Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 29, Ed. 1 Monday, February 4, 1991 Page: 2 of 10
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2—THE NEWS-TELEGRAM, S tphur Spring*, Texaa, Monday, February 4,1991
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editorials
■ ■ ■
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Missing persons
that help the cause
Between 1987 and 1988, 7 million children turned up
missing in America. The pictures of these missing
children will not end up on milk cartons or flyers tacked
to utility polls. '
More likely, the picture of at least some of their
“parents” might turn up on mug shots at a federal
prosecutor’s office. For -these children never existed, ex-
cept on a federal income tax return.
As a result of the new income tax requirement that tax-
payers report the Social Security number of all depen-
dents at age one or higher, ? million dependents claimed
on tax returns for 1986 “disappeared” by the time tax-
payers filed their forms for 1987. »
According to the Internal Revenue Service, about 20
percent of those disappearing were children who had
Been claimed as dependents by both parents after a
divorce. But most were children who never existed.
Of the taxpayers who claimed four or more children for
1986, there were 66,000 who claimed none the following
year. There were 11,000 taxpayers who claimed seven or
more dependents for 1986, yet none the next year.
Many of these folks have had their returns audited and
have paid fines and penalties. Others can expect to hear
from the government any day now.
To many taxpayers, it has seemed a bother to have to
;et a Social Security number for a toddler. But for that
other, honest taxpayers at least have the satisfaction that
the dishonest are now paying more of the taxes they owe
— some $2.9 billion a year worth. That is a sum the rest
of us would have had to make up somewhere along the
line had the imaginative feats or procreativity not been
eliminated.
S
The opinion page
J FBI poised for terrorism
By Robert J Wagman
WASHINGTON (NEA) - With the
outbreak of war in the Persian Gulf,
federal law enforcement agencies,
led by the FBI, have begun “an un-
precedented effort” to prevent terror-
ist activities in this country
One government official who spoke
on background, says that the United
States has uncovered “at least five po-
tential schemes" since early August
“that could have resulted in a terror-
ist act ’ Reportedly, all these inci-
dents involved foreign individuals in
this country, none of whom were be-
lieved to be working for any orga-
nized group Tly official "declined to
give any details beyond the fact that
the individuals who were involved
“are no longer in this country."
FBI Director William Sessions be-
lieves the terrorist threat is very real,
but he believes the FBI is ready to re-
spond “Every precaution that we and
other federal agencies can take is be-
ing taken to try to avoid any terrorist
activities," said Sessions.
But he went on to caution that the
FBI ‘has credible information’ that
there are individuals in this country
who have both the capability and the
will to commit terrorism. However,
he added, “I believe we have the abili-
ty to minimize any threat.”
Sessions underscored the idea that
people should not disrupt their nor-
mal activities out of fear of terror-
ism “People should be a little more
cautious and a little more observant,'
said Sessions. “Our job will be made
much less difficult if people are
aware of what is going on around
them and if they report anything un-
usual to the FBI or to their local po-
lice department."
According to FBI sources, the bu-
FBI Director William Sessions says the
bureau has ‘credible in formation9 that there
are individuals in this country who have both
the capability and the will to commit terrorism.
reau’s top priority is to locate thou-
sands of individuals who have legally
entered the United States on Iraqi and
Kuwaiti passports since Iraq’s Aug. 2
invasion of Kuwait. They are interest-
ed in people traveling on Kuwaiti
passports because Iraq gained control
of those passports on the day they
invaded.
According to the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, about 7,500
people have entered the United States
on Kuwaiti passports since August,
and almost unbelievably, another
4,000 have legally entered on Iraqi
panports. Additionally, some 3,000
individuals who previously entered
this country on Iraqi passports have
overstayed their visas, and are now,
technically, illegally in this country.
The FBI, aided by other federal law
enforcement agents, are attempting
to locate every one of these aliens and
to fingerprint, photograph and ques-
tion them Any that are found to be in
violation of visa laws will be turned
over to the INS for processing
The numbers themselves do not
particularly trouble US. officials.
The actual number of people in this
country on Iraqi and Kuwaiti pass-
ports is about normal for this time of
year. Many are believed to be Ku-
waitis who were fleeing the invasion.
