Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-12-07
next year will probably disclose.
State of the Finances.


On the thirtieth of June last there
was an available balance in the gen.
eral fund of the treasury of $104,17O,-
105.7S. The total estimated receipts
for the year 1916, on the assumption
that the emergency revenue measure
passed by the last congress will not be
extended beyond it's present limit, the
thirty-frst of December, 1915, and
that the present duty of one cent per
poui} on sugar will be discontinued
after the first of May, 1916, will be
$670, 365,500. The balance of June last
and these estimated revenues come,
therefore, to grand total of STA
436,605.7S. The total estimated dis
bursements for the present fiscal year,
including $25,000,000 for the Panama
canal, $12,000,000 for probable de-
ficiency appropriations, and $780,
900 for miscellaneous debt redemp-
tions, will be s753,S9 900; and
the balance in the general fund of the
treasury will be reduced to $20,644.-
COSTS. The emergency revenue act, IL
continued beyond its present time linn
itation, would produce. during the half
year then remaining, about SAL 1,000,-
900. The duty of one cent per pound
on sugar. if continued, would produce
during the two months of the fiscal
year remaining after the first of May,
about $4,000 000. These two sums,
amounting together to $56 900, IL
added to the revenues of the second
half of the fiscal year, would yield the
treasury at the end of the year an
available balance Of S76,644, ,605.7S.
The additional revenues required
to carry out the program of military
and naval preparation of which have
spoken. would, as at present estimated,
be for the fiscal year 1917, $93 800, 600.
Those figures, taken with the figures
for the present fiscal year which l
have already given, disclose our finan-
suming that the taxes imposed by the
emergency revenue act and the pres
ent duty on sugar are to be discontin-
ued, and that the balance at the close
OF the present fiscal year will be only
S2O,644 ,6O5.7S, that the disbursements
for the Panama canal will again be
about twenty-five millions, and that
the additional expenditures for the
army and navy are authorized by the
congress, the deficit in the general
fund OF the treasury on the thirtieth
OF June, 1917, will be nearly two hun
dred and thirty-five millions To this
sum at least fifty millions should be
added to represent a safe working bal
ance for the treasury, and twelve mill
lions to include the usual deficiency
estimates in 1917; and these additions
would make total deficit of some two
hundred and ninety-seven millions. II
the present taxes should be continued
throughout this year and the next,
however, there would be balance in
the treasury of some seventy-six and
q half millions at the end of the pres
ent fiscal year, and a deficit at the
end OF the next year of only some fifty
millions, or, reckoning in sixty-two
millions for deficiency appropriations
and safe treasury belance at the end
OF. the year, total deficit of some
one hundred and twelve millions. The
obvious moral of the figures is that It
is a plain counsel of prudence to con-
tinue all of the preesnt taxes or their
equivalents, and confine ourselves to
the problem of providing $112, 1000, 600
of new revenue rather than $297, ,00O.-
900.
New Sources Of Revenue.
How shall we obtain the new reve-
nue.? 1t seems to ME clear dictate of
prudent statesmanship and frank
finance that in what we are now, I
hope, to undertake, we should pay as
We go. The people of the country are
entitled to know just what burdens of
taxation they are to carry. and to know
from the outset. now. The new bills
should be paid by internal taxation.
To what sources, then, shall we
turn? This is so peculiarly question
which the gentlemen of the house of
Aa.Aa