REPLY FROM MB 8-16-1997 .HEALTH CARE reducing health care costs with benefits for part time workers I agree that we ought to discourage hiring part-time workers just so employers wouldn't have to provide health care as they do for full time workers. However, I am opposed to taxing...we have far too much of that, and it has caused more of today's problems. I believe we need to do the opposite: quit taxing the businesses, quit choking them with health-care regulations and encourage individual entrepreneurs. With what we have now, it often costs a company about twice the salary paid to an employee to hire that employee...once all the taxes and other regulatory obligations are fulfilled. Why not take those away, and give the company the option of paying a better wage to the worker, and allow the worker to choose where his money goes: retirement planning, health care...and so on? AUTHOR'S COMMENTS: Retirement and health care fall into the category of things people tend to ignore or put off. Also they both are pretty much inevitable. Unless you never get sick and then keel over dead on your 65th birthday, you will require health care and retirement. Total freedom from taxes is idealistic. There is one county where the fire district tax assesment is optional. One person who did not pay the tax had his house catch fire. They did not respond and his house burned down. It made the papers. In general government needs to deal with human frailities: greed, shortsightedness, violent people, etc. A greedy company would not spend the money to treat its wastewater. The river is poluted and everyone downstream is harmed. Thus we have environmental regulations. A shortsighted person does not buy health insurance. The hospital ups my insurance to cover its costs. Some hospitals have a collection rate as low as 50 percent. The people who do pay, have to pay more because of the people who don't pay. If you force everyone to prepay then the cost to me goes down. The person who robs another person is hunted by the police. We all pay taxes to fund the police department because it benefits all of us. .EDUCATION different ways to expand educational opertunities Again, I disagree that government ought to start taking my money in taxes to force an education on those that don't want it. Yes, it is deplorable what is available for viewing on television and the plethora of violent and sick "entertainment" available. Education begins in the home, and I think it is high time we hold parents accountable for the education their children get. No child that is underage can drop out of school and fail to be self-supporting without the approval of the parent or guardian. Education does not need to be at the hands of the government - it is available to us in whatever we do and wherever we go, if our outlook and attitudes are right. Our schools are declining due to the decline of the family support structure, not due to lack of spending. If our government continues to tax...and it seems to be horribly addicted to that as a way of operating, I suggest that they provide homeschoolers with tax rebates equal to what the homeschool's public school claims is the cost for educating a student. There is no one with more concern for the success of a student than the student's parent. Parents do not need to have an advanced degree to teach their children...just some basic skills and a genuine desire to do what is best for their children. If the parents and students were held accountable, instead of making teachers responsible for parenting, but taking away every tool that works, I think we would be a much better educated society. AUTHOR'S COMMENTS: Not all parents care about the welfare of their children. Not all parents have the money or time to educate their children. Not all parents think education is important. Some parents do not wish their children to be smarter than they are. Not all people are like you. Children should be given the opertunity for an educaton regardless of their parents views. I don't understand the force an education on those who don't want it. The taxes are forced. The education is optional. All suggestions involved giving people the easy opertunity for education. The rack of educational videos at Movie Warehouse can be rented or not. The government gives Movie Warehouse a fair price to rent a rack. And all video rental places must devote a small amount of their space to educational videos. The current educational racks are half empty. The space is free. If they have 8 racks of horror films, would it be that bad if there were only seven? Just push the existing videos slightly closer together. An educaion should be made much easier - like an impulse buy. The government has to do it because private enterprise won't. Don't force people but give them lots of opertunity. If there were an educational video game in front of a bunch of street punks every time the go to Seven Eleven, they might play it sometimes. You can get some education without going to school, without planning or dedication. You just slip a quarter into a video game. If we can spark the curiosity of someone, or explain a concept he did not get in class, then we have succeeded. With modern cable systems having 500 or 1000 channels, devoting 20 or 50 to educational material seems like a great idea. People can watch them or not. Educated people earn more. We are paid back for an investment in education because the person makes more money and therefore pays more taxes. Educted people are more likely to earn their living and not become frustrated and turn to stealing to get money. Society is better off spending money on education and not prisons. Giving people a check for keeping a kid out of school seems like a bad idea. For dedicated people it is OK. But too many people would just promise home schooling and go buy beer. It is OK to supply textbooks and tests and stuff like that but not money. Way too many people cannot answer questions about high school algebra. How many adults can add fractions, much less solve an equation for X? Most people's understanding of science is just as bad. Education is most important to those people whose parents had a poor education themselves. .TRANSPORTATION varous ideas to make it easier to get around in a city I like the ideas about bicycles and making it easier to function with them. New housing developments could help if they would have neighborhood stores within reasonable walking distances...keeping in mind that if they want young families, there has to be some provision for getting the wee ones to the stores too. I also think that it is smarter to have work within walking distance, but I think it is even better to have a home based business. They are the wave of the future. Not the futuristic transportation vehicles. With the boon in computers, it is becoming more and more possible for people to work at home. It would help if there were some incentive for housing developers to place their sites of construction along well established routes of public transportation. Van pools are a good idea for getting to work, which is what USAA here does. The idea of putting a store in the middle of a neighborhood to reduce walking distance and encourage walking to the store was in yesterday's Lexington Herald Leader - Aug 15, 1997. I forgot about telecomuting. It is now a solution in the main essay. .$600 TOILET SEAT an analysis of government wasteful spend Why have toilet seats at all? Take a good dump before taking off, and then use those disgusting bottles that bed-ridden patients get to pee in! Provide low fiber food right before and during the flight...and if that doesn't do the trick, use a good old fashioned slop bucket! Just like, why were there expensive ashtrays? What were those people doing, flying in planes paid for partially by MY tax dollars doing smoking??? Quit that habit, and you'll save us on the health care costs too! I'm all for those who fight for our country getting a decent wage and having decent conditions as the situations permit. However, the crews aren't living in those bombers...these suckers have to come down sometimes - for maintenance if not for refueling. I don't get luxury accommodations when I fly...get over it! AUTHOR'S COMMENTS: This is mostly for fun. A bomber mission can last 8 hours there and 8 hours back. That is 16 hours with airial refueling. I don't want the guy flying my half billion dollar airplane to be thinking of how he has to hold it in for 16 hours. I want him concentrating on flying. It takes 10 years to design and build a bomber. When the design was started, smoking was socially acceptable. All parts including the ashtray are made the same way. The ashtray probably costs $100 to machine out of a block of aluminium since it is smaller than a toilet seat. I think that with today's attitude toward smoking, a broken ashtray would not be replaced. I can just imagine using a slop bucket while hitting an air pocket. Which would be worse? The injuries or the mess? But that is what fighter pilots use, unless waste elimination is built into their suits.