Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-01-22
A Question of Equity.

The main question at issue In the federal
advance proposition Is this: Who shall pay
the cost of great permanent municipal i'm
provements, the benefits of which will not
be enjoyed until the work after months or
years shall be fully completed? Shall the
taxpayers of the years during which the
work is in progress bear the entire burden
under the cash payment plan. or shall the
taxpayers OF the years which enjoy the
blessings of the completed Improvement
share the burden, In accordance with the
plan Of a national advance of the necessary
funds, to be repaid in twenty annual in
stallments?
BY the first plan payment is made in adj
vance of completion solely by those tax
payers who enjoy no benefit from the work,
relieving from all burden those taxpayers
who exclusively enjoy the benefits Of the
improvement. One set of men do all the
work and pay all the money. and another
set of men enjoy gratuitously all the fruits
Of their labors. The federal advance prop
osition denies the Justice Of making only
those pay for the improvement who do not
profit by it. 1t assumes that those who
enjoy should pay. and, as far as possible,
should pay in proportion to their enjoy
ment. 1t repudiates the suggestion that the
taxpayers of the present and immediate
future should perform a great public work
and foot the bills for it for the sole benefit
of the non-contributing taxpayers of the
slightly remoter future.
Who should pay for the filtration plant,
the taxpayers who must drink and battle
in muddy water or must filter 1t at indi-
vidual expense. or those taxpayers who will
enjoy the pure, filtered water? Who should
pay for elimination of grade crossings and
the Improvement and adornment of railroad
terminals, those who must suffer the dis
comforts and dangers and losses of the
period of demolition and reconstruction, or
those who will enjoy the safety and BUSH
ness convenience and physical beauty of
Washington relieved from grade crossings
and blessed with a spacious and wonder
fully attractive union station and with
ample terminal facilities for all business
purposes? Who should pay for the new
municipal building, those who actually en-
joy 1t after its completion, or those who
pay taxes during the construction period,
and profit by it only in the imagination?
And so with the other improvements in
question. Equity clearly indicates that
these payments should be exacted solely
from those who reap the benefits and points
to the entire relief of the taxpayers prior
to the date when, the improvement being
completed. its good effects are enjoyed.
The cash payment plan exactly reverses
this process, separates completely the bur
dens and the benefits, and imposes all of
the former on those who enjoy none of the
latter. The federal advance plan does not
throw the entire cost of the Improvement
upon the future benefciarles of the work,
but merely exacts from them a slight con-
tribution. distributing the burden equally
over present and future taxpayers for
term OF twenty years
The taxpayer of today, who was in
his own opinion, already over-assessed. in
comparison with property owners in other
municipalities, has had his assessment in
creased and his tax burden made heavier
He finds under the cash-payment plan for
large public works that he Is not to profit
from his increased taxation in expenditures
upon current maintenance and expansion
Of which he feels the immediate benefit.
He discovers that he is compelled to pay
more taxes in order to meet the entire cost
Of improvements which do not imme-
dately profit him and which. are to be ex-
clusively enjoyed at his expense by the tax
payers of the future, among whom he may
or may not be numbered. The opposition
to the federal advance extort from the
present taxpayers far heavier taxes than
heretofore, and yet divert SO much of the
fund to the benefit of posterity that abso-
lutely less is proposed of the kind of mu-
nicipal benefit that is felt and appre ciated
in the year of expenditure than was enjoyed
by the capital before it's taxes were so I'M
Justly increased