Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1932-12-14
TELEPHONE NUMBER NINE
TAX PLANS WORTH A STUDY

1AA IhAN0 IN "A
John S. Lawrence, former president of the New Eng
land Council, and an authority on taxation, is quoted as
saying at a meeting of the State Taxpayers Association
of Massachusetts recently, that 'The tax situation III
Massachusetts, is particularly serious today because the
older communities have acquired expensive habits that
are difficult to change and have incurred debts approprl-
ate when industry prospers but which are wholly out OF
proportion when industry fails"
Continuing in an explanation as to how taxes affect the
business of a community itself, Mr.. Lawrence declared:
''Taxes are part of the cost of business operating, and the
more there is paid in taxes the less there is for labor and
management. This is true of the big and of the small
company as well, and it is true of the big and the small
community"
What Mr.. Lawrence says about tax burdens in Massa-
chusetts can be applied to every state in the Union. Taxes
can and must be sliced everywhere. After all the national
and state burden is comparatively light, so far as the av-
erage man or the average small business is concerned.
What we want to do is to get down local expenditures AMI
this can be done by the people themselves, through tax
organizations in their own communities. In commenting
on Mr.. Lawrence's address the Springfield Union says:
First step toward correcting the present condition,
Mr.. Lawrence submits, is for a city or town to analyze its
costs of operation and to pay for service in proportion to
the other costs. The second is to study artificial restric-
tions that check the growth and development of industries
on which the community depends. The third is to study
restrictions on the part of labor which, through coopera-
ton, can be bettered. The fourth is to create in each com
munity an interest in the good management of corpora
tons on which the community depends and an interest on
the part of stockholders to attend meetings and ask ques-
tions.
"These four points are worthy of attention as coming
from one of MI. Lawrence's long and extensive experience
in industrial affairs. We have heard a lot about the ben
efits coming out of appropriations and loans that serve TO
increase taxation. 1t is important for all concerned to
look more candidly at the effects produced by higa
taxes"
Here is indeed a program worthy of the study of every
progressive community in the country, and the progress
i've communities now are the ones which want to reduce
taxes. For high taxes now are the greatest barrier to the
development of any community. New industries will not
come to tax harassed communities and industries already
in such communities cannot grow and prosper as they
should.
Well, maybe if the Eighteenth Amendment is repealed
or revised the cellar will become just a cellar again, but
we doubt it. Education is a wonderful thing.
Adolph Hitler has promised the German people so many
things that if he ever gets in the chancellor's office, some
body is going to be disappointed.
The Democratic campaign song this fall was "Happy
Days Are Here Again, y but just how happy are they 60
ing to be when there are ten applicants for every politi-
cal jobs
A few months ago France was boasting that she was
the only sound nation on the face of the earth. Now she
t%earfully says she can't pay another installment on what
she owes us. Maybe when she was doing all that crow.
ing she forgot that pay day would come around again.
Since the French set the ladies' fashions we are expect
ing Paris to come out some of these days with a cancella-
ton gown. Some of them seem to have been cancelled al
most down to the waist line already.
Another thing which seems to be harder than leading a
camel through the eye of a needle is to balance the budget
and that goes for either the national or the family
budget.