The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1932-08-12
FALSE TAX
PROPAGANDA
Cutting Expenses Only Way to
Reduce Taxes Says Presi-
dent j. F. Reed.

When taxpayers associations started
the campaign to reduce taxes by
reduce public spending" many people,
who received public salaries, funds that
offered protection from the ups and
downs of economic conditions, immedi-
ately started to belittle the tax pro-
gram. They stated emphatically that
taxes could not be reduced, except by
cutting out useful public services. The
taxpayers of Minnesota, however, gave
an eloquent answer to their charges by
cutting local taxes more than Sill 600, 900
in two years time, with additional
local units still to report on this years
levies, and by not one whit reducing
the efficiency of government, j. F. Reed,
president of the Minnesota Taxpayers
Association, declared in a statement
today.
Business men feel keenly the decline
in business, farmers are producing at
a loss, many workers have lost their
jobs, professional men are idling the
depression away. All these men have
been hard hit by hard times. Their
incomes are tossed about like ships in
a storm. Meanwhile, many official
critics, who are more or less secluded
in safe, tax-protected harbors, men
whose income is not affected as long
as taxes are not reduced, do not realize
that there is depression, except they
read about it as one reads in pastime
an adventurous pirate story.
These men said that taxes could not
be reduced under present laws, and
taxes have been reduced. They said
government services would be injured,
and they have not been injured
Worried only over their personal in
comes that might be cut eventually if
taxes are still further lowered, they
cry: Peace, Peace! and there is no
Peace. Yet, these men still cut their
pie, and behind their smoke-screen
they send out noise-crackers from for
tresses that taxpayers build and with
munitions that taxpayers pay for.
Their old belittling arguments gone,
they start out now to question the
to insinuate dishonesty, and to
invent lies about the state taxpayers
Their buckshot is so
widely scattered it is impossible to deal
with each little piece of shot, especi-
ally if one has worthwhile work to
do.
''The public is intelligent enough to
know that the loudest squeal comes
from the pig whose tail is pinched
the hardest.
"As sample of this kind of propa-
ganda sent out at the expense of the
taxpayers, I respectfully submit the
following: The Bureau Farmer, in its
section for August, states
that the Minnesota Taxpayers Associ-
alton is: Cd affiliated with the FEEDER
alton of American Business CD that
one Arnold, worked with the Minnesota
Association in an effort to
put over the notorious and widely dis
credited general sales tax idea;' CD
that list of names of prominent men
it prints, is said to be behind the
Minnesota organization
These charges reproduced in the
Bureau Farmer, and taken from the
Prairie Farmer, are all absolutely false.
The first charge is a lie; the second
charge is lie; the third charge is a
lie," j. F. Reed declared emphatically.
However, we shall not devote our
time to answering lies, and the cam
paign to reduce taxes will go on un-
despite the efforts of the
marble-palace farmers who do all
their farming by farming the farmers.
The cuts made in Minnesota taxes, is
the answer of the dirt farmer to the
payroll farmer. There is vast diff
ference between the two; the dirt far
mer gets his income from toll on the
soil, while the payroll farmer gets his
income from high taxes that are paid
by the dirt farmer"