Evening star., 1936-03-01
Raising a Billion.

-! Raising a Billion.
y, Spending billion dollars is one thing
Raising billion is quite another. Presi-
dent Roosevelt, the greatest peace-time
spender who ever sat in the White House,
has had no trouble persuading Congress
to give him authority-and the money
to pay for all kinds of experiments in
relief and reform. He is planning now
to ask Congress to levy new taxes that
will provide an additional 81 200, 100000
Of revenue.
The Presidents demand for a large
increase in taxes should be salutary. If
Congress gives the President what he
wants in the matter of increased taxes, it
may come to the conclusion that it should
withhold some of the funds which he
demands for carrying on his spending
program. 1t should be salutary, too,
because the increased tax burden may
make the people of the country con-
scious of where the New Deal is leading
them.
The originator of the greatest spend
Ing program the Government has ever
undertaken, however, is placing the
~'blame" for these new taxes on Congress
and the Supreme Court. If Congress
had not passed the soldiers bonus bill
and if the Supreme Court had not de-
clared the A. "A. A. and its processing
taxes unconstitutional, there would have
been no new tax bill. On the surface,
the Presidents position seems to be i'm
pregnable. And yet it is clear enough,
on a little study, that had 1t not been
for the Presidents experiment in sub
sidizing American farmers there would
have been no processing taxes and no
present demand for substitute for the
processing taxes. Furthermore, the
Presidents plan is for a permanent tax
of half billion dollars a year to con-
tinue this subsidy to the farmers.
90" The processing tax fell most heavily
upon the people least able to pay it, the
small consumers, because it increased
the prices of food and clothing, which
they must have. Take the price of pork,
for example. 1t was not direct tax,
= tax which was evident to the payers
every time they paid it. But they paid
It just the same. 1t was part Of the
price of the scarcity" program which
the administration adopted and to which
It still clings. The substitute for the proc
essing tax doubtless will be as indirect
q tax as can be found. There is talk of
''excise" taxes. These are merely sales"
taxes under another name. They smell
no sweeter.
The President, apparently, regrets the
passing of the processing taxes. The
substitute for them which it is now
proposed to pass will be as like the
processing taxes as possible, and will fall
with equal weight upon the poor. It
seems absurd to lay the blame for these
new taxes upon the Supreme Court or
any one else, except the administration
which created the original tax.
. The new taxes needed to care for the
soldiers bonus will raise only 10000, 900
a year. This is the amount required to
amortize the payment of the bonus over
q period of years, according to the Presi-
dent No one seems to care to attack
the veterans-not this year at any rate.
No one wishes to make it appear that
the veterans are responsible for heavy
increase in taxation. No one wishes to
attack a Democratic majority in Con-
gress. So the Supreme Court becomes
the principal butt.
The President, it appears, is leaving
to- Congress the task of determining how
to raise the needed revenue. It is one
thing to tell Congress how money should
be spent, and another to. tell how it
should be taken away from the people.
Congress seems almost certainly in for
D difficult two months.