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Page 4 NORTHWEST HERALD Section B Thursday, September 5,1985 Opinion • ' ' • '-i - Serving the public? We have just celebrated Labor Day. You remember Labor Day. It was dedicated to the American worker and to those who fought to eliminate sub-human workings conditions. Strike? in those days were vio­ lent affairs. Striking was the ulti­ mate action to take against those who would imposing life-threaten­ ing working conditions upon an employee. Such action ideally was taken only when a worker had no recourse but to strike or die. c -That was Xlong time ago. Thingt are different now. But striking seems to be the fad. The baseball season had its ma­ jor league baseball player strike. The auto industry' season had its auto transport (delivery of new autos) strike. And now with the school season upon us, schools have their teacher strikes. Those who would endanger the lives of children by robbing them of their education are despicable characters. Whether those people are teachers striking for more money, or board members trying to show'how powerful they can be, the actions by these usurpers cf youth should be condemned. The public has a right to safety. Public workers and officials have a duty to serve the public -- not just their own greed. Taking out the garbage The FBI has a problem. t admits that data it provides local police forces can be inaccu­ rate. It's a serious matter. These are crime reports gathered from throughout the nation upon which thousands of criminal investiga­ tions are based and arrests made. But don't jump to a negative conclusion. That is not the bad news. The bad news has been the bureau's previous unwillingness to acknowledge the flaws in its infor­ mation gathering and processing that have long concerned its critics. At issue in this case is the Na­ tional Crime Information Center, an FBI-operated computerized clearinghouse linking more than 60,000 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. The agen­ cies feed reports on crimes and wanted individuals into the center, which feeds the information back out upon request. It is through checking with the center that police in Oregon get word that someone they may have picked up for a traffic violation is wanted on criminal charges in Georgia. far so good for law and order, BvA the ejtfecUyeness oi the s\ * Ultftftafiy (KPhtfc tlie a( racy of the reporting agencies. The center itself does not check out, and correct where necessary, the data received before the comput­ ers spit it back out to the field. Garbage in, garbage out, as com­ puter programmers say. After long denying there was any serious problem with the sys­ tem, the FBI recently began spot- checking results from selected re­ porting agencies. The results, it now admits, do indeed reveal a problem. Names can be wrong, physical descriptions inaccurate or incomplete, and information on the status of legal proceedings out of date. The auditing so far suggests an error rate of 6 percent. That may not sound like such a big deal. But considering that the system pro­ cesses several hundred thousand reports daily, the erroneous num­ bers add up. Terry Dean Rogan, then of Sagi­ naw, Mich., is one of them. He has been arrested five times as the result of a murder warrant filed by Los Angeles police for another ma$~who had been using personal Don Graff * • - x» £ttA WRr Jiw-ieiea**-- MIilMF * oc 3 "The Americans are eluding our tracking dust system -- we think they've assigned Splderman to their efribassy stiff." ; •> ' ' Tax reform: Time for action j identification lost by Rogan. After the first arrest, which followed a check with the FBI computer cen­ ter after Rogan had been picked up on a traffic violation, a finger­ print Check cleared him to the sat­ isfaction of Michigan police. Los Angeles police were then asked to delete Rogan's name from the computer entry. It wasn't that easy. The warrant remained uncorrected, the FBI computer kept fingering Rogan as a wanted man and he was arrested four more times. He is now suing the city of Los Angeles and two of its detectives. I He iSxOnly one of a number of such c£)seslof mistaken arrest cur­ rently being taken to court, Exact- how. many, the FBI says it It re, however, now keeping clos­ er track <W> the performance of local reporting agencies. State-by- state audits are continuing on a surprise basis ("We never tell where we're going next," a bureau spokesman says). Findings are passed on to state advisory boards, with which local reporting agen­ cies are affiliated and which are exhorted to clean up their own acts where necessary. It's a matter of quality control, the spokesman says, but one that is beyond the immediate control of the FBI's clearinghouse. It has to be attacked at the local reporting level, where the garbage is gener­ ated, and that takes time. Meanwhile, Terry Dean Rogan's suit charging violation of his con­ stitutional rights to due process of law and freedom from unneces­ sary search and seizure is still pending in Federal District Court of Southern California. No hearing date has been set. But he hasn't been arrested lately. (Don Graff is a columnist for N e w s p a p e r E n t e r p r i s e Association) WASHINGTON - It is late in the day for Congress to buckle down to the hard task of tax reform, but given the courage to act, the House and Senate could yet do a part of the job that needs to be done. Last week's Report from Citizens for Tax Justice could provide just the spur that is needed. The private study found that over a four-year period, covering the tax years 1981 through 1984, 50 of the nation's largest and richest corporations paid no net federal income tax at all. These corpora­ tions had combined profits of $56 billion. Forty-eight of them actual­ ly got refunds totaling almost $2.4 billion. These magical results were achieved largely through the deft manipulation of investment tax credits and the Accelerated Cost Recovery System (ACRS). The two interlocking parts of the Tax Code were introduced some years ago with two laudable purposes in mind -- to stimulate investment in new plant and machinery, and to protect corporate tax bases from erosion by inflation. Those are nice purposes, and it doubtless is true that the two pro­ visions have provided incentive for certain capital investments that otherwise might not have been made. But when that has been said, much more remains to be said. In actual application, the sys­ tem produces benefits that are clearly grotesque. It is ridiculous, to state the mat­ ter bluntly, that the Boeing Co., with profits of $2.1 billion, not only avoided income taxes altogether but actually received rebates of $285 million on taxes paid in prior years. Mind you, this was lawful. There is a huge difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance, and no one properly can question Boeing's right to pay as little in taxes as the law allows. The fault