Palatka daily news. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1919-1994, 1921-01-18
GLASS CITES
METHODSFOR
EASING LOAD
NOWCARR|ED
SHOULD CONTINUE DIRECT
TAXES SUCH AS ON
INCOMES
SHOULD STOP ALL
INDIRECT T A X E S
Defeat of Proposed Emergency Tariff
Also Imperative, Former Secre-
tary of Treasury Says
By Senator Glass

Copyright 1921 by The United Press
N Washington, Jan. IS-An oppOrtun-
ity to ease the burden of unusual liv-
ing costs still being carried by the
American people now is before con-
gress, which soon must undertake a
general revision of the revenue laws
enacted during the war.
A far reaching tendency toward
permanently reduced price levels for
all commodities can be brought about
by congress through careful read
justment of the incidence of federal
taxes.
Direct forms of taxation should be
substituted wherever possible for the
indirect forms into which the war
forced our national fiscal policies.
Application of this priciple to tax law
would, l believe bring beneficial re-
suits to the entire population which
ought to be measureable in millions of
dollars .subtracted from the aggregate
~ paid out by the American people
for necessities.
The excess profits tax is one form
of indirect tax and the protective tar
iff another. Both have an apprecia-
BILE influence in the direction of high
er costs of commodities because all in
direct taxes are multiplied many times
over before being paid by the consum-
er. The excess profits tax should be
repailed or radically modified.
Congress, in eradjusting the meth
ods of collecting revenue, should de-
pend to the fullest extent possible on
the personal income tax, which is the
least harmful means of meeting gov
ernmental expenditures. 1t is a direct
tax which, when graduated in accord
ance with the means of the tax payer,
is shifted only with great difficulty
and then to very limited extent.
Governmental expenditures is the
most vital factor in increasing the !
cost of living. Increased costs were
experienced in all of the countries |
involved in the world war. But in
the United States these increases were |
not so great as in most of the coun-
tries associated with US. This was
due to the financial policies adopted
here.
Bonding the government to meet
war costs was discontinued months
ago in the United States. This meant
the elimination of one of theh big fac
tors in increasing living costs. We
still have the revenue laws of the war
period and with them their inequali-
ties which could not be avoided at the
time these laws were enacted. These
inequalities can now be eliminated,
which means one more step in the job
of detaching the United States from
the war period
To make possible complete detach-
ment, however, we must practice the
most rigid economy m governmental
expenditures. 1t is to be hoped that
the entire country will take a firm
stand in demanding that congress de-
ny every proposal for expenditures in
new fields or the continuance or ex-
pansion of old unless they represent
unquestioned need. Re-
buke should be quick and sharp to
those elements of the population which
propose governmental expenditures in
tended to benefit single group or :
portion of a community at the eX- /
kanse of the whole. The burdens ]
Which would result fall most heavily
upon those elements of the population {
bear them. Increases in
living costs resulting from govern /
mental expenditures form an indi-
rect tax which bears heavily upon the {
poor while the rich escape, since ex-
penditures for he necessities of life
absorb practically the whole income ]
of the poor and but negligible por-
ton of the income of the rich.
America began this period of war