Taxes, Taxes

To the Editors:

In your story "The Biggest Challenge" [Jan. 19], Lester C. Thurow, a member of the TIME Board of Economists, criticizes the Kemp-Roth tax cuts. He says "the average American saves 4% of his income and consumes 96%." He doesn't mention that the Government takes 30% of the middle-class income, leaving the remainder to be consumed by the banks for mortgages, the oilman for heat, the utilities, not to mention the grocery store, clothes, doctor or dentist. We have federal tax, state tax, Social Security tax, school tax, town tax, gas tax, sales tax. Wouldn't it be great if the Government could save 4% instead of ending with a budget deficit of $30 billion?

Connie Burkart Averill Park. N.Y.

There is a simple solution to the dilemma of cutting taxes while persuading Americans to save at the same time. The Federal Government should grant a tax cut only to those taxpayers who agree to deposit all of their tax savings in a special, restricted, three-year certificate of deposit. In the short term, the savings could stimulate business investment without creating additional inflation.

Terry Bedwell Citrus Heights, Calif.

Here we go again; the military becomes the whipping boy. Your article on economics said, "The Government funnels tax money collected from business and workers to people who consume but do not produce: for example, military retirees or welfare recipients." Let's get one thing straight, I worked for the retirement pay I receive. I lived on starvation wages during a naval career, put in thousands of hours of overtime for no extra money and agreed to lay my life on the line for this nation. I earned every cent. You have received this man's production.

Ervin J. Halvorson, U.S.N. (ret.) Sioux Falls, S. Dak.

Book Banning

Your Essay "The Growing Battle of the Books" [Jan. 19] would be amusing were it not so frightening. But how could the book-burning vigilantes have overlooked two of the most titillating materials of my adolescence? I spent many an hour poring over the pictures of the naked women in Africa and the South Sea Islands in National Geographic, and many a Sunday morning at church service engrossed in the erotic poetry and stories of lust, adultery, homosexuality, murder and incest in the Old Testament.

Lynne Davis Hewitt, Texas

If the books in question were filmed in their entirety, which of them could be shown on television? Which of them could my youngsters view at the theater without my consent? Why is it suddenly censorship when the public declines to put them into the hands of their children at school or library?

Ken Buchanan Grass Valley, Calif.

J.F.K. Casket

Author Lifton, who you say thinks someone stole President Kennedy's body and created the bullet hole in the back of his neck [Jan. 19], is apparently unaware that the anesthetist, Dr. Marion Jenkins, at Parkland Hospital in Dallas had found the bullet hole in the back of John F. Kennedy's neck and could see the corresponding exit wound on the front of his throat.

Mr. Lifton also has obviously never tried to remove a brain. Nor has he cut it up to find bullet fragments and then made it go back into the skull so that no one could tell the organ had been removed. You just can't do it.

John K. Lattimer, M.D. New York City

Top U.S. forensic pathologists examined all the available evidence in 1973, 1975 and again in 1978. They concluded that the two shots that hit the President came from the rear, and in all probability were fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

My dad taught me that if three people tell you that you are drunk, you had better go home and go to bed.

Werner U. Spitz, M.D.

Consultant to Select Committee

on Assassinations

U.S. House of Representatives

David Lifton's "two-casket" argument makes mention that Kennedy's bronze Dallas casket was damaged, perhaps in a hastily executed body-switching scenario at Bethesda Naval Hospital. However, according to William Manchester's book The Death of a President, this casket was damaged in Dallas as a result of its improper removal from the hearse that transported it to Air Force One. This event was witnessed by several of Kennedy's closest aides.

Robert P. Molinaro Belleville, N.J.

Yes, The New Yorker

Thank you for confirming what we've long suspected about The New Yorker [Jan. 12]. The occasional chuckle or pleasure experienced in coming upon an engrossing piece does not compensate any longer for the exasperation generated by plowing through all those slick, expensive pages of prolix maunderings. It's very sad, somewhat like losing a bright, witty and interesting companion to stroke and senility.

Dixie Angelman La Jolla, Calif.

Status Animals

John Skow's story "In Missouri: A Beastly Display" [Jan. 19]--was beastly in more ways than one. His description of the animal auction was grimly reminiscent of slave sales in the antebellum South, conducted for much the same reason: "pleasure" and profit. Today more and more concerned people hope that the slavery of animals eventually will be viewed with the same disgust, and condemned with the same moral righteousness, as human chattel now is.

Henry Mark Holzer, Special Counsel Society for Animal Rights, Inc.

New York City

I was at the auction as an interested observer, not as a buyer or seller. In no way did I see anything negative in action or intent. John Skow failed to mention that Mr. Hale made a plea for any conservationist, or anyone else for that matter, to stop him or let him know immediately if they saw anything wrong. Cutting the antlers off an elk is like cutting a person's nails. The people involved in this enterprise may be in it to make a dollar, but they genuinely love the animals.

Louis A. Moore Cape Girardeau, Mo.

O.K.'s Origins

I disagree with Reader Franklin Courtney Ellis' letter regarding the origin of the affirmative expression O.K. [Jan. 19]. He says it stems from the first letters of "Old Kinderhook," the nickname that, according to Mr. Ellis, was given to President Martin Van Buren.

The Pilgrims sent messages back to the Old World that "oll is korrect," meaning that everything was fine.

Andrea Galvacs Sunnyvale, Calif.

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