The Idaho recorder., 1922-02-17
100000 LIVE -.
OFF GOVERNMENT
ABOUT ONE PERSON OUT OF
SEVEN SUPPORTED BY MONEY
wRuNG FROM OTHER SIX.
From the Manufactuyer.


According to Thomas Jefferson's
maxim that people governed the least
are governed the bast," our country
is almost governed to death.
/ In some of the western states it
costs nearly thousand dollars a year
taxes to maintain a student in higher
educational institution.
The best that can be said for the
i present extravagant expenditures for
kinds OF governmental functions is
that they put large sums of money
in circulation, that Is wrung from a
helpless but protesting taxpayer.
II is estimated that our country has
in round figures twenty thousand mill
ion dollars in bonded debt drawing m
lterest and non-taxable thar must be
met by the taxpayers annually, and
that 100000 people live off this
! interest.
4 The annual interest now paid on the
national debt alone, amounts to two
thousand dollars year income for
A63,000 families of five persons each,
or support" for 2,3i5,000 persons.
One million people make living on
supplies furnished TO the governments
that must be paid for b. taxation.
4 About one person out Of every seven
now lives on public revenues and alto
igether fifteen million people are sup
ported comfortably az the expense of
the public treasury and when 1t comes
to giving an easy living to the largest
number Politics is not failure.
/ Not more than thirty millions of the
population are producers AMI distri-
+ butors of the necessities and the lux
ries of life. They maintain the other
seventy-five millions, besides 1900
900 who in one way and another live
on government expenditures Of some
kind
/ August II, 1921, Senator King OF
Utah showed records to prove there
were 1,735,53i persons on the fed
eral payrolls, and with 4,425,sl4 per-
sons filing income tax returns in 1918,
all live taxpayers are carryiny two
taxeaters.
There are ~ states, l,065 counties,
| 2,1e1 cities, l2,904 towns besides
about thirty thousand school districts
and township organizations with Off
cials, having in Mr.. Kings opinion,
between four and five million persons
holding Office altogether.
1 After eight years of more or less So
eialistic and mlitaristic expansion OF
governmental functions the taxpayers
! have on their hands fifteen mill
/ lion dependents. including thousands
on the retired lists drawing fRom five
hundred to ten thousand a year.
II Is estimated that the average sal
AIRY or pension for those who have SER
vel in wars amounts TO Support" for
about one and one-half persons, and
summarizing on the family basis we
have the following totals:
Persons
Supported" via the civil pay
rolls of all government 1000, 900
Supported by the pension
rolls, all kinds ...-4... 100000
Supported" by interest on
public debts ..................... 4,630,0o0
Supported" indirectly through
expenditures on the part of
government ..-.-..-....... 100000
lotal .----s-...- s...--....-..-..,s.. l4,b3u,O0O
How many of these governmental
functions are actually productive
Political lictation seems to be essent-
tally wasteful, destructive and para
asitical. IL exists upon industry and
production. In 1918, but one billion of
all public revenue went for education.
The larger portion of the rest went
for war purposes.
II il keeps up on the scale of the
last 30 years, the energies and resour-
ces of one-half of the American peo-
pie fifty years hence will be absorb
ed in earning money to keep the rest
in office.