is not the company's that current law permits such a travesty. Boeing had plenty of company. In the period covered by the study, Dow Chemical, General Dynam­ ics, Tenne^o, Pepsico and ITT had large refunds. AT&T, with profits last year of $1.9 billion, paid not a dime in federal income taxes; be­ cause of a freakish situation in 1984, when the company piled up large tax losses, AT&T got the biggest refund of them all: $241 million. i James J. Kilpatrick In the proposals for tax reform he put forward in May, President Reagan asked for repeal of both i the investment tax credit and the-^ ACRS. His technical explanations were muffled in the jargon of tax accountants, but one thing came through: The public intuitively perceives the tax system as unfair when a $15,000-a-year school teach­ er pays more in income taxes than 50 of the Fortune 500 companies combined. It is indeed unfair. It is absurd. In place of the investment tax credit and the ACRS, the adminis­ tration proposes a new Capital Cost Recovery System that makes a heap more sense. The president also asks for a revised minimum tax on corporations. In exchange for these sensible amendments, orporations would benefit from verall rate reductions. The object, in part at least, is to get us away from the hocus-pocus. The president also wants to strike a blow against tax shelters whose sole purpose is to generate taix losses for wealthy individuals. ^Whether legally justified or not," said the president, "the use of tax shelters by high-income, well-ad­ vised individuals is viewed with confusion and skepticism by ordi­ nary taxpayers. These perceptions undermine the voluntary compli­ ance that is crucial to the income tax system." Even though the president is "rarin' to go" on tax reform, it is asking too much of Congress to expect consideration of the whole sweeping program in the time that remains. Some of the president's recommendations might uninten­ tionally compound the unfairness in treatment of individual income. Serious doubts have been raised about whether the package is in fact "revenue neutral." In the name of simplification, new com­ plexities would be created. The writing of tax law is an art that can't be hurried. All the same, we should remem­ ber Pickle's Postulate. Named for the venerable congressman from the 10th District of Texas, the axi­ om holds that "if something politic cally difficult is to be done at all, it must be done in an odd-numbered year." The pressures against tax reform -- specifically, the pres­ sures against repeal of investment, tax credit and the ACRSX-- already are formidable. The longer Con­ gress delays, the heavier these pressures will become. Let us halt the worst of the abuses before this session of Congress ends. (James Kilpatrick is a columnist for Universal Press Syndicate) Reader Forum 1 m NORTHWEST HBRALD "The republic is a dream. Nothing hap­ pens unless first a dream." CarlSandberg ROBERTA. SHAW. Editor and Publisher LEONARDM. INGRASSIA Executive Editor STEVEN H.HUNTER Marketing Director KAREN A.ANDROS Saturday Editor MICHAEL E. MORSCH News Editor/Regional DENNIS M.McNAMARA Editorial Page Editor RONALD L. STANLEY Circulation Director County board seat To the Editor: On Saturday, Sept. 7, the members of the county board's Legislative and Public Affairs Committee along with county board members from District 2, will meet in the county board room of the courthouse in Woodstock to conduct interviews and make a deci­ sion on who to appoint to replace Tom Heumann who resigned last month from the county board after serving 22 years. This meeting is open to the public. There are many issues confronting the county board at this time and there will be many more to follow. I certainly want to encourage any District 2 citizens who are interested, - to become candidates for this ap­ pointment. You have only to reside in McHenry or Nunda Township and meet all other legal and voter qualifications. It will not be easy to find^omeone of Tom Heumann's caliber to appoint to the board. Tom was certainly a dedicated and conscientious member of this body. His probing and serious questioning of many issues will be missed. I often referred to Tom Heumann as "the conscience" of the county board,, because even if you didn't agree with his position, his thoughtful questions made you stop and think for a moment!.This kind of individual is a# real asset to any governing body. 1 truly hope that whoever we choose on Saturday will carry at least some of these qualities onto the McHenry County Board -- we will somehow need to continue them. Dick Meyers, chairman Legislative and Public Affairs Committee McHenry County Board Lengthy school days To the Editor: One day last week my children boarded the school bus at 6:42 a.m. to attend high school at District 155. Their arrival home at 3:40 p.m.. made their school day almost nine hours long. This unreasonably long day is due to an increase in class length, newly - implemented by the school board. The purpose behind this is the theory that the more time spent in class, the more learning. As a parent, I object to this overly long day. Besides exhaustion from early rising, these teenagers have lit­ tle time left in their day for study, recreation, part-time jobs, reflection or participating in family respon- Write us! Send letters to Reader Forum The Herald, 7803 Pyott Road Crystal Lake IL 60014. Letters must Besf|nid art* dive the author's ad­ dress and telephone number for the editor's reference. We recommend letters of 300 words or less. All let­ ters are subject to editing for clari­ ty and brevity. ^ * sibilities or activities. I honestly question whether the theory of ex­ tended time in class will equal an in­ crease in knowledge. Conversely, it may create a situation where the children find their own ways of pass­ ing the additional time, whic^i maty not be beneficial. Also, most parents are aware of "peer pressure". How can we expect our children not to be affected by It when we throw them together in such large numbers for so many hours each day and then have very little time left to spend with _theji_ ourselves? I challenge any school board member, administrator or parent td walk in a high school student's shoes for one week.^Boarft la bus at €T:42 a.m., attend classes all day, and return home at 3:40 p.m. Then at the end of this week, judge for themselves how much can actually be teamed from five or six subjects divided up into fragmented time, with large doses of inherent socialize ing in between. We have to comment these young people for their elf- durance! This current trend toward institut tional rearing of oyr children front infancy on, is very alarming an<j) should be reevaluated. What our children need is less compulsory-! structured education and more tim$ getting hands-on experience. This will increase their capacity to think for themselves and help ready them for the real adult world. Susan Nesladek Crystal Lake