Many traveling on Iraqi passports
were students actually returning to
U.S. campuses. Still others were join-
ing family members in this country
using visas that had been applied for
long before the invasion.
But FBI sources confirm that “at
least several hundred" are currently
unaccounted for They are not at ad-
dresses given as their destinations
when they came through immigration
checkpoints at airports or border
Fraudulent claims on rise
By Jack Anderson
and Dak Van Alta
WASHINGTON - A mix of new
immigrants, the recession, insurance
woes and sleazy doctors and lawyers
has combined to perpetuate an insur-
ance fraud. And the con game is ma-
nipulating companies into paying in-
creasingly heavy compensation for
bogus worker injuries
Hardest hit are the construction,
restaurant, hotel and manufacturing
firms where numbers of semi-skilled
Hispanic and other immigrants find
employment
This is the way the racket works:
A poorly paid worker is injured
away from work, or hurt on the job in
a minor way. Through the grapevine
of other immigrants, he or she learns
the name of a lawyt r who speaks his
own language and is villing to fake or
hype the workers compensation
claim Many of the remigrants go
along because they think it's business
as usual in their new country.
The lawyers buttress their bogus
cases with doctors who. for a price,
will supply misleading testimony.
For example, a worker gets a minor
toe injury while playing soccer. He
vows that the injury happened at
work, and the crooked doctor testifies
that there is permanent damage to
the leg
Insurance companies and state
agencies choose to pay the claim
rather than go to the expense of fight-
ing it in court. The chances of proving
the fraud are slim. Some state insur-
ance fraud investigators are juggling
40 or more cases at a time and simply
are unable to determine whether
some claims are fraudulent.
In addition, some state insurance
regulatory agencies don’t want to
fight a poor immigrant worker, even
oue who is lying.
In any event, it is the employer who
gets fleeced. The company gets a bad
name among insurance companies
for its "safety” record, and its insur-
ance premiums are increased. The
cost of that is passed on to the compa-
ny’s customers.
One company in a state with many
Hispanic workers told our associate
Les Whitten that 25 percent of its
Jack
Anderson
compensation cases are suspected to
be fraudulent. And the company esti-
mates that 80 percent of the dubious
cases are filed by Hispanic workers
— a figure out of proportion to the ra-
cial mix of the company's workers.
Many of the cases were filed by the
same lawyers, using the same doctors
to buttress the medical case
The company asked for anonymity
lest it be accused of discrimination or
bigotry when its immigrant workers
had simply fallen into a bad con game
out of poverty and ignorance. A
spokesman said the great majority of
its Hispanic workers are honest. And
a national survey shows that honest
workers' compensation claims far
outweigh the dishonest ones.
UPDATE — Last June we got wind
of a crusading book that cast doubt on
the court martial of Capt. Charles
McVay II, captain of the USS India-
napolis. A Japanese submarine sank
the Indianapolis in 1945 and 880 men
were killed. It was the Navy’s worst
ocean disaster and McVay was
blamed.
The book, “Fatal Voyage” by jour-
nalist Dan Kurzman, has since been
published, and it contains evidence
that McVay, who later committed
suicide, was a scapegoat. The survi-
vors always believed in their skipper
and tried for years to clear his name.
Now one of the survivors, Harlan
Twible, has persuaded Rep. Andy Ire-
land, R-Fla., a member of the House
Armed Services Committee, to re-ex-
amine the conviction in the yellowed
records.
Ireland has seen enough to feel that
a full airing is warranted, and he
plans to request that the subcommit-
tee hold hearings to review McVay’s
case. Ireland is coordinating his re-
search with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-
Ind., who has also taken an interest.
MINI-EDITORIAL - As if the
families of U S troops in the Persian
Gulf didn't have enough to worry
about, the carpetbaggers who come
around in any war are rearing their
ugly heads We hear increasing re-
ports of con artists trying to swindle
money out of vulnerable military
families through a variety of scams,
most of which involve scare tactics.
In one case, someone has beetr trying
to fleece families by telling them that
their soldier has been arrested in Sau-
di Arabia for drug possession, and for
a large fee. the con artist can get the
soldier off the hook. Families should
treat such offers with the response
they deserve — a call to the police
Copyright 1991. United Feature Syndicate. Inc
crossings. This fact does not particu-
larly panic officials, but an FBI
spokesman admitted that ‘we are
looking for all these individuals with
some sense of urgency."
