Arizona republican., 1912-07-07
A Reckless Government

Ular session of the first state legis Iature one member of the house rose fin protest against the creatiOr of an- other office or commission, a pure, food commission as we recall it. in volving an annual outlay of about Sa000. IL was not much, he said, but il was just that much more He fur ther said that he did not know the aggregate amount of the apprOpria- tiOns made to that date The grand total must be so appalling, he said, that everybody had seemed to hesitate about ascertaining it.
 The special session went on with the appropriations until now. it has been discovered that the total amount specifically appropriated exceeds $1,- 200,0 or a half million dollars more than was ever expended by a terri torial government within period equal to that covered by these ap- propriations But that is not all; there is multitude of contingent ap- propriatons the amount of which has not been calculated, or if calculated, has not been made public.
 This thing would be alarming to raX payers but for the comforting as surance Of the tax commission that the rate will be no higher than that of last year or the year before. We are told that the corporations are to be soaked" 10 meet the new and eX- traordinary expenditures but, at the same time it is announced that the valuation of all classes of property is to be increased, so that though the rate may be no higher than that of last year. the burden of the individual tax payer will be much heavier
 We have been told that when mem bers of the legislature alarmed at the recklessness to which they were being urged. were inclined to balk at the creation of more useless offices and commissions. members of the admins tration assured them that there would be plenty of money to meet all ex- penditures that might be ordered.
 Most of us believe that the large corporations in the years past have not borne their just share of the bur den of government and there can be no objection now to making them do it, but the policy of recklessly and needlessly increasing the expenditures of the state for the purpose of ab- sorbing our increased revenues, is an outrageous one which will be con- demned by the tax payers at the earli- est opportunity.
 If the corporations have not been sufficiently assessed in the past, let them be so assessed now. Let every other class of property be justly and adequately assessed and then let the rate of taxation be such as will raise money enough to meet the needs of an efficient and economically admins tered government.
 We all expected that a state gov ernment would cost more than ter ritorial government and all public spirited and patriotic citizens were prepared cheerfully to pay the differ ence. But there is no citizen so pub lie spirited that he will approve of the spending of the public money for the mere sake of spending it.
 Provision has been made for in creasing the cost of the state govern ment by T per cent, at least, over the cost of the territorial government The administration should explain to the tax payers why this is necessary II is true that under the territorial government the federal government bore a small part of the expenses It allowed us every two years about SEA- GOO for legislative expenses. Our leg islative expenses for the sessions re gently closed have amounted to more than three times that sum. The fed eraI government paid the salaries of the governor, the secretary and part of the salaries of the judges. But nc part of the salaries of the superior judges under the state government will be paid out of the appropriations made by the legislature. Those sal aries are chargeable to the counties All that we received from the federal government was but d small amount in comparisso with the increase o1