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4The Daily Reflector. Greenville, N.C.-Wednesday, February 7, 1*73

A Most Ridiculous Situation

TOO MUCH TO EVER HOPE FOR

Americans are being told the energy crisis is not only coming, but here...now...with us today.

At least one major oil firm has set up a rationing of fuel supplies in the northeast. The federal government has lowered its limitations on importing of foreign oil, and agents are even today in overseas offices trying to buy uncommitted supplies for use in the United States.

Many analysts conclude this country is going to be increasingly dependent upon foreign oil....in

Has Doubts On 'Professionals'

By BRYAN HAISLIP RALEIGH Citizen in-put has served North Carolina well in the legislative process and should be maintained as its cornerstone.

Twenty-two years experience in the system is the basis for that opinion, said Rep. Dwight W. Quinn of Cabarrus.

He's had a hand in passing laws and preparing budgets for the state every session since 1951 when he first came to Raleigh as a Representative from his native county.

The proof is in the product, he said. Im proud of the legislation that has been produced by citizen lawmakers in our General Assembly.

BRYAN

HAISLIP

Compared to other states with full-time legislatures. North Carolina is far ahead, in services to its people and in its sound fiscal condition, Quinn observed.

Theres more hazard than promise, he cautioned, in proposed changes which would move in the direction of a professional legislature, such as fixed annual sessions, standing committees and year-round staffing.

Make no mistake. A professional legislature will mean professional politicians in legislation, he predicted. Political Consequences Noted The lawmaker who depends on the office for his livlihood necessarily will think hard on the political consequences of his vote, Quinn said. Pretty soon, hell be voted to get reelected, he said.

In contrast, the citizen serving while pursuing a vocation has greater independence in deciding what is in the public interest, he added.

At 55, Quinn is senior in tenure through not in years among the 120 House members. His present term is the 12th in a row to which Cabarrus voters have elected him.

A low-profile type who listens more than he talks, Quinn rates with colleagues as well as the home electorate. He came close to being House Speaker this session. He appeared to have a lead in commitments at one stage in the 1971 session. The margin shifted, partly due to the election of a large crop of House freshmen, and the gavel went to Rep. Jim Ramsey of Person.

Against Speaker Succession While he doesnt contemplate making another bid

for it, Quinn is convinced the Speakership should change hands each session.

It makes for better legislation, he explained, when the Speaker can attend to the duties of appointing committees and presiding without having in the back of his mind holding onto the job.

The speaker should not succeed himself. I feel the same way about the office of governor, Quinn said.

Leadership continuity is one of the innovations discussed in legislative . :ircles. Ramsey has let it be cnown he is open to another erm, and his friends are sounding out support for the idea.

Already sentiment seems strong for the General Assembly to meet again in 1974, breaking the tradition of biennial sessions.

That could be done, Quinn noted, without embracing the annual session concept. Under the Constitution, we now can adjourn to a date certain rather than sine die, he pointed out.

I favor a compromise, to this extent. We could adjourn to meet early in 1974 for a very limited time to consider only matters of an emergency nature, he said. An agenda could be fixed by a committee so that items to be .. taken up would represent some concensus, he said.

In any event, Rep. Quinn said he strongly favors retaining the budget process on a two-year basis. Making up a budget every year, he said, would tie up the time of agency heads in its preparation and subject lawmakers to greater spending pressures.

Taxpayers would be better off under a biennial budget, he said. Serving on the Advisory Budget Commission gave him an insight into the mechanics, he observed, and convinced him the job is best handled every two years. ^

As a budget commission member, Quinn participated in its tax reduction recommendations. As a legislator, he said, he will vote with an open mind and without commitment to a specific proposal.

His in-put for the budget commission package was a one-time, 10 per cent income tax credit which would give taxpayers relief without eroding the revenue base, he noted.

Higher education is a major assignment for Quinn this session, as chairman of the House committee dealing with the subject. He had a role in putting together the new structure, and he will guard against any premature tampering with it.

If we dont give it a chance to work, were sunk, he said. Where would we go from here?

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effect, Americas economy and perhaps its survival is being pushed into the very uncertain mercies of Arab governments.

The overall picture is ridiculous.

Everybody knows there is almost unlimited resources in oil just waiting to be tapped and moved out of Alaska to where it is needed.

