Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-06-11
THE BONUS BILL

- North Dakota who is in charge
of the soldiers bonus bill has an
nounced that no effort will be made
to take the matter up for at least
ten days. After that time he hopes
to bring the soldiers bonus bill
before the senate for discussion
and get a vote on it before con-
gress adjourns.
1t seems to be generally agreed
in Washington that if a vote can
be reached on the bonus bill there
are enough senators pledged to it
to pass the bill-any sort of a bill.
Yet it is also the impression of the
special correspondents at Wash
ington that a good many senator's
who are pledged to vote for the bill
do not really want to vote for 1t.
They would welcome any good ex-
cuse to postpone action on it until
after election. This feeling has
been considerably increased as the
result of recent primary elections,
whre several prominent supporters
of the bonus bill have been defeated
for denomination. The fact of the
matter seems to be that the repub-
lican leaders have come to realize
that they will be damned if they
do and damned if they don't. The
bonus bill will finally cost the tax
payers four billion dollars at least.
Sooner or later it must be collect
ed by federal taxation and taxation
is not a pleasant experience. The
masses of the people r coming to
realize that eventually they pay all
taxes because taxes get into the
overhead cost of production and
finally into retail prices. To take
four billion dollars from the pock-
cts of consumers and pay it over to
the young and efficient men who
were drafted into the army is not
as popular a proposal as it was
when it was first proposed. Many
who will have to pay their share
of this soldiers bonus are saying
that they need the money more than
the soldiers do.
When a stalwart republican party
organ like the New York Tribune
urges congress to adjourn right
away without passing either the
tariff bill or the soldiers bonus
bill, it looks as though they were
getting scared. W. have frequent
y asserted that the present congress
was one of the worst we ever had.
That opinion is evidently shared
by the public and that is the main
reason why the New York Tribune
wants them to adjourn until after
election without doing anything
more. 1t fears the tariff bill and
it fears the bonus bill-with good
reason in both cases
In connection with the bonus
bill it is interesting to note that
the Washington correspondents in
recent days have gained the i'm
preston that President Harding
will veto it if it is passed. They
say that he has decided to stand by
his original declaration that he is
opposed to any bonus bill that does
not provide e to pay the four
billion dollars it will require, and
that the only means of raising this
vast sum of additional that
he would approve of is a general
sales tax. That the lower house of
congress has repeatedly voted
down. 1t will not stand for a gen
eral sales tax for obvious reasons.
Everyone would know just what
they were paying under that form
of taxation. BY indirect taxation
they will pay it just the same, but
they may not know it, and can be
led to believe that some other fell
low is paying the bonus tax.
We do not know just what in
formation the Washington news
paper men may have on which to
found their conviction that Presi-
dent Harding will veto the soldiers
bonus bill unless it carries a gen.
eral sales tax to finance its pro-
visions. Of course he said prac-
tically that to the bonus finance
committee when they ere con-
sidering the bill. If Woodrow Will
son were president and had ex-
pressed his convictions about the
soldiers bonus bill as President
Harding did we would have no
doubt at all about his action on the
present bill. He would have vetoed
it without a doubt. But Presi-