What officials are not talking very
much about is the possible implemen-
tation of a contingency plan reported
ly drawn up after the 1986 U.S. air
raid on Libya. At that time some sort
of Arab terrorist response was ex-
pected, so the plan drawn up by Jus-
tice and INS officials called for the
revocation of visas of alien visitors to
the United States based on nationality
and country of origin. This would
force all those with revoked visas to
reapply for new visas, giving authori-
ties an opportunity to closely question
them.
It would also give officiate the light
to immediately deport any individual
who is found holding an invalidated
visa and who has not applied for a
new one
When the plan became public in
1987 it met with immediate criticism
from civil rights advocates. It was
disavowed by both the Justice De-
partment and the INS.
However, sources here say some as-
pects of it, especially visa revocation
based on some broad criteria, may be
seriously considered if significant
numbers of Iraqi passport holders are
not located.
© 1991 NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN
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^ckwiTferwi
Post-war spending must be cut
By Vincent Carroll
How shall we pay for this war?
For the moment, of course, cost is
no object. Whatever the military
wants, it gets — and should get — the
quicker to deliver the coup de grace
against a mulish Saddam Hussein.
But once the final blow has been
struck, how shall we pay off a war bill
that, according to some analysts,
could range up to 880 billion?
There are only four options. Raise
taxes; cut spending; borrow; or print
more money and inflate our way out
of our accumulating debt. (Actually,
those last two are tax hikes in dis-
guise. When the federal government
borrows, it levies a tax on future gen-
erations; when it prints excess money,
it debases thrifty citizens’ hard-
earned assets.)
We face an unpleasant choice, obvi-
ously, but one that will be made if
only by default. The 1991 federal defi-
cit already threatened to be one of the
largest on record. We can’t just sit
back and pretend we carpet-bombed
the Iraqi Republican Guard for free.
Nor can we wait for our rich sunshine
friends, Germany and Japan, to throw
open their impressive vaults and
shovel out subsidies. They’ve pledged
a few billion dollars toward the anti-
Uincent
Carroll
i
Iraq coalition, but hardly more than
will cover the cost of lost aircraft if
the war persists for months.
It’s safe to say that most Ameri-
cans (myself included) bristle at the
thought of another tax hike so soon af-
ter Congress’ sneak attack last year.
We want the federal government to
stop the growth in spending, or at
least we say we do. But if we really
mean it, we’ve got to confront the
truth about federal spending. We
can’t limit our outrage to ballooning
federal salaries and pork- barrel
waste, obnoxious as they may be, be-
cause that’s not where the big money
lies. We’ve got to be willing to tell our
representatives to restructure the
mega-programs, too.
The National Taxpayers Union has
published a book that puts federal
spending in disturbing perspective. Of
every dollar the government dis-
burses, general government (meaning
just about every department except
the Pentagon) accounts for only about
8 cents, while grants to states and lo-
calities take up a mere 5 cents. Mean-
while, an incredible 87 cents goes to
just three areas: interest on the feder-
al debt (14 cents); the military (26
cents); and “entitlements” (47 cents).
Many people think of entitlements
as welfare, food stamps and other aid
to the poor, but those comprise only a
small fraction of the total. Most enti-
tlements — including pension and
veteran’s benefits, farm price sup-
ports, Social Security and Medicare
— are disbursed without regard for
the beneficiaries’ financial status.
With the exception of farm price
supports, entitlements are all worth-
while programs. The problem is
they’ve been growing faster than in-
flation, faster than GNP and faster
than our population. Almost all that
growth, by the way, has occurred in
programs that serve the elderly. Fed-
eral pensions, for example, are the
most generous in America.
If we’re serious about avoiding fu-
ture tax hikes (and some big ones at
that), we’ve got to face this budgetary
reality. The Pentagon will have to be
trimmed — decisively — after Iraq is
defeated. Farmers must be taken off
the dole. Even Social Security and
Medicare must not escape attention.