Everybody knows there is another vast oil resource in deposits of shale (also in North America) only awaiting the magic touch of engineering ingenuity and its movement to refineries and the marketplace.

The world has known for decades that nuclear energy was the ultimate answer to power need-s...and the United States was and is in the forefront of the development of that energy. Yet, only a very small fraction of power supplied in this country come from nuclear plants.

In view of these simple unadorned facts, we wish with all our might that someone in government or in the business of meeting energy needs would give an equally unadorned explanation of why this country should ever face a power crisis.

And please, gentelemen, dont use such words as difficulties, hamstrung or obstructionism or costs. Youve had a lot of time in which to overcome the impossible.,..and this problem is not impossible of solution, nor unexpected, nor beyond your grasp.

Projections pointing toward our present plight have been widely known for many years; and because John Doe presumed the powers-that-be would be doing their job, he just shrugged it off.

John Doe isnt so smug now. He has every reason to be impatient, irrascible, and maybe even a little bit scared.

GOP Chairman Is Given Push

By ROWLAND EVANS and ROBERT NOVAK WASHINGTON - The uniquely lofty role designed for George Bush as the new Republican national chairman was intentionally signalled by No. 1 Republican Richard M. Nixon during his recent closed-door meeting on the budget with the Republican congressional leadership.

Sen. Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, the Senate Republican leader, noticed Bush sitting against the wall with the usual assortment of White House flunkies symbolic of the national chairmanships decline under President Nixon. Scott whispered to Mr. Nixon.

Turning in his seat, the President summoned Bush and placed him at the cabinet table. A few minutes later when budget talk ended, Mr. Nixon devoted five minutes to praise of Bush.

That went a long way to explain what had stunned the political world in December: Bush, a former congressman and twice defeated Senate candidate from Texas, leaving his prestigious post as United Nations ambassador to take the no-win job of party chairman. ^ In his five-minute eulogy, the President explained he had twisted the arm of George Bush to persuade him to leave the UN, and he wanted all Republicans leaders to know the following facts:

Bush would have an office in the Executive Office Building near Mr. Nixons own hideaway there; now that Harry Dent, resident White House patronage and political aide had gone home to Columbia, S, C., to practice law, Bush would be in charge of all strictly political patronage matters, speaking for the AVhite House; finally,

I want you to know that everything of a political nature I am asking him to handle, as well as the national committee.

The vivid contrast between chairman Bush and his predecessors is complete.

The talented outgoing chairman, Sen. Robert Dole of Kansas, was privately ridiculed in the White House (his acceptance speech as chairman on Jan. 16, 1971, was written by then Atty. Gen. John Mitchell); his predecessor, Rogers Morton (now Secretary of the Interior), was treated only slightly less cavalierly; his predecessor, nuts-and-bolts expert Ray C. Bliss, was run out of the chairmanship by Mr. Nixon in January 1969.

There are skeptics who feel Bush ultimately must choose between total subservience to the White House palace guard that would undermine his chairmanship or an independence that would make him ineffective.

But the President is making public signs he means what he privately says about strengthening a Bush-led Republican party.

For example, Mr. Nixon himself is playing hangman against Rep. Bog Wilson of California, chairman of the House Republican Campaign Committee since 1961. For party image and candidate recruitment, the President wants him replaced by youth-(Continued on page 6)

Public

Forum

To the editor:

Feb. 1 at a meeting of the Democratic Women of Pitt County, the tenets of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment were read. As a group we voted to support the amendment. There was an error in the newspaper account.

We did not approve unanimously. The fact is there was a large vote of opposition. I truly hope that all who oppose this ERA will let your representatives know your wishes. As for me, I think women of our state do not need provisions of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Reid Ellis Winterville

Strength For Today

SEND YOUR ROOTS DOWN We who live on the North American continent are continually on the move. We do not stay put. The policy of modem industry is to move administrative officials from one part of the country to another. People are constantly packing up and taking off to distant parts, sure that they will find what they are looking for at the end of the rainbow.

This is not all bad. It is an essential part of the industrial and commercial civilization we have created. But it easily becomes bad. Without our realizing it our times tend to make us restless. Recently we encountered a person who had made five changes of jobs and residences within tfie

past five years.

