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February 28 , 2003
Front-Page
News
Taxes Two-Step
President Bush "would have given the economy a bigger
bang for the buck" had he proposed relieving moderate- and
middle-income workers, rather than investors, of the burden of
double taxation, John O. Fox, MHC visiting professor of complex
organizations, argues in a commentary in the February 23 issue
of the Boston Globe. "Let me be clear. Double taxation
is not inherently wrong. It occurs in useful ways all the time,
such as when we use our already taxed wages to pay excise taxes
on gas, property taxes on our homes, and sales taxes," Fox
writes in the column titled "Workers Who Spend Are More Deserving
of Relief." "On the other hand, if you believe double
taxation is wrong, it also seems wrong to devote all the relief—at
a price of $364 billion—to stockholders and nothing to workers,
as the president has chosen to do. Workers pay double federal
taxes on their wages used to pay FICA taxes because, since 1964,
they may not deduct FICA taxes on their income tax returns,"
he writes. Fox argues that granting tax relief to moderate- and
middle-income workers would "help pull the country out of
its economic doldrums" by stimulating consumption; under
the Bush plan, he says, "Too much of the tax savings will
flow to high-income stockholders who will save and invest the
money because they already can satisfy most of their consumption
needs." Fox also commented on double taxation in an opinion
column in the February 16 edition of the Sunday Republican
of Springfield, Massachusetts. The Globe commentary
can be found at here.
Clone Zone "Forget human cloning. We aren't
going to do it," advised James Robl, the man who cloned the
first transgenic cows, in a February 20 lecture at MHC reported
on by the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Robl, president and
chief scientific officer of Hematech, was the keynote speaker
for The Political Embryo: Reconceiving Human Reproduction,
the spring series of the Harriet L. and Paul M. Weissman Center
for Leadership. Robl, who captured international headlines in
1998 when his team cloned the calves George and Charlie, called
theraputic cloning "a great idea that just won't work,"
reported Gazette staff writer Cheryl Wilson. "Cloning has
more than a lion's share of controversy," Robl told the standing-room
crowd. "We need to distinguish the controversy from the reality.
We have been so focused on the controversy and on the approach
that nobody has stepped back. Can we engineer our way around it
just using good science?" Wilson noted that Robl spoke earlier
in the day with students enrolled in an advanced cloning seminar
taught by Rachel Fink, associate professor of biological sciences.
Eve Tickets
Going Fast Ticket sales for the March 2 Eve concert have
been brisk, according to student programs director John Laprade.
Eve, who was featured on the cover of the "Fashions of the
Times," a supplement to the New York Times Magazine,
last Sunday, will perform live in Mary Woolley Hall's Chapin
Auditorium at 8 pm. The one thousand free tickets for MHC went
fast—within days of becoming available. Members of the MHC
community can still purchase tickets for $20 (while supplies last)
at the Office of Student Programs. General public tickets for
the concert can be purchased at select local record stores, TixUnlimited
in the Student Union at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst
(413-545-0412), and at the Office of Student Programs at 17 Woodbridge
Street. All tickets—and there are not too many left—
are general admission, with limited seating in the balconies and
an open floor at orchestra level. For tickets or information,
contact John Laprade at x2478
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