The only alternative, unfortunate-
ly, is an assault on our standard of liv-
ing through higher taxes, greater debt
or — heaven help us — a return to the
inflation of the 1970s.
© 1991 NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN
THE WORLD ALMANAC
DATE BOOK
Feb. 4, 1991
Today is the 35th
day of 1991 and the
46th day of winter.
m.m
s w
&
£ S
TODAY’S HISTORY: On this day in
1945, the Allied powers held the Yalta
summit conference in the Soviet Union
to discuss post-World War il strategy.
© 1991. NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.
Nuclear tests left ocean of woes
By Robert Walters
MAJURO, Marshall Islands (NEA)
— In the middle of this community’s
modest central business district are
the offices of an organization unlike
any other in the world. The sign on the
front door says: "Nuclear Claims
Tribunal.”
The three-member tribunal has a
mandate to distribute 845 75 million
to the thousands of residents of the
Marshall Islands who contracted can-
cer or other devastating afflictions
fallowing exposure to atmospheric
■MlMr tests conducted by the United
States. (The money was contributed
by the United States.)
But that sum is not likely to satisfy
Marshallese victims who have filed
civil suits seeking approximately 87
billion hi compensation for death and
UhMH suffered as a result of the 66
nuclear weapon detonations above
Bikini and Eniwetok Atolls between
194# and 1958
Moreover, the United States has
never fulfilled its commitment to
make a serious effort to protect the
health and safety of those weapons
test victims. Indeed, there is consider-
Robert
Walters
able evidence that many of them have
been used, without their knowledge or
permission, as human guinea pigs by
scientists and physicians employed by
the federal government to study the
effects of radiation exposure
A1977 study of Bikini conducted by
the U.S. Department of Energy con-
cluded that radiation levels exceeded
federal guidelines decades after the
nuclear tests were concluded, but the
department was unwilling to evacu-
ate the atoll because it is "possibly the
best available source of data for eval-
uating the transfer of plutonium
across the gut wall after being incor-
porated into biological systems.”
In other words, DOE officiate want-
ed to examine the Marshallese after
they consumed crops grown in radio-
active soil and fish caught in radioac-
tive waters.
At a 1956 briefing, an official of the
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission not-
ed that the Marshall Islands are “by
far one of the most contaminated ar-
eas of the world,” then suggested that
the indigenous people were prefera-
ble as test subjects to the mice usually
used in laboratory experiments for
cancer:
“While it is true that these people
do not live, I would say, the way West-
erners do, civilized people, it is never-
theless true that they are more like us
than mice."
That policy has produced dreadful
outcomes. Because of radioactivity’s
inter-generational genetic effects,
some women in the Marshalls still
give birth to "jellyfish babies” — gro-
tesque, shapeless, spineless collec-
tions of fluid and unformed organs
wrapped in skin that are lifeless when
they emerge from the womb.
No people have suffered more than
the those who were on Rongelap Atoll
in the pre-dawn hours of March 1,
1954, when a 17-megaton thermonu-
clear device — a hydrogen bomb at
least 1,000 times more powerful than
the atomic bombs exploded over the
Japanese cities of' Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in 1945 — was detonated in
an A EC atmospheric test.
The dreaded mushroom-shaped
cloud rose 25 miles into the sky and
spread until it was 70 miles wide. A
radioactive storm produced ash and
powder that fell on Rongelap’s people
and covered the ground to a depth of
two inches.
AEC radioactivity monitors went
off their scales, but the residents of
Rongelap — vomiting, losing their
hair and suffering from severe burns
— were not evacuated until more
than two days later. The AEC decep-
tively claimed that the largest hydro-
gen bomb detonation in the world’s
history was a "routine” event and “all
(Rongelap residents) were reported
well.”
Even though radiation levels re-
mained dangerously high, the Ronge-
lap residents were returned to their
homes three years later. "The habita-
tion of these people on the island will
afford most valuable radiation data
on human beings,” said a secret AEC
report.
© 1991 NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN
Berry's World
® 1991 by NEA. Inc if
*
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Keys, Clarke. Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 29, Ed. 1 Monday, February 4, 1991, newspaper, February 4, 1991; Sulphur Springs, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth823864/m1/2/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hopkins County Genealogical Society.