Our grandparents, for the most part, died ifl the homes which their forebears had built fifty or more years before. Sometimes much against his will a man is transferred by his company from on place to another until his family life is disturbed and disruped. But generally people get into the habit of wandering because they are restless, unsetteld, sometimes lazy, or a bit fuzzy in their thinking.

Send your roots down. Your acres of diamonds are in your own backyard. We can easily enough wander into the desert of over the precipice. Wandering is good only if it is the working-out of a definite purpose.

By Earl Douglass

by HAL BOYLE NEW YORK (AP) Remarks a pet doctor gets tired of hearing:

^-You dont have to be afraid of Tighe, Doc. He wouldnt hurt a housefly.

Hows the veterinary business these days going to the dogs?

By ART BUCHWALD

Adding Up Peace Costs

WASHINGTON - If all goes well with the peace accords, it will just be a matter of time before the United States sends a team of damage experts to Hanoi to estimate what it will cost to rebuild North Vietnam. The price tag last year was $2.5 billion, but this was before the carpet bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong at Christmas.

I can see the U.S. team of experts arriving at the Hanoi airport and being greeted by Ho Gap, the North Vietnamese Minister for

Reconstruction.

The minister days, Welcome to our humble country. Forgive us for the condition of our airport which unfortunately was destroyed by your excellent and talented Air Force.

We did all this? one of the damage experts asks.

Yes, but please do not apologize. We know the airport you will build us will more than make up for it. What we think wed like is something on the order of Dulles near Washington, D.C.

Our engineers estimate that with Communist labor it should not cost more than $40 million, give or take $10 million, for what I believe you people refer to as Overruns.

Cant we talk about this later? one of the U.S. damage experts asks us. Wed like to go to our hotel and get cleaned up.

ARl

BUCHWALD

Other Editors Say A Rare Occasion

(Rocky Mount Telegram)

In an era when the trend is toward consolidation or closing down, it is a rare occasion to see a new, major newspaper go into business, or any other pubication for that matter.

In recent years the nation has seen many of its oldest and most respected magazines go out of business.

The reasons for these are obvious. The chief culprit that has done in these publications is rising costs. The average reader has no inkling of the tremendous cost of the specialized machinery and presses used in modern printing methods.

Newsprint alone has soared in cost to the point where it is almost prohibitive.

Some publications, chiefly newspapers, have consolidated or have been absorbed by chains in order to continue operation.

And so, in view of these developments in recent years, it is indeed rare that a major newspaper would be launched.

Such is the case in Fayetteville where a newly chartered company plans to establish a morning newspaper there.

Richard R. Allen, president of the Cumberland Publishing O)., says publication will begin as soon as possible.

He points out that Fayetteville is the largest major metropolitan area in North Carolina not served by a morning newspaper. ^j

A recently completed feasibility studymdicates there exists in the Fayetteville area both a journalistic and an economic need for such a publication.

The name of the new publication would be The Fayetteville Post, and the company believes that a newspaper reflecting the basic American free enterprise spirit of this historic region is essential to the growth of the region.

We wish the new newspaper well; it is a venture that many have avoided taking in these difficult times for the journalistic profession.

That such a step has been taken reflects the confidence of a few men in the stability and economy of the Fayetteville area.

Of course, the minister replies, forgive me for thoi|ghtlessness. Please get in the trucks and we will take you there.

Trucks?

Alas, the minister says, our private automobiles were all destroyed in your protective-reaction strikes of Dec. 15. But we have plans to build a new automobile factory to produce the 4-door Ho (?hi Minh with a Wankel engine. We think we can undersell the Japanese in America by $500 a car. Here you can study the plans in your spare time.

The U.S. Damage Control team climbs on board the trucks.

How far is it into town? one of the Americans asks.

Ordinarily, 20 minutes. But, unfortunately, the Bridge of Peace and Conciliation Heartbreak was hit by a smart bomb from one of your B-52S and, therfore, it will take two hours, the minister days.

I suppose you want us to pay for the bridge, too, a damage control expert says.

We thought you might build us a tunnel instead. Something like the Lincoln or

< Continued on page 6)

If a cat and a dog in your hospital get in a fight, which side are you on? ^

Hey doc, how about me sleeping in your hospital for a week? Ive got the flu, and I cant afford to pay what they charge at a human hospital. Yes, our cat is caught up in a tree again and wont climb down. Can you come rescue her? Id call the Fire Department, but I called them twice last week and were no longer on speaking terms.

