Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1934-07-18
WHAT 1T WILL COST

One of the questions which will frequently be asked
about the so-called New Deal in the coming campaign is
whether it is worth what it cost. There will OF course be
answers to the questioning varying with the political be-
liefs of those making the answers. One OF the first things
to determine, when launching on an inquiry OF this KIND,
is Just how much is the New Deal costing? Before we
know whether it is worth what it costs we must know two
things: first, just what it has really accomplished OF 1t
self, and second, just what the cost has been. Laying
aside such academic questions as what the cost may nave
been to our individual liberties, which Is a matter for de-
bate, we can at least ascertain something about the actual
financial cost of the New Deal.
Official figures indicate that the last fiscal year, which
closed on June 80, was the most expensive one III the
peacetime history of the United States. The estimated
expenditures during the first fiscal year of the New Deal
were $7,105, 100000 and the receipts from taxes and other
revenues are estimated at $3,116,000,000. This leaves an
estimated deficit of over four billion dollars for one year!
How far we have gone on the road toward government
regulation and control of the individual and his business
can be Judged from the fact that there are a great many
people still living who remember how much criticism
there was of the first congress that appropriated a billion
dollars to run this government for a year. Some change
In a few years!
But that is not quite all of it. Already we are looking
forward to possible receipts and expenditures for the new
fiscal year, on which we have just entered. In the fiscal
year 1934-35, the Chicago Tribune estimates that the ex-
penditures of the government under the New Deal will be
$11,36l 100000, an increase OF more than fifty per cent
over the year just closed which was the most extravagant
III our peace-time history. The same newspaper estimates
that the deficit for the new fiscal year will be nearly seven
and a half billion dollars.
The official statement OF the treasury department at
Washington indicates that the public debt has now risen
to the staggering total of more than twenty-seven billions
and it is estimated that at the end of the present fiscal
year, just now starting, the total debt will be t%hirty-four
and a half billions. The sum is so great that it almost
staggers the imagination of the ordinary individual.
Now there is one fact which must not be lost sight of.
This debt, sooner or later, must be paid. Uncle Sam will
have to foot the bill for the experimentation Of the Brain
Trust professors. And Uncle Sam can only get his money
from the people of the United States.
According to the Tribune eight college professors are
now busy mapping out new tax legislation to be passed
by the next congress. Others, it is said, will be sent to
England to study that c%ountry's t~errifically high income
tax.
1t will no longer be a question Of soaking the rich.
There are not so many rich as there once were, and those
left have a way of avoiding paying more than they con
slider their share of the taxes Of the nation or passing it
on. The necessity for more money has now risen to the
place where before long all Of us, rich and humble alike,
are going to have to "pay through the nose.''
There may still be room for argument about how much
or how little the New Deal itself has accomplished. There
can no longer be any debate on how much or how little it
is going to cost. The chow little" has been eliminated.
We are up against the greatest debt burden Uncle Sam
has ever known.