European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 5, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes m Wicker for Many americans taxes went up on Jan. Hippy new year folks get grab Lva remaining drug costs. I Don t bother to read George rms \ that s not a negligible Tot 1 Happ year folks but Bush s lips. No matter what he said in the Campaign Federal taxes went up on Jan. 1 for a lot of americans most brutally for those who Are elderly an reasonably Well off financially. You be run up balances on your credit cards you re buying your automobile on time no matter what they Call it your taxes just went up because in 1989 you can Only deduct 20 percent of your credit card and Auto loan interest charges rather than the 40 percent you were allowed last year. Social Security payroll taxes for an other unhappy example will be levied this year on the first $48,000 of you income compared with the first $45,000 in 1988. If you re doing that Well you payroll tax will go up from the maximum of $3,380 the feds hit you for last year Toa maximum of $3,605. So will the Matching social Security taxes your employer pays. But by far the biggest increases in tax liabilities will be those of older people eligible for medicare benefits who also pay Federal income taxes of $ 150 a year or More. They la get a lot for their Money insurance coverage for catastrophic ill Ness but their tax costs could keep going up. Last summer Congress approved and president Reagan signed the greatest expansion of medicare since its inception in 1965, affecting 32 million Ameri cans immediately and practically every one who reaches retirement age in the future. From now on expanded medicare will pay for unlimited Hospital stays for re tired people for much of any unusually Large doctors Bills they incur and beginning in 1991 for a major proportion of onerous drug charges. In the past medicare paid for Only 60hospital Days and Only after the patient paid a deductible of $540. As of Jan. 1, the deductible Rose by a Russell Baker Aav i modest $24, but medicare will pay total remaining Hospital Bills for any length of stay. The $564 deductible will have to repaid Only once a year no matter How Many times or for How Long a patient May be hospitalized. After a patient has paid an initial$1,370 in doctors fees in any one year All remaining doctors Bills will be paid by medicare. Fifty percent of drug costs after a deductible of $600, will be paid starting in1991, with the percentage to be picked up by medicare rising in stages to 80percent in 1993. Thus the most any medicare patient will have to pay in any one year starting in 1991, in Hospital doctor and drug ills no matter the duration of the illness or How Many times hospitalized is $2,534, the sum of the deductibles plus half at first later Only 20 percent of remaining Dru costs. That t a total but i should remove the fears of Many retired people that even one catastrophic illness could wipe out their life savings or Force them to sell their Homes. As Adlai Stevenson once remarked however there Are no gains without pains. The estimated $30 billion Cost of these new benefits in the first five years will not be paid by the general society or by future recipients As in old age and survivors insurance the program generally called social Security. Only those immediately eligible for the benefits will pay for them. For some these costs will be Steep maybe More so than anyone now fore sees. Participants in medicare s part b which covers doctors fees have been paying a Premium of $297 a year. The expanded coverage of doctors and drug Bills will cause this Premium to Rise to$373 this year and in yearly stages to $571 in 1993 almost twice the 1988premium. Most retirees May consider that cheap at the Price but the More affluent among them will suffer additional new charges. Whether or not they Ever receive an of the new benefits they will pay a sur charge of 15 percent on their Federal in come tax if it is As much As $ 150. That s $22.50 at that level for an individual $45 for a couple filing jointly. For each additional $ 150 of income tax liability retirees will pay another 15 percent surcharge up to a Cap of $800per person $ 1,600 for a couple. That s stiff enough the Cap will Rise however to $1,050 per person $2,100 per couple in 1993. If As would not be unexpected Benefit costs exceed Esti mates the Cap or the surcharge or Bot probably would be increased. But even As it stands that new sur charge will sufficiently Burden affluent retirees to cast cold water on the easy Assumption that social Security benefits should be taxed even further. New York times at year s end it was time to find the real enemy 1 117 a o. A i t a a _ it was the year of Geraldo Rivera pleading with America not to let the children watch this next segment. Dan Quayle who was no Jack Kennedy won a nation s heart by making himself available for Public browbeating by news purveyors and recalling his Granny s Homespun advice which he said would probably bring sneers from Slick sophisticated easterners. The National geographic became 100 years old proving that no matter what the pessimists say it is still possible for an american publication to endure longer than two generations without being devoured by general electric. It finally dawned on americans that there was some thing Odd about the recent proliferation of Gigantic men built like comic Book heroes to wit High steroid Content. Ron and Nancy strolled in the erstwhile evil Empire s red Square lacking Only a strolling Balalaika Strummer to make it a scene fit for an Mem Well Warner Brothers then musical. The phantom of the opera became the Broadway equivalent of the Yogi Berra restaurant that nobody goes to anymore because it s too crowded. Phantom was so successful that nobody could get in to see it. Such successes however were rare. More typical of 1988 were the Baltimore orioles who opened the baseball season with the longest losing Streak in history. At about the same time new York City mayor de Koch professing support for sen. Al Bert Gore gave millions the impression he was run Ning for president against Jesse Jackson thereby nearly destroying poor Gore not to mention himself. Gen. Manuel Noriega the dictator of Panama made a Monkey of the . Government. Congress came to grips with the drug problem by enthusing about the death penalty which drug dealers now freely inflict on themselves. Then True to a grow ing american theory that democracy just won t work it voted to create a Czar and let him figure out some thing that will work. Discovery of a mean Streak in sen. Robert Dol made it easy for George Bush Champion of Kinder gentler National behaviour to win the Republican Nomi nation and be labor the hapless Dukakis As negligent in Loving old glory and hypersensitive to the Well being of murderous rapists. Panhandlers appeared All Over new Yor City. Drought dried up much of the country s farming area. Extraordinary summer heat opened new careers for Media science writers who discovered that the dreaded greenhouse effect either is or is not about to melt the North pole turn Pennsylvania into a Sahara and leave Martha s Vineyard under 6 feet of tropical water. Work was begun on writing a sequel to gone wit the Dan rather went one on one against vice president Bush who afterwards described the experience As tension the ignorance of persons recently educated in the american school system was discovered to be so pro found that Many people with College diplomas were Uncertain whether Pearl Harbor was a famous seafood restaurant in Tahiti or a waitress in a soap opera. Bush knew that the japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on dec. 7, 1941, was the event that thrust the unite states into world War ii but thought the Day which will live in infamy had occurred on sept. 7. Having produced the new by bomber which sent Only a Quarter billion dollars Down the tube every time one crashed the air Force produced the new b-2bomber, which will Cost us More than half a billion dollars per crash. The Secretary of the air Force said the new Bombe was Worth it whatever the Cost. To ease the pain at least on taxpayers fortunate enough to own radar the new bomber is designed to be invisible to radar watch ers. 1988 s most famous Man you never heard of until after 1987 Willie Horton. President Reagan disclosed that the Media were major Powers in creating history s biggest budget Defi Cit and revealed that he himself actually had nothing Todo with it. It being a presidential election year the quadrennial procedure was conducted according to Law and approximately half the eligible citizenry took the trouble to vote on the prescribed november Date despite the tact that the results had been ascertained and announced nearly two months earlier by the opinion polling Industry. Americans with vital economic and psychological stakes in the cold War were furious and terrified Gyo nou signs that the cold War might be their panic was the gravest question facing the country at year s end can America survive with no enemy but itself new York times
