The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1934-11-27
NEWSPAPERS OPINION
SHUTTING RELIEF LOADS

The tax payers of North Carolina will be as&eC
TO get into this great enterprise of financing then
own needy and destitute unemployed and assume
their part of the great burden which the fedora
government has been carrying almost alone.
Governor Ehringhaus has promised Federal d.
rector Hopkins that such measure will be pro
posed to the Legislature.
What happens in that body is, of course, only
conjectural. 1t may take the attitude that 1t Is
entirely satisfied with the way the federal govern
ment is handling the problem and be content to
let things rock as they
Opposition viii, of course, arise.
Where will the money come from if the State
should add relief as one of its maor public serV-
ices?
That is a momentous question. The State is
struggling already for revenues with which to meet
it's commitments for present forms of public serV'
ices
The highway department, now receiving $22,'
600 900 annually from the tax payers, wants an
ALLEGATION of s5O,0OO,O 900 for the next two years
Public education, now receiving sl0'Ooo'ooo'
will ask for an equivalent amount and will expect
that its appropriation be raised at least to SZo'-
600, 900. State institutions of higher learning
have raised their bid for these revenues Other de-
partn.ents are following in the same tracks.
It would appear, therefore, without the addition
of any new form of State administration, that the
tax PAYERS may as we'll set themselves to suffer
another picking if all of the agencies are to be
humored in their requests.
Governor Ehrnghaus is better acquainted with
thsee conditions as well these facts than any
body else but he has been impressed with what
Director Hopkins told him about the desperate
situation in the relief field that he is willing to
90 to the mat with the problem before the Legs
lature.
It may comfortably be expected, in the mean
time, that the present revenues of the State will
expand during the next two years over the past
ratio of yields.
With improved business conditions, taxes in
comes will rise will, Also the volume of receipts
from the administration of the levy on sales. 1t
has been suggested to the Governor also, that the
sales tax can be revised that it will be appi-
cable uniformly and without any form of exemp-
ton which would add, perhaps, a couple of mil
lions to the treasury The State, further, expects
to gather in S2,OOO,OOO from the inheritance
awards from the Smith Reynolds estate, so that,
altogether there is promise of increased revc-
nues from present and new sources developing
without material monkeying with the present
schedules
But when you come to talking about financing
relief in this State on any such basis as it has been
administered, the tax payers of North Carolina
will not be able to catch the drift of your language
The average expenditure for relief in the State
for the past 20 months has been around $l,OOO,0OO
per month.
That represents virtually the equivalent of all
the revenues which the State is now receiving
from all sources save that going TO the highway
department, and it is the equivalent even Of that
also-$23 GOO, 900 to be exact.
The Federal Government is not proposing to
withdraw, of course, from the relief field in this
or any other State, but it does propose in the fu-
ture to insist and demand that the load be shared
that the States and lesser units of government
in them as we'll as private philanthropies in local
communities get into the picture and take their
part of this public burden
And that is justifable. The Federal Government
is not financially in position to carry on upon the
same basis of relief as has been so generously
apportoned in the past.
Perhaps, ALSO it comedies that if the states and
communities are compelled to spend some of their
own money in this cause, it will be more wisely
and judiciously handled and may, therefore, re-
quire considerably less than is now going into TINS
purpose-Charlotte Observer.