The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1932-05-23
Minneapolis Tribune)


The tax QUESTIONABLE which is be-
ing distributed in Minneapolis this
week should not prove particularly
difficult for the average citizen to
answer.
The first question asks him If he
wants Minneapolis taxes reduced, and
if he does not laugh himself into a
state of complete exhaustion over the
implied suggestion that he might be
unalterably opposed to the idea, he
will almost instantly perceive the
correct answer to be Does a duck
swim?" or Would Mr.. Roosevelt like
| the nomination.
| The three remaining questions, all
of which are supplementary to the
first, seem to lend themselves no
less to the same dignified and simple
treatment, and are hardly calculated
to furrow the brows of many tax
payers or put them in a deep brown
study.
by reducing activities of our city
government" Most certainly!
by salary and wage adjustments?"
OF course!
BY reducing the number of en-
ployes to the lowest number required
at the present timer Elemental,
my dear Watson!
These answers to be sure, will not
suffice for those who have personal
and vested interest in the mainte-
nance of all the city's present serv-
ices and activities or in the job and
salary status quo at the city hall,
but they cannot logically be avoided,
on the other hand, by anyone who is
solely concerned with Tightening the
present crushing load OF taxation.
The taxpayer who has had his salary
cut or his income otherwise reduced
in the depression Is obviously in no
position to underwrite government
activities on prosperity scale. He
can not fairly be asked to finance
prosperity city pay roll from de-
preston pocketbook, nor should he
be expected to support, from his de-
pleted resources, those municipal en-
ployes who are not absolutely essen
tial to the efficient conduct of the
city government.
It is well enough to insist that a
| policy of wage cutting and job re-
trenchment in government is cruel
and hard-hearted, but the time has
come, it seems to us, when the in
terests of the taxpayers as a whole
must be put above the interests of
any particular group or class which
subsistS on the public treasury. With
prices at their present low levels the
injustice of any moderate salary re-
duction is much more apparent than
real, but there is nothing illusory at
all about the injustice which the tax
payer suffers when he is compelled to
maintain something approaching the
1929 standards of government on an
income earned in 1882. The wide
spread between prices and wages has
constituted one of the most serious
Embellishments of the depression
and since prices will not rise, it is
inevitable that wages, whether paid
from public funds or not, must drift
toward lower level. And it is just
as inevitable. of course, that taxes
shall adjust themselves to lower in
come levels.
The QUESTIONABLE which is being
distributed this week Throughout the
city may serve some good purpose
II 1t sets the taxpayer uncompromis
ingly on record for lower taxes and
all the essentially disagreeable revi-
sionS Of our city government that
lower taxes would involve. The tax
payer. in the last analysis. holds the
key to the situation, and if he is audi
BILE and persistent enough in his ap-
peal for tax relief, that relief will
be forthcoming. The questionable
Is one way, but by no means the only
one, Of giving voice to his suppressed
emotions. Those emotions, unless VIZ
are badly mistaken. will align them
selves behind the straight yes
ticket on any reasonable platform O.
city tax reduction.