The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1921-06-21
KELLER'S BILLS
MAKE GOOD LAWS
Continued From Page y

took a toll of $l,73O,OOOOOO off in
dustry last year and this was in
creased from three to five times
before it was paid by the consumer.
This meant high prices and high
prices caused the buyers strike.
The result has been shutdown fac
tories, empty stores and wide
spread unemployment. | want to
levy taxes where they cannot be
shifted to the consumer and where
they will not paralize production
and cause industrial idleness.
"The whole tendency of my tax
program is to take the burden off
those who produce and place it upon
industrial drones who live off the
labor of others. The tax on es-
tates will correct past injustice and
take larger share of swollen for
tunes. 1t will break up the dan
gerous concentration of wealth that
is endangering the future of this
nation.
"The differentiation between earn
ed and unearned income will relieve
the wage worker and salary man
Of half his present tax and make the
coupon clipper and mortgage loan
shark pay twice as much.
"The tax on land values, after i'm
provements are deducted, and a
$4,000 exemption allowed will not
fall upon the small home owner or
producing farmer, but will hit mon
opolization of land, lumber, coal and
all natural resources. The owner
of vacant city lots will pay the
same tax as the man whose prop
erty is improved. This will COM
pei him to build on his property or
to sell it to some one who will.
This will soon remedy the housing
situation and a building boom will
help labor by providing employment
and reducing rents. Idle farm land
will be made productive and owners
of undeveloped coal, lumber, and
oil lands will be forced to develop
their property--which will lower
prices through competition and also
provide employment. There is about
fifty billion dollars worth of such
property in the United States to-
day which does not pay one penny
of federal taxation and my bills
will correct this rank injustice"
Same AS Wage Increase
Naturally, any tax reform that
will break up monopoly and Tighten
the tax burden upon the general
public will increase real wages by
increasing the purchasing power of
labor" Congressman Keller said in
his Introductory speech, 'The land
values tax, by relieving the Ameri-
e Of
which it now pays in the form of
inflated prices, due to various taxes
upon business which are finally
passed on to the people, will in
crease the purchasing power of the
average family between $3.50 and
$500 a year. This is equivalent
to an increase of wages to this
amount; in fact, of more than this
amount, for the competition it in
duces will also reduce prices of ev-
erything except wages. At a time
when there is widespread unemploy-
ment and distress throughout the
country, when wage reductions are
frequent, all should unite to support
the land values tax, for more than
any other piece of legislation that
could be devised, it will have the
beneficial effects have just de-
scribed"
81 am aware that there are
those, on both sides of this Cham.
Der, who we'll know that what
state are the facts, but who, in
stead of supporting this bill as q
consequence, will oppose it the more
strenuously. Unfortunately there
are those in both Houses of oui
National Congress who seem tC
deem it their duty to conserve the
interests of the owners of swollen
fortunes and unused monopolies
rather than to devote their energies
to the end that the great mass
of our people may be better fed