The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1925-10-08
Views Of Others
STATE AND FEDERAL TAXES.


In his Beloit campaign speech and
in his platform appearances elsewhere
Senator Bob II. disparagingly dis
missed the national administrations
saving to the taxpayers Of three bill
lions of dollars in five years as
"Cheeseparing economies"
Plumgressive spellbinders would be
less. supercillious about proportionate
"cheeseparings" in Wisconsin admin
istration if they could only present
Governor Blaine with a pairing knife
of the sort President Coolidge en-
ploys and show him how to use it.
When challenged to offer some ex-
PLANTATION of why Wisconsin state ex-
penses are going steadily up, while
federal expenses have been cut 43
per cent in the last FIVE years, the
Plumgressive champions either ignore
the question or make the evasively
unsatisfactory retort that state, taxes
are not the largest fraction OF the
total he taxpayer passes over each
year for the maintenance of govern
mental functions. -
Yet shifty subterfuges will not dis
tract the attention of the average
citizen from the truth that while fed
eral expenses and taxes are being
steadily decreased at. surprising
rate, state and local taxes keep on
mounting alarmingly.
Already the latter constitute by far
the heaviest part of the tax burden
which the American people are called
upon to carry. 3H
Writing in the CURRENT number of
The North American Review, David E.
Finley, member of the war loan staff
of the treasury department, points out
that in the decade from 1912 to 1922,
the cost of state and local govern
ments as well as the expenditures of
the federal government mounted
steadily, but the latter included the
costs of financing the war and making
heavy loans to our allies.
Since 1920 heroic retrenchments
have resulted in cutting the per capita
federal tax from $54 in 1920 to about
$27 in the current year. But during
the same time the per capita state and
local taxes increased from about $31
in 1920 to about SAL in 1923, and the
rise is continuing each year. Says
Mr.. Finley:<
ct is only fair, in any survey of
our present burden of taxation, to
apportion the responsibility where it
properly belongs. 1t is state and local
taxation which weighs most heavily
on the average taxpayer, for out of
total population of 110,0O0,00O only
about 4,260,O0O, or less than four per
cent, pay any income tax direct to- the
federal government. A much larger
proportion of the population however,
pay state and local taxes; and prac-
tically everyone is affected by the
economic conditions produced by an
unsound system of taxation"
This is signally true in Wisconsin,
which is unique among the states in
having a much-tinkered state income
tax in addition to the federal income
tax.
And while for political effect Plum
gressive spellbinders noisily demand
an increase in the size of exemptions
in the federal income tax, the Plum
gressive legislature in its wise pro-
violence not only has failed to make
the state income tax exemptions near
ly as high as the federal exemptions
already are, but has imposed an addi-
tional burden by repeal at the last
session of the personal property off
set.-Beloit Daily News.