You dont have to be afraid of Sport, Doc. He only likes to bite the mailman.

Do you make house calls, doctor? The reason Im asking is that our cat needs a checkup, but Ive never been able to get him to go to an animal hospital since I took him to one as a young kitten and they changed him overnight from a back fence baritone to a living room ! soprano. ;

Why does it cost so much ' get a cat or dog fixed? Ten years ago I paid less for my | kid to get a tonsillectomy, Before we leave our Peki- < nese with your kennels during I our trip to Europe, Doctor, Im afraid that I must ask for your ; written assurance that you ; board only purebreds here. Our Peke has been champion of her breed in five different shows, ! (Continued on page 6) t

40 Years Ago Today

ByGWYNCOGHILL February 7.1933 Dr. B.W. Spilman, of Kinston, was the principal speaker at the regular weekly meeting of the Rotary CHub here last night. Dr. Spilman, one of the leading Baptist ministers and-humorists of this state, spoke of the monetary system of this country and produced a wealth of information relating to the field of finance.

The E.C.T.C. Teachers beat the Roanoke Rapids town team 44 to 20 last night. From The first the locals outplayed the Roanoke Rapids team, the ball staying in the Teachers territory practically the entire game.

A vaudeville team. Hazel Green and her New Yorkers, will be on the stage in person at the State Theatre Thursday.

Stubborn Fight With The IRS

By JOHN CUNNIFF AP Business Analyst NEW YORK (AP) - The merits of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Longs case against the Internal Revenue Service will have to be decided by the courts, but in the meantime he is giving them an irritating, frustrating and costly time of it.

It is only tair, says Long, a Bellevue, Wash., real estate man, because that same technique has become one of the specialities of the IRS and it shouldnt beso. Hes out not only to prove his case but to restrain the IRS.

Ever since he and his wife, a 30-year-old graduate student who specializes in analysing data, were informed by the IRS more than three years ago that they owed an additional $38,144 in taxes, they have been on the trail of the IRS.

Its all we do, the Longs said in an interview. Its bad to happen to us today or to you today but it is worse for it to happen to anybody tomorrow. And so they are determined to make a case

for themselves and the public.

In pursuit of their goal they have already spent $10,000 of their own money in publicizing the case, in newspaper ads, in research, in trips to Washington, in postage for letters to others clobbered by the IRS, and in. digging information about the IRS from its own files.

Their research in IRS files files followed a court ruling in favor of the Longs last September that opened sections of the internal procedures manual to public scrutiny. The Longs had earlier been denied the information.

16

In their research, the Longs have already revealed IRS procedures and practices that could pose serious future problems, such as:

In contested cases, the amount on the dollar settled for in different districts varied widely in 1971. How you fare may depend upon where you live. In Newark, N.J., settlements averaged 50 cents on the dollar; in Washington, 24.

On average, settlements with individuals were for 34 cents on the dollar in 1971 compared to only 27 cents on the dollar for corporations.

Long is an outraged man. He claims thk IRS as a matter of policjnchallenges many individual ^d small business returns, not because there is a question of them being wrong but simply to obtain additional funds for the IRS.

In doing so, he claims, they use arbitrary interpretations of IRS rules and and then attempt to deny the taxpayer access to those rules. They harass, and might even threaten jeopardy assessments, he says. That was so in his case, he adds.

Long, slight and graying at 56, owns, rents or manages duplex houses that were built mostly by his father. To do so. he has set up corporations.

As an officer in the corporations. he has for the past 12 years or so been paying himself $600 a month. In addition, he has been deducting such costs as insurance. telephone charges.

subscriptions to financial publications and the like.

The IRS viewed two of these corporations as personal holding companies, which are subject to high taxes because they often are used, in the words of an IRS spokesman, as incorporated pocketbooks, mainly by the wealthy.

Long claims that in restating his tax return as they viewed it, IRS agents reduced his wages to $150 a month and denied him many of his deductions. In addition, he said, they threatened to seize his prbperty if he didnt agree.

Amplification of the details must await a court case, but the basic dispute appears to be Long's decision as head of the corporation to set his own salary and then use it as a deduction on his corporate taxes.

And what about the threat of a jeopardy assessment, or seizure? "The last thing we try to ever do is seize M-operty. levy a bank account or things like that. We do it only as a last resort. IRS said.