Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1915-12-14

be for the fiscal year 1917, 500 $500, 900.
Those figures, taken with the figures
for the present fiscal year which |
have already given, disclose our tnan-
cial problem for the year 1917. AS
Stunning 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
0,644 ,605.78, 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 mil
lions to include the usual deficiency
estimates in 1917; and these additions
would make total deficit of some two
hundred and ninety-seven millions. If
the present taxes should be continued
throughout this year and the next,
however, there would De balance in
the treasury of some seventy-six and
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 $112,00O,OOO
of new revenue rather than $297 ,000,-
000
New Sources of Revenue.
How shall we obtain the new reve-
nue.? 1t seems to me a clear dictate of
prudent craftsmanship and frank
finance that in what we are now, |
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
I'd low
the Constitution to propose an answer
to that you will hardly expect me to
do more than discuss it in very gen
eral terms. We should be following
an almost universal example of mod
ern government if we were to draw
the greater part or even the whole OF
the revenues we need from the in
come taxes. By somewhat lowering the
present limits of exemption and the
figure at which the surtax shall begin
to be imposed, and by increasing, step
by step throughout the present gradu-
alton, the surtaX itself, the income
taxes as at present apportioned
would yield sums sufficient to balance
the books of the treasury at the end
of the fiscal year 1917 without any
where making the burden unreason-
ably or Oppressively heavy. The pre-
else reckonings are fully and accurate
ly set out in the report of the secre-
tary of the treasury which will be i'm
mediately laid before you.
And there are many additional
sources of revenue which can justly be
resorted to without hampering the in
dustries of the country or putting any
too great charge upon individual ex-
penditure. A one per cent tax per
gallon on gasoline and naptha would
yield, at the present estimated pro-
duction, 10,000,000; a tax of so cents
per horse power on automobiles and
internal explosion engines, S15,O00,-
600; a stamp tax on bank checks,
probably $1S,000,000; a tax of rs cents
per ton on pig iron, $10,000,000; tax
of so cents per ton on fabricated iron
and steel, probably $10,000,000. In
country of great industries like this it
ought to be easy to distribute the bur-
dens of taxation without making them
anywhere bear too heavily or too ex-
clusively upon any one set of persons
or undertakings. What is clear is,
that the industry of this generation
should pay the bills of this generation.
l have spoken to you today, gentle
men, upon a single theme, the thor
ough preparation of the nation to care
for it's own security and to make sure
of entire freedom to play the impartial
role in this hemisphere and in the
world which we all believe to have
been providentially assigned to it. l
have had in my mind no thought Of
any immediate or particular danger
arising out of our relations with other
nations. We are at peace with all
the nations of the world, and there is
reason to hope that no question in
controversy between this and other
governments will lead to any serious
breach of amicable relations, grave as
some differences of attitude and policy
have been and may yet turn out to be.
l am sorry to say that the gravest
threats against our national peace and
safety have been uttered within our
own borders. There are citizens of
the United States, 1 blush to admit,
born under other flags but welcomed
under our generous naturalization
laws to the full freedom and oppor-
tunity of America, who have poured
the poison of disloyalty into the very
arteries of our national fife; who have
sought to bring the authority and
good name of our government into
contempt, to destroy our industries
wherever they thought it effective for
their vindictive purposes to strike at
them, and to debase our politics to
the uses of foreign intrigue. Their
number is not great as compared with
the whole number of those sturdy
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