The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-06-21
POOR MEN AND TAXES.

In late debate in the United States House
OF Representatives, some wretched trash was
uttered about Incorporating in the tax bill
determinations intended to tighten the taxes
OF the poor without diminishing the aggregate
OF revenue. To relieve the poor from the
brunt of taxation, while government exists
and revenue is demanded for its maintenance,
is as wild problem as the squaring of the
circle, the transmutation of metals, the dis
covery of the philosophers stone or per-
| petual motion. But wild as it is, it assists to
drive the wedge of every piece of jobbery that
| gets into tariff or an internal revenue act.
1t would certainly be magnificent spectacle
to see taxation lie upon the mass of con-
sumers as lightly as snow fakes on the bosom
OF the Mississippi, or as the dewdrops which
the stag of clone Glenartney's hazel shade"
shook from his TANKS ere he bounded tri-
umphantly before the chase, while plentiful
revenue should be raised to supply the wants
of the most expensive government on the face
OF the earth. 1t would be glorious to know
that, while poor consumers were relieved and
happy, the public fsc was filled to overflow
ing by taxes drawn from the surplus of wealthy
producers and property holders, who would
also belhappy in thus paying for the privilege
of living under the best if the most extrava-
giant, government under the sun. But this
would be miracle, and financial legislation,
which was never known to enjoy supernatural
aid, can not afford to plant itself beyond the
limits of natural possibility. Piling up taxes
on the exceptionally rich will never, in final
effect, mitigate taxation for the consuming
millions. What these pay directly to the tax
gatherer IS insignificant compared with what
they pay in the increased cost of living on ac-
count OF the taxes directly paid by others.
This is where high taxation pinches them
most sorely, and where it would continue to
pinch them, even should direct taxation fall |
upon nobody in the country but the Astors, |
the Stewards the Vanderbilts, the Lawrences |
and the Spragues. Place tax upon any |
class of productive property, and with
the fatality of water finding a level, it
VIII transmute itself into enhanced prices
paid by consumers who are COM
PEELED to buy the products of that property.
This transmutation cannot be prevented
without annulling the laws of trade and sup
pressing commerce. To continue to raise a
large revenue and yet relieve the poor of its
burdens, it would be necessary not only to
contine taxation to the rich, but to enable
the poor to consume the goods of the rich
without buying them; that is to say, there
must be exclusive taxation on one side, and
pillage on the other. Of course
that would be chaos come again-the end of
of industry, of government, the
dissolution of society, the REIMBURSEMENT of
and the Inauguration of universal
poverty and misery. There is only one way
o tighten taxation for the poor and to pre-
erve the blessings Of government for all,
nd that is to conduct government on a rigid
ystem Of economy, and reduce the aggregate
# taxation. Nothing is requisite to this re.
orm but honesty and arithmetic.