Iron County news. [volume] (Hurley, Wis.) 1913-1950, 1915-05-29
DISCUSSES SPECIAL MESSAGE
If State Business We're Private Bust.
ness State Would
Be Ruined.
(By Ellis B. usher.)

GAbCnb vi lstbb year. ii bHCEt tb uOb at
once inaugurated a campaign of yigor
GUS killing of old appropriations and
a Wholesale cutting down of new ones.
According TO the governor, the state
will begin the next year with a big
deficit. He has had accountants at
work for two months to make finan-
cial state statement and the pith of it
is that if Wisconsin's business were
private, the people runnin it would be
on the verge of bankruptcy, because
of waste and reckless disregard of
! plain facts as to their income and ex-
| penditures. IL is to be regretted that
the governors statement is an ae-
countant s statement, and not perfect
ly clear to the lay taxpayer, who, as
IA rule, knows little as to the seperate
items that go to make up the cost of
government. The Governors state
ment, if stripped of all bookkeeping
terms, means that at the end of next
month, when the fiscal year closes,
the thing the tax eaters call surplus
in the treasury will really be deficit.
THE SCHOOL TAX.
We have been flim-flammed by Prof.
| Adams and others. SO often, that it is
not to be wondered at that Chairman
Scott of the Joint Finance Committee
of she legislature rushed into print
last Monday to try the old trick once
again. He and even the governor,
talks about the school incomes as if
| it were not state tax raised and dis
| bursed for state expense. If they
want to know whether or not it is as
much part of state expenses as tine
/ lighting of the capitol, / respectfully
refer them to all the reports of the
Tax Commission prior to the resign
alton of Judge Gibson. 1t is such at
tempts as we see made in regard to
this school expense. to explain a long
story in a few words. that befogs the
taxpayers instead of enlightening
them.
NEED BOOKKEEPING MADE PLAIN.
What the people can understand is
a statement, in gross figures, o. the
actual cost of state government and,
on the other side, the income of the
state from all sources, with which
those expenses must be paid. They
don't know what the governor is talk
ing about when he, or others, uses
such terms as revolving funds and
book transfers." They mean moth
ing except as applied to the state $
books. They are merely terms of the
treasury's own local bookkeeping,
which is designated with most com
prehensiye ingenuity to be cumber-
some. stupid, and exasperating. Its
multiplication of Unnecessary accounts
is calculated to deceive even good
accountant. 1T has been SO for many,
many years, aud report of the State
University is almost equally unin-
telligible to the layman. Governor
Phillip is business man, and knows
that this is the chief machinery of the
timbe: rigging institutional book
keeping. lie ought strip it bare so
the people understand it.
NO HOPE FOR Low TAXES.
On the strength of this message, /
am willing TO raise the limit on my
last weeks statement. If the legisla-
ture passes bills repeating old appro-
priations or cutting down new ones,
that aggregate $3.50, 900 on every work
ing day from now to June Both it can
not reduce either taxes or expenditur-
es, for this year or next. w. w.
| Powell who is now secretary of the
State Board of Public Affairs and last
year, when writing articles in favor
of the nomination of w. II. Hatton,
(the head of that board) for governor,
estimated this years state expenses
at l9, 000, 200. The aggregate will be
good deal nearer that figure than any
other that has been named by anybody.
Mr.. Powell was well informed, though
he was the vehicle through which
these facts have yet reached the pub
| lie.
TAXES ARE TAXES.
A letter from one of the men who
has been connected with important
state affairs and who has long been a
friend of mine, came in while l was
writing the above. and am going TO
quote paragraph from it. He says:
There is one point in regard to the
road proposition that was made in a
letter l received the other day, and it
was this: That the town meeting is
the most democratic proposition we
have in our politics. and in the yari-
Gus towns in the State of Wisconsin
this spring the people voted directly
to tax themselves in the Eowns, to the
sum of 81. 500, 200 for road work. This