Letters to the Editor

McKay tax plan critics should welcome debate

Re: Tax plan foes smell vengeance, Jan. 31.

I found it interesting to see Jon Shebel of Associated Industries so ardently opposing Senate President John McKay's tax plan. He goes on to state that his "poll" shows 69 percent of likely voters oppose the plan. Well, if that is the case, then he shouldn't have any problem letting the issues be debated and then letting an informed public vote on it. We don't need him, his industry, the accounting lobbyists and other big business money groups deciding what's right for Florida. I prefer to do that myself.

It sometimes speaks volumes to see who is against a particular plan or bill, and I find it particularly interesting when I see that a group, like television, will advertise total untruths about the plan and refuse to allow supporters to respond with the truth of the current plan. One of the opponents is opposed to the plan not because it is bad or flawed, but because he wants a new redistricting plan that would serve him in his future bids for congressional office. Now that's a great reason for rejecting it, isn't it? I see that most of my tax-paying family and friends would be scarcely impacted by the services that would be included in the tax base. Accountants, lawyers and many other service businesses that cater to the more affluent areas of the public are the primary opponents.

Maybe we should vote for the plan based on the groups that oppose the plan. I notice they seem to be the most prosperous among us. Wonder how that works? Make more and pay less.
Robert Prescott, Tarpon Springs

Florida's fiscal irresponsibility

Re: Florida's tax dilemma.

The inability of Florida to remedy the budget deficit and provide adequate tax revenue for education and other basic programs is shameful. It is time for the state to adopt a personal income tax based on a percentage of the federal income tax paid by each resident. This represents an equitable tax assessment based upon level of income. To avoid taxing low-income residents, a $2,500 federal income tax exclusion would be allowed. It would hardly be considered a burden to a resident with a $25,000 federal tax to pay $500 or $600 in state income tax.

It is time for Florida to stop behaving like a banana republic and exhibit some fiscal responsibility and humanity.
Sol Waron, Dunnellon

Extend sales tax at current rate

If Florida is to meet the health and education needs of its citizens, it will need greater income. The most desirable way to increase income would be by enacting a progressive income tax. However, that possibility has been successfully blocked.

Senate President John McKay has proposed expanding the sales tax to many services, thereby permitting the rate to be reduced to 4.5 percent. He calls his proposal "revenue neutral," which immediately identifies it as not meeting Florida's need for greater income. In the face of opposition by some who are currently exempted from the sales tax, he has already modified his proposal to suggest further exemption of some service providers. No one knows how many more such submissive modifications will be proposed by McKay or the Florida Legislature in the face of intensified opposition by those currently exempted.

With no possibility of a progressive income tax, how then can the education and health needs of Florida's population be met? Why not simply extend the sales tax to all who are now exempted, but at the current 6 percent rate, or at a 5 percent or 5.5 percent rate? Bingo! Florida's need for greater income is met. Our needs for better health and education can then be met. Will the Florida Legislature have the leadership qualities or the fortitude (spelled G-U-T-S) to enact this quite simple answer to the budget problem? Time will tell: Keep watching them!
Tony Connole, Homosassa

Cost is the obstacle to oral health

Re: Teeth are jilted in many Americans' health care, Jan. 29.

The biggest problems facing oral health care in America are access to care and lack of proper preventive services, according to the advocacy group reporting. These two points are lacking an all-important matter which is essential to completing this report: the price of dental care in America.

Last year, I had a four-tooth bridge installed. In preparation, it called for two root canals. The price was $3,500 after insurance. My wife had a two-tooth bridge installed at a price of $1,500 after insurance. The report goes on to say that 24 percent of the elderly in North Dakota, West Virginia and Kentucky have lost all their teeth. Aside from the obvious suffering, many poor older people can't afford comfortable dentures. That means no level of government support is adequate to meet the staggering prices charged by the dental industry. And I haven't even mentioned the backbreaking weight of these prices on the shoulders of Medicaid and other government support programs.

