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California legislators have a chance to eliminate the state’s unjust and loop-hole-ridden newspaper sales tax, if a handful of Senate leaders will let them. The long-overdue repeal of this eight-year-old "temporary" tax breezed through the General Assembly the other day by a vote of 73-5. Senate leadership, however, appears determined to avoid any similar vote in its house. "We’ve kind of always felt that if we could get to the rank and file in the Senate, repeal would pass," says Thomas W. Newton, general counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA). Senate president pro tem John Burton and other leaders know that, so they are hoping to keep the bill bottled up in committee until the Legislature adjourns in August. Certainly, neither Burton nor anyone else can make a compelling argument for keeping the tax. Sixteen states impose some kind of sales tax on newspapers, but California’s is uniquely, um, Californian in making odd distinctions about what kinds of newspapers do or do not get taxed. Its very creation was an example of legislative sausagemakinq at its worst. Back in 1991, California was in a budget crisis. With the state deficit approaching $14.5 billion, legislators agreed to overturn the traditional sales tax exemptions for newspapers, magazines, bottle water, candy, and snack foods. The 8% sales tax was sold as a temporary, emergency measure to get out of a fiscal jam. As soon as it was passed, legislators began to pare away at it. Free distribution newspapers were exempted within days. The next year, most weekly newspapers -those that publish fewer than 60 times a year -were exempted, as were magazines. Since then, the sales tax has been dropped on candy, snack foods, bottled water, and, yes, bunker fuel. Who’s left About 135 daily and twice-weekly newspapers. One other thing has changed since 1991: Instead of facing a $14.5 billion deficit, California this year expect to rake in a surplus of $4 to $5 billion. Senate leaders talk as if repealing the tax amounts to giving a financial windfall to the Los Angeles Times or some other big-city paper. Well, there are perhaps 10 of those in California. "The typical paper that is paying this tax is the 6,000-circulation daily Turlock Journal or the 11,000-circulation twice-weekly Sonoma IndexTribune," CNPA’s Newton says. For these local papers, the sales tax is a real burden -especially since the Legislature in its wisdom has never taxed competing media. There is no sales tax on direct mail, yellow Pages, cable TV, radio, or the Internet. Sometimes the burden is fatal: Assemblyman Jack Scott says he was persuaded to repeal the tax after a community paper in his district folded. California’s sales tax on newspapers has done enough damage. It is time for president pro tem Burton to show some real leadership -by getting out of the way and letting state senators vote for repeal. The author mentions cable TV, radio, and the Internet to show
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The role of the federal government in preventing adolescent drug use was a central issue of the 1996 presidential campaign. Bob Dole criticized the Clinton administration for reducing the staff of the Office of National Drug Control Policy while Clinton criticized attempts by the Republican majority in Congress to cut federal support of drug-prevention programs. It seemed as though everyone wanted to be seen as favoring federal spending on drug prevention, and in particular, drug education. Indeed, 65 percent of congressional candidates polled in 1996 by the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America ranked prevention programs as the number one priority in reducing the country’s drug problem, compared to just 9 percent for both prohibition and treatment. By the close of 1996, Republicans had abandoned their attempts to reduce the federal prevention budget and Clinton had secured extra funds for drug-education programs within the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education. There is no mystery in the bi-partisan popularity of such education programs. Recently completed large-scale surveys have shown that illegal drug use among young people increased in the past three years, following more than a decade of steady decline. Advocates of drug education argue that federally funded initiatives of the past 10 years contributed, at least in part, to the decline in adolescent drug taking, and that cuts in federal spending led to the recent increased use. However, unlike other aspects of drug control policy, prevention or education has been hardly analyzed. Law enforcement and prohibition efforts have been the subject of debate in both the popular press and academic circles. In contrast, prevention is simply assumed to be a praiseworthy enterprise, and the claims of its advocates are uncritically accepted by the press and policy makers. Despite claims to the contrary, available data do not support the view that the decline in adolescent drug use that occurred between the early1980s and early 1990s was influenced by the level of federal spending on drug-education activities. Indeed, if one takes into account the fact that the effects of spending do not manifest themselves in actual behavior for at least three years, then increased spending coincided with increased drug use. The massive increase in federal spending that occurred in the mid-1980s drew a lot of people and programs into the drug-prevention arena in an indiscriminate manner. A good deal of this money went to people with limited experience and expertise in drug prevention. It is thus hardly surprising that we often get more, not less, drug use as a result of these activities. Which of the following best conveys the main idea of the text
