Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1934-08-15
WE CAN'T ESCAPE x

1t Is generally admitted that by the end OF the fiscal
year 1885 our federal deficit will have reached the stag
gering sum of t~hirty-five billions, which is nine billions
above the peak of the war time national debt. 1t is also
generally realized that somebody will have to pay the
bill. This will be done in one of two ways or both-infla
ton or taxation. In either event the ordinary citizen Will
pay his full share. If We have initiation he will pay by
property loss and economic suffering. If we pay through
higher taxes he will not escape.
The peculiar thing about taxes is that the ordinary cit
izen who owns little or no real estate or other tangible
property thinks he can escape the payment. 81 should
worry about the deficit, let the rich man pay" he is apt
to say. Yet there is no American who can escape paying
his share of taxes. All must bear part of the burden. The
truth was well put recently in a statement by DR.. William
Bennett Munro of the executive council of the California
Institute of Technology:
1.-The untaxed American is a myth. No one who occu-
pies property, owns a car, smokes tobacco, drinks beer,
goes to the theatre, eats three meals a day, rides on a
street car or goes through the other motions of daily life
gets by untaxed. Yet there are people who think them
selves non-taxpayers when at least ten per cent of their
earnings go for taxes. They are victims of the great
American delusion. OF itself government earns no money.
Every dollar that it gets for its support must come from
some one who does the earning. To do this it must tax
production, all productions, which means that both pro-
ducer and consumer share In paying the bills
Paste this on the wall and think it over as you read it.
The government cannot manufacture real money out of
air. 1t earns no money, is in fact the poorest business
man. we have, of necessity, because it is designed for
service rather than profit. The government can only get
its money from the people by taxing the people. The rich
cannot be made to pay it all. When big industry is taxed
the burden is passed on to the consumer In the way Of
higher prices. This is true no matter whether big bust
ness embraces a manufacturing plant or a public utility.
Business can only get the money with which to pay taxes
off the people themselves.
We heard a lot last year about processing taxes levied
on wheat and togs for the benefit of the farmer. The pro-
fessors and other theorists told us that the tax would be
absorbed by the packer and the millers and bakers. Well,
do you think it has turned out that way? If you do, just
compare the price of a bag of flour now with the price a
year ago, and then do the same thing with pork products.
A nice ham will cost you just about double what it would
have cost a year ago.
Once again the consumer is forced to pay, just as he al
ways pays. Perhaps he doesn't know he pays the taxes
but he does it just the same. If some clever means could
be found of assessing all the taxes on the rich it wouldn't
be long until the rich would disappear. Even their assets
wouldn't stand up long against the gigantic cost of our
government, federal, state and municipal. But such means
has not been found and probably never will unless we
can find a way to change the laws of nature. So the poor
consumer will go on paying the big share of the taxes
whether he knows it or not.
But he at least ought to be told what he is doing and
what is ahead Of him. Those who keep telling him that
he won't have to pay the cost evidently proceed on the
theory that what he doesn't know won't hurt him.