Evening star., 1926-10-10

incentive to spend money and no one
has the power to compel retrench.
ment' Minnesota reduced her 90
agencies down to 13 and compelled
them to draw up a budget. Illinois
last year cut down her independent
agencies by 100 Charles Evans
Hughes recently reported after in
vestigation that New York could re-
duce her $50 independent agencies to
16. Everywhere in our States there
is opportunity to eliminate tax lobby
ing departments and to bring them
together with a common budget with
enormous saving resulting. And this
all applies to our cities. The fact that
taxing units are independent and un-
supervised tends TO make them grow
yearly at the taxpayers expense. An
Independent taxing unit, just the same
as an independent bureau, tends to
grow from the incentive of self-impor.
tance. Our State and city taxing units
have their governments so badly
organized that waste Is inevitable.
Added to the fault Of too much indie
pendence and bad governmental orga n
ization is the influence of war extrava-
gance and the debaunch Of peace pros
perity which are contributing to tax
orgies in our State and local govern
ments."
r +
"Well, how did our State and local
governments become so independent
Of one another-how did our State
and city governments become so dis
orga nized?" 1 asked.
"To prevent political abuse the peo-
pie decentralized State and local gov.
ernment. And it hasn't prevented
| II Il e. III
political abuse of bosses like Tweed
has disappeared. new kind of abuse
has sprung up-the abuse of irrespon-
sibility. AS the mayor of Baltimore
City put 1t: The millions in losses
which American cities once paid to
the Tweeds and their party henchmen
In graft and outright robbery were no
greater and no more burdensOme than
the millions they now pay through
plain inefficiency and waste in munich
pal government.
Then you think we must get rid Of
this decentralization in our State and
local governments"
1T Is the only way out. The Fed
eral Government was once just as
badly decentralized as our State and
local governments. In Congress at
one time there were no less than 32
Independent committees appropriating
money for the Nation and about 2S
independent committees engaged in
raising revenue for the Nation. Every
thing was In state Of chaos. In the
executive branch of the Government
cabinet departments each lobbied sep
arately before Congress for independ-
ent appropriations. There was no
common budget. Today we have a
budget. No department goes to Con-
81.
officer, who has the power to give
each department what his experts
think is reasonable. Today Congress
has one committee on appropriations
and one of ways and means for rails
ing money. In addition. the Federal
Government has a Bureau of Eff
cheney daily hammering away at ad.
ministrative waste.
I'VE must follow the same scheme
Of cooperation that We find in the
Federal Government. The subdivisions
Of the State-the counties. cities and
! city districts-and the State itself, for
| that matter, must have their financial
programs supervised by an independ-
ent agency. That is what Is done in
Indiana. There was set up an inde-
pendent auditing commission.s which
had the power to budget the appro-
priatiOn of State observation-disclosures
to review the financial appropriations
Of counties and cities and to slash
them If in the opinion of the experts
| of this auditing commission appropri.
ations were deemed wasteful or un-
| necessary. This board supervised the
issuance of State and city bonds and
kept tabs on all Indebtedness so as to
| check its increase. From 1921 to 1924
this board has saved the taxpayers of
Indiana millions of dollars. The board
in that time revieGed 316 tax levies
and ordered reductions in 216. The
| reductions aggregated more than
| S7,000.000 In this same period bond
issues totaling $45.3582O5 were ap-
pealed to the board for approval. The
board passed $26.944.743 and rejected
S1s.413 ,462. which, II we had not had
such board. would have been added
to the indebtedness of the State. And
Indiana is only one Of 48 States.
Think of what has been demon
strated can be saved if we reorganize
the governments of our cities. Re-
member what Mayor Jackson did in
Baltimore. He appointed a commits
sion Of business men to devise ways
Continued on Fourth Page.)