Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1875-05-20
The Work of our State Legis-
l1fHrQ

Ohio is less than one-tiCeJth of the
whole levy. The profiigate expendi-
lures of the Legislature do not appear
OH the levy for State purposes, so much
as in the authorization Of all sorts OF
local schemes, by which the Tax Eater
gobbles our substance. The Legisla-
.jiggered' by all kinds of disreputable
expedients to make an ostensible re-
duction in the levy for State purposes,
treading over the real sore place of local
expenditures as gingerly as if walking
over rotten eggs. A reduction of one
tenth of a mill for State purposes
amounts to-how much do you suppose,
my groaning friend? Precisely ten
cents on euery thousand dollars oi taxa
BILE property! And the whole Demo-
cratic press is emitting wild and weird
shrieks of joy over the tremendous RE-
trenchment,' accomplished by such a
reduction! But even this reduction of
the levy is accomplished by the simple
and convenient process of neglecting to
provide for expenditures to which the
faith of the State is pledged. 1t is the
same thing as for private person to
reduce expenditure by resolving that
he will not pay his debts, and will force
his housekeeper to shin around at the
groceries and get necessary articles OF
subsistence for year ON tick. So un-
unblushingly was this policy acted
upon, that the Legislature adjourned
without appropriating funds to pay
even the ice dealer who supplied ice
for the legislative water. .eOfors, or the
washeIwoman who washed their tow
els. Other large expenditures are left
to be provided for in deficiency bills by
future Legislatures, because eofindefinite
appropriations of moneys mot other
wise expended'-of W hich there are not
nickel. We are assured, on the mos.
undoubted authority, that, the leUies
prouided 6Y the late Democratic legislature ,oi'
in 1875 fall three hundred thousand dollars
short Of proUiding for the necessary expenses Of
the State, and the expenditures 'On tick pro
Oicted for under the cOn0enient loliraseology-f
be paid ont of any moneys in the State Treas
ugy otle,1oise unappropriated.' Thisis no par
tisan statement, prepared fer the pur-
pose of throwing discredit on feeble
minded head of the Finance committee
it is the plain, practical, straightfor-
ward, businesslike quotient of the fig
Aures as they stand, after dividing the
IState's available assets by its current
liabilities. There is as little of partisan
feeling in calculation of this kind as
there is in the scanning of a trial bal
ance, by the head of large manufac-
turing establishment. 1t is business,
pure and simple. AS the result OF
} anxious deliberation by the disbursing
officers of the State, we have the di-
lemma presented, whether they shall
transfer to the Sinking Fund, as direct.
ed by the Legislature, two hundred
thousand dollars of the fund upon
which our benevolent and punitive and
reformary institutions are to be sustain
ed, and leave the public institutions to
disband; or whether they shall save the
public institutions by neglecting to re-
imburse the Sinking Fund for a trans
fer which saved the State $50, 600 in in
terest under Republican Legislature.
One or the other they must do. Ifthey
transfer 100000 from the Asylum
Fund to the Sinking Fund, as ordered
by the Legislature, with no adequate
levy to support the extra temporary
drain upon the Asylum Fund, they
must abandon the State institutions.
If they disburse the appropriations for
the institutions, also ordered by the
Legislature, they must leave the State
to meet its obligs tions for the debt due
in December, 1875, by a temporary
loan, or by temporarily repudiating it
altogether.
This is q plain ,bus'ness-like state.