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Nope, wrong snob One certainly shudders at taking a Cliffie to task, especially when all one’s degrees come from West of Appalachia, but inaccurate on several counts. Steve Barthelme is not the snob who referred to a girl as Susie Creamcheese. The snob was my husband. 1 he girl was not in a UT literature class, but a North Texas State literature class. \(Perhaps the reason that universities seem so interchangeable to Miss Karttunen is that she doesn’t approach them as separate institutions, but only as realizations of her post-Cambridge ATHENA MONTESSORI SCHOOL integrated, non-sectarian creative non-graded program r =1 7500 Woodrow Austin 454-4239 Photography Books 4e A ,44 Posters News Magazines 913 W. 24 Austin 478-0284 16 The Texas Observer IDialogue I label was properly attributed to the faculty it referred to a particular type of female vague, prone to flattery, intellectually sloppy whom women should properly resent if, that is, they care about the liberation of their sex. I don’t know whether Steve Barthelme and the Harvard man at NTSU would be interested in Miss Karttunen’s blanket, but damned if my husband needs it. Yours, Mrs. James R. Giles, 530 South First, Dekalb, Ill. Not for poor I enjoyed reading Ronnie Dugger’s article “Texas Taxes Texas Taxes,” in the Jan. 29 Observer. I would, however, like to correct a misimpression given by that article. In his listing of “specific proposals for new, regressive taxation” currently being considered in legislative circles, R. D. includes increases in tuition at state colleges, apparently on the presumption , that state subsidies to higher education provide net economic benefits to the poor. Such a presumption is incorrect and for obvious reasons. As noted in the article, Texas’ state taxes are “regressive,” i.e. the poor pay a disproportionate share. The students who attend the state universities and thus receive the subsidies are primarily from middle and upper income groups while at U.T.-Austin, I did not get the impression that the institution was servicing the downtrodden. Thus a regressive form of taxation is being used to provide services used primarily by the relatively well to do. This is hardly what one would describe as social leveling. Economic theory provides strong arguments for governmental subsidies to higher education but the notion that the net beneficiaries of such subsidies are the poor is not among them. George G. Daly, Associate Professor of Economics, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056. Rejected! This is to inform you that I received the gift subscription to The Texas Observer, but I would like to ask that you send my gift copy to some deserving student at the University of Texas who might be more in accord with the contents and ‘editorial comments of the Observer. I wish to inform you at this time that I do not want a subscription to the Observer. Rep. Joe Spurlock II, House of Representatives, Austin, Tex. Takes issue If Molly Ivins is fond of Beethoven and drinks beer, as I have been led to believe she is a Texan of rare and admirable qualities. I would take issue reluctantly. In “SJR 5 and Other Unrealities” \(Observer, the proposal to remove the ceiling on welfare spending which appears on the May 18 ballot. There are risks in the constitutional amendment’s approval but voters should give serious thought to its defeat. Last June 30, about 537,000 Texans depended on welfare. Fewer than half were receiving AFDC. 232,000 were ‘elderly people receiving an average of $63 per month. An additional 4,000 were blind. These are the victims if SJR 5 fails. They will have their checks cut in half in June without approval. It is a serious matter to the 81,610 people more than 80 years old who get those checks. If the May 18th choice is not ideal, I propose to work toward more flexible arrangements by using the time it gives us. But approval of the welfare amendment can take four of five welfare categories out of danger at the earliest time. Dave Moss, Member, Dallas County Welfare Board. Miss Ivins called the proposed constitutional amendment “a bitch.” She described the deleterious effects which the amendment’s passage will necessarily have on the effort to get the constitutional ceiling on AFDC spending removed, but concluded, “One certainly cannot argue against the amendment’s passage.”Ed. Money Your coverage of the stock scandal brought to mind Henry Miller’s reply to an economist who did not approve of Miller’s brand of economics. Miller said, “To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, the breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not money, money, money, money everywhere and still not enough, and then no money, or a little money or less money or more money, but money, always money, and if you have money or you don’t have money it is the money that counts and money makes money, but what makes money make money?” F. Miller.