Evening star., 1935-08-12
Danger Ahead.

As a revenue measure the Senate tax
bill is an improvement over the House
bill
AS a political measure the Senate bill
assumes some of the aspects of the
sword with which the highly patriotic
nationals of a friendly power sometimes
perform the ceremony known as hara-
kiri. OF the S21S,OOO0OO additional
revenue to be raised by the Senate bill,
about S175O00,OOO of that increase
would come from the pockets OF the
income taxpayers. And the number OF
income taxpayers affected must be
counted in the millions, instead OF the
few Thousand whom the House was
willing to plaster.
The political implications of the bill
at this time are of major interest. No
matter what the Presidents original
intentions may have been in sending
so-called share -the-Wealth" tax message
to Congress at the tail end of weary
session, the bill passed by the House
was a political face-saver. 1t was
neither a revenue raiser nor did it
promise to share the wealth." 1t prom
ised to do damage economically, but it
was the least hurtful, politically, that
could be devised.
Now the Senate committee, having
experienced the same difficulties faced
by the House in trying to make great
show of revenue potentialities by soaking
the rich alone, suggests that the bill be
made into a revenue producer by dig
ging down into the lower brackets of
the income taxpayers and relying, as
always before, upon an already heavily
taxed class of the population to assume
a largely increased burden.
The expenditure of billions of dollars
for recovery means, of course, that the
money must be raised eventually through
taxation. And no one can consistently
favor sound Government finance and at
the same time oppose paying taxes, as
much as he may deplore both the ex-
penditures and the taxes. 1t would be
fundamentally sound to enact tax bill
that really hurtS-a tax bill that will
make people realize what billion dollar
relief expenditures mean in dollars and
cents out of their own pockets. 1t
would be the best safeguard against
reckless spending that could be devised.
If Congress passed such a tax bill
now in a prediction year, it might be
good thing for the country. But any
revenue raising measure should be care
fully drawn; carefully considered as to
its effect on the business recovery now
beginning to take place, lest the dam
age it causes will more than offset the
advantages of the new revenue it is
proposed to raise.
The question now is whether the bill
taking shape so rapidly, under the
pressure of politics and the desire for
early adjournment, meets the test of
carefully drawn revenue measure. The
Senate committee has hastily thrown
together a revenue measure, superim-
posed upon the almost universally con-
demned political measure passed by the
House. An effort is to be made to
rush this bill through within week or
so. There will be the juggling of Senate
debate and the later swaps and trades
in conference. 1t stands to reason that,
considering all these things together
with the fact that Congress will be
assembling again within few months,
the wise course would be to drop the
business and take another start, with the
objectives of the bill clearly understood
and the effect of the new burdens care
fully studied.
Rushing a tax bill through both houses
and patching it up in conference is dam
gerous-not only to the politicians who
have this bear by the tail, but to the
country at large.