The role of the federal government in preventing adolescent drug use was a central issue of the 1996 presidential campaign. Bob Dole criticized the Clinton administration for reducing the staff of the Office of National Drug Control Policy while Clinton criticized attempts by the Republican majority in Congress to cut federal support of drug-prevention programs. It seemed as though everyone wanted to be seen as favoring federal spending on drug prevention, and in particular, drug education. Indeed, 65 percent of congressional candidates polled in 1996 by the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America ranked prevention programs as the number one priority in reducing the country’s drug problem, compared to just 9 percent for both prohibition and treatment. By the close of 1996, Republicans had abandoned their attempts to reduce the federal prevention budget and Clinton had secured extra funds for drug-education programs within the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education. There is no mystery in the bi-partisan popularity of such education programs. Recently completed large-scale surveys have shown that illegal drug use among young people increased in the past three years, following more than a decade of steady decline. Advocates of drug education argue that federally funded initiatives of the past 10 years contributed, at least in part, to the decline in adolescent drug taking, and that cuts in federal spending led to the recent increased use. However, unlike other aspects of drug control policy, prevention or education has been hardly analyzed. Law enforcement and prohibition efforts have been the subject of debate in both the popular press and academic circles. In contrast, prevention is simply assumed to be a praiseworthy enterprise, and the claims of its advocates are uncritically accepted by the press and policy makers. Despite claims to the contrary, available data do not support the view that the decline in adolescent drug use that occurred between the early1980s and early 1990s was influenced by the level of federal spending on drug-education activities. Indeed, if one takes into account the fact that the effects of spending do not manifest themselves in actual behavior for at least three years, then increased spending coincided with increased drug use. The massive increase in federal spending that occurred in the mid-1980s drew a lot of people and programs into the drug-prevention arena in an indiscriminate manner. A good deal of this money went to people with limited experience and expertise in drug prevention. It is thus hardly surprising that we often get more, not less, drug use as a result of these activities. According to the writer, drug control policy should
There is a section of the Western Atlantic, off the southeast coast of the United States, forming what has been termed a triangle, extending from Bermuda in the north to southern Florida, and then east to a point through the Bahamas to about 40~ west longitude and then back again to Bermuda. This area occupies a disturbing and almost unbelievable place in the world’s catalogue of unexplained mysteries. This is usually referred to as the Bermuda Triangle, where more than 100 planes and ships have literally vanished into thin air, most of them since 1945, and where more than 1,000 lives have been lost in the past twenty-six years, without a single body or even a piece of wreckage from the vanishing planes or ships have been found. Disappearances continue to occur with apparently increasing frequency, in spite of the fact that the seaways and airways are today more traveled, searches are more thorough, and record’s are more carefully kept. Investigators of the Bermuda Triangle have long noted the existence of another mystery area in the world’s oceans, southeast of Japan, with a record and reputation indicative of special danger to ships and planes. Whether the ships have been lost from underwater volcanoes or sudden tidal waves, this area, often called the Devil’s Sea, enjoys an even more sinister reputation than the Bermuda Triangle in that the Japanese authorities have proclaimed it a danger zone. The Devil’s Sea had long been dreaded by fishermen, who believed it was inhabited by devils, demons, and monsters which seized the ships of the unwary. Aircraft and boats had disappeared in the area over a period of many years, but during the time when Japan was at peace, nine modern ships disappeared in the period of 1950 to 1954, with crews totaling several hundred persons, in circumstances characteristic (extensive air-sea searches, lack of wreckage or oil slicks) of the happenings in the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle and the Devil’s Sea share a striking coincidence. The Bermuda Triangle includes almost at its western terminus, longitude 80~ west, a line where true north and magnetic north become aligned with no compass variation to be calculated. And this same 80~ W changes its designation when it passes the poles, becoming 150~ E. From the North Pole south, it continues on, passing east of Japan, and crosses the middle of the Devil’s Sea. At this point in the center of the Devil’s Sea, a compass needle will also point to true north and magnetic north at the same time, just as it does at the western border of the Bermuda Triangle on the other side of the world. The unexplained losses in this Japanese equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle were instrumental in inspiring a governmentsponsored investigation of the area, which took place in 1955. This expedition, with scientists taking data as their ship, the Kaiyo Maru No.5, cruised the Devil’s Sea, ended on a rather spectacular note -the survey ship suddenly vanished with its crew and the investigating scientists! What do the Devil’s Sea and the Bermuda Triangle share in common
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