Nowhere have I seen dental insurance that comes anywhere near helping with these costs. Financial anguish, mental distress and physical endangerment point directly to the pricing of oral health care.
Gilbert K. Good, Palm Harbor

Legislative changes needed

I personally found the cost of my prescription drugs had increased to three times what they were previously, and my HMO was no longer covering them. I can only guess what many others are faced with at the pharmacies

Congress looks after itself. It's time members wake up to see how the ordinary folks live and struggle to survive.
Margaret Fuhro, Ruskin

Keep getting yearly mammograms

I would like to say to all women: Do not stop having your yearly mammogram because of one article that you read in a newspaper or that is broadcast on television. New techniques are being used to find and to track cancerous tissue. Until we are given definite information, we should keep on having mammograms

I have just finished having a course of radiation treatments for breast cancer. My cancer hadn't spread to the lymph nodes, and I credit the newer tests for finding it early. I will certainly keep on being checked every year until there is a good reason not to.
Madeline Johnson, Largo

What a martini is (and isn't)

When, about 100 years ago, someone thought to substitute a tiny pickled onion for the olive, decency required that the new drink have a new name -- the Gibson. Then, in a moment of inattention, the keepers of civilized behavior kept silent when someone added a bit of twisted lemon peel and called it a "martini with a twist of lemon." It wasn't long before we began to see "brand-name" martinis offered at bars and restaurants

What has followed is, I suppose, only natural, given that children and trendy airheads have taken over our world and abandoned any pretense of respect for the traditional values of the drinking class of our citizenry. I refer to your depiction in the Jan. 24 Weekend section of the St. Petersburg Times of a "chocolate martini."

This, of course, is only the latest insult to the good name of "martini." A local restaurant that I otherwise favor has a whole page of "martinis" offered to patrons: chocolate, peach, Grand Marnier, coffee, applejack and that tasteless alcohol called "vodka" in endless flavors and esoteric formulas. In New York last year I came across a "sakitini"! I'm not sure what it is, but I'll leave the mixture up to your imagination -- or your worst nightmare. All of these atrocities have one thing in common: They are served in the traditional, elegant martini glass.

Children, drink what you want and enjoy, but please, please use a little imagination. Stretch your minds and think up some new names for your drinks -- something without "martini" in it.
John Logan, St. Petersburg

Haiti needs our help

The article clearly indicates that Haiti still struggles with poverty and is close to political ruin. But it had no suggestions to solve Haiti's problems

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with a per capita income of about $4 a day; only 45 percent of its people are literate. Of 100 children starting the first grade, only one graduates from high school. Length of life for men averages 47 years, for women 51 years -- nearly 30 years less than in the United States. While agriculture employs two-thirds of Haiti's work force, the average farm has fewer than two acres, making efficient farming impossible, so that today Haiti produces less coffee and sugar (its major crops) than it did in the late 18th century under French rule. Quite frankly, Haiti has made little progress since the occupation of American troops (1915-1934) when roads, sewers and the main airport were built and some industries started.

Without a stronger economy, political instability and bloodshed will continue. Haiti desperately needs family planning, for population grows much more rapidly than resources, and poverty gains. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church opposes effective family planning, and most Haitians are Catholic. Agriculture needs improvement through cooperatives, farm federations and modern farming methods, including better seeds, fertilizers and equipment. More industry is essential; Haiti's single mining company has left, along with several assembly-line industries. And infrastructure must be built, including paved roads, better port facilities, sewers, electric and phone service.

Education must have a top priority, with more schools and compulsory attendance. In addition, Haiti has a language problem: Everyone speaks Creole, but few speak and read French, the language of the elite and of major periodicals. Education and communications in a single language -- French, English or Spanish -- should be adopted.

While the World Bank and other agencies annually report the sad facts of poverty, illiteracy and misery that make Haiti the basket case of the Western Hemisphere and cause a steady stream of emigrants to come to the United States and other countries, none of them has put forth an economic and social program that could help. Aid by the United States, France and other nations and by private agencies is essential. For a few billion dollars a year, the United States could have as its neighbor a healthy, literate and stable Haiti instead of a sorry source of misery, internal strife and emigration.
William N. Leonard, Sun City Center

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