Re: $5 million

[Ken Medlin <dev-plan@moscow.com>]

> enjoying the fully enclosed municipal leisure
>centers which exist in nearly every town in  Britain last year
I appreciate your mentioning the British social policy of providing 
public recreational facilities. Having rather frequent contact with 
Europe and having worked and lived there off and on over the past 30 
years, I have to reinforce the fact that European democracies are more 
generous (and often more heavily taxed at upper income levels) than the 
US. when it comes to providing for the general welfare. Our system tends 
to depend more on community volunteerism and on philanthropic efforts, 
and while we have tremendous examples of the latter, from time to time, 
we are not inclined in our public policies to spread the wealth toward 
public amenities. Since the l970's, as we all know, income gaps between 
the lower and upper ends of the pay scale have widened greatly, and the 
well-to-do and corporations still enjoy healthy  tax breaks that ease or 
even eliminate in some instances any real tax liability. And we have been 
slipping more toward sales and individual fee systems to pay for public 
services, which is a very regressive trend.
     In other words, maybe it's time we took a hard look at who pays the 
bills in this country and who benefits most. One more point: Most 
European employess have 2-3 times more vacation leave than do Americans. 
Yet, we are the "richest" country on earth.  Is something wrong here?  Is 
it time for some changes? I don't hear any of the politicians talking 
much about these matters, do you?

------------------------
William K. Medlin
Dev-plan associates
930 Kenneth Street
Moscow ID 83843
208/892-0148
dev-plan@moscow.com