The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-01-18
THE INCOME TAX
Comment on Governor Baldwin's Recommendation to Ratify Amend ment to Federal Constitution.


 Judge Baldwin was elected gover- nor of Connecticut on a platform calling for the ratification of the i'm come tax amendment to the federal constitution. There were no qualifi- cations in this resolution, as we recall it. Nevertheless Governor Baldwin in his inaugural message, is disposed to question the wisdom of that pro- vision of the pending resolution giv- ing congress power to~ tax incomes from whatever source derived" He thinks the old power of congress should be restored, but he suggests that the quoted clause might give state securities, and also to tax the salaries of state officers, which might impair the revenue-raising powers of the state governments and their abil- ity to command service in public ad- ministration. He accordingly advises that the opinion of the state attorney general be asked in regard to these matters. This is a question which was raised some time ago by Cover nor Hughes, and which came under extensive discussion. One might have supposed that the question had been contention. No other state gover- nors appear currently to have raised any such objection and nearly all of them in their annual addresses to the state legislatures, Democrats and Re- publicans alike, have advised the rat fication of the amendment as it stands.
 It is not, moreover, a question to be referred to lawyers as such. If it were, Governor Baldwin would be just the man to consult. It is rath- CT a question of reference to econo- mists and to a common understand ing and sense of the situation. It can be readily seen that tax on incomes, which shall include without discrimination incomes from stata securities or salaries of state officers above certain exemption, cannot be a tax impairing either the borrowing power of the state or its ability to command personal service. There is no discrimination against state bonds, or against state salaries. They stand on the same footing with in- comes from other sources and other salaries, and the borrowing power of the state has not been affected in the slightest degree.
 It is only when congress should make. discrimination against incomes from state bonds and state salaries that there could be any impairment of the state functions noted. But against the possibility of such dis orimination stand two considerations. One is that the men who would have to enact such a law, if it ever were
 
 representing the state and their peo- pie, and their consent to a policy which would lead to the destruction or their home governments is. of course wholly out of consideration. Again, If by any possibility congress should impose such a discrimination, no federal court would ever construe the clause from whatever source de- rived" as authority for such an act; for no such court nor anyone else could possibly read into that clause an intent to destroy that federal character which enters into the very warp of our structure of government.
 People who raise the objection of double taxation in such a case must fight also against the fact of our dual citizenship which has always practically existed and which has for mally been declared in the 14th con- stitutionai amendment. It is becom- ing more and more clear as time CT right in his dissent in the case of Collector vs. Day than the majority of the court The court passing its decision largely upon McCulloch vs. Maryland, seems to have overlooked the reasoning of Chief Justice Mar shall to the effect that if the states cannot tax the salaries and securities of the federal government, it does not at all follow that the federal govern ment has no security against such ac- ton on the part of the states. while a gainst such discriminating action against themselves by the fact that it is their representatives who make up the law-making power at Washing ton. It was upon Collector vs. Day that the ecourt later rested it's decis-