lottery. Sales for 2001 reached
$785.6 million. That’s a far cry from the bil
lions other states rake in, but considering Ore
gon’s population stands at a paltry 3.42 million
people, it is a hefty sum. According to these
numbers, Oregonians spent about $229.71 per
person on lottery tickets last year alone.
Now I don’t know about you, but I didn’t
even spend $1 on lottery tickets last year, let
alone $230. What’s more, I don’t know a sin
gle person who spends even close to that
much. I don’t think I know anyone who even
plays the lottery. So who’s spending so much
money on a game with virtually no chance
of winning?
A 1999 New York Times analysis of the New
Jersey lottery found that modest wage earners,
the poor and the less educated spend a greater
percentage of their income on the lottery than
wealthier individuals, that people in the low
est-income zip codes spend five times more
on tickets than people in the highest, and that
there are twice as many lottery vendors in
poor areas.
So it stands to reason that the people spend
ing that $230 a year (probably more — people
like me, who don’t play, drag down the aver
age) on the Oregon lottery are the people who
can’t afford it, and that the people spending
that amount often don’t have the mental ca
pacity to realize the impossibility of ever turn
ing a profit with their gambling. Is it really
fair, then, for the government to be selling
them false hope at $1 to $5 a shot? I certainly
don’t think so.
By the way, as of press time, only one of last
week’s Big Game winners has claimed the
money, a 20-year-old Georgia phone company
worker. She had never bought a ticket before.
E-mail columnist Aaron Rorick
ataaronrorick@dailyemerald.com. His opinions
do not necessarily reflect those of the Emerald.
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