Evening star., 1938-02-09

&is;isla 5jJ' o0
n., rel ties to the
amazing made
quacy of tax collections to meet relief
costs.
Take two illustrations-the cities Of
st. Paul, MINI. and Providence, r. L.
Although widely separated, the story
Is much the same.
St. Paul had 1928 persons on the
relief rolls in 1888 and 1881 in 1886
and 1899 during most of 1887.
Providence had 5000 on the relief
rolls in 1882, about 10000 in 1886 and
about / 600 in 1887.
Sl3,5OO, 900 for Relief.
How has this been met? In the case
of ST. Paul about S4.0O0,OO0 was sup
Piled by the city, about ST 10000 by
the State and about s8.O000OO by the
Federal Government. or about $13,-
100000 in all for st. Paul relief. The
tax collections in St. Paul are about
$l4,000000, just enough to meet the
cost of municipal government and a
portion of relief. AS consequence
an additional s350O,OOO had to be bor-
roWed for relief purposes by the local
authorities and, of course, the Federal
Government borrowed its big relief
appropriation, too.
To have added $3,50000O by taxa
ton would have meant such big in
crease in real estate and other taxes
as to have affected the tax collections
themselves as well as business values.
In Providence about $13,00O,000 is
collected in taxes, which just about
balances the regular cost of the city
government Yet total relief cost an
additional Sl0,60O,O00, out of which
the city supplied $2,O0O,000 of bor-
rowed money, the State supplied ST.
100000 of borrowed money and the
Federal Government about 100000
of borrowed money, making total
of s10,60oO0O for relief expenses de-
rived from borrowed funds.
Confusing Figures on Cost.
Costs of relief per capita have not
gone down and the local authorities
administering relief have one scale Of
expense while the Federal Government
has another. There is no uniformity
and it is the hardest thing in the
world to get out of the w. P A. the
detailed figures as to what are the rea-
sons for this variation in cost in the
same city and with the same kinds of
relief beneflciaries.
The startling fact is that If Provi-
dence took over the entire relief load
1t would have to raise about $10,60O,-
900 in addition to its present tax COL
lections of S13.000,000 for city pur-
poses outside of relief Does it seem
possible that American cities can find
revenues as to double tax receipts?
And is this to be accomplished by
doubling tax rates?
Today's relief load in the Nation
Federal, State and city, is estimated
at about $4,000, 100000 a year. This
is equivalent to the total cost of city
government outside of relief. It is
equal also to practically all the money
derived from taxes on real and per-
eonal property in the United States.
Inertia Suspected Factor.
What's the trouble? Many citizens
organizing in various cities which have
taken the trouble to get the facts about
themselves are wondering. Is it iner-
tia? Have sundry citizens who used
to support relatives turned their un-
employed relatives over to relief?
Have persons on w. P A. work failed
IN copk iNhc II, 1Q2e
relief rolls should have gone down?
And why have costs kept up?
Something odd happened, for example,
in st. Paul which used to take care
of old-age pensions for about 1000
persons over 70 years of age with
about s186000. Then came the plan
whereby the Federal Government paid
half and the other half was split so
that Minnesota paid two-sixths and
the city of st. Paul just one-sixth.
The number of old-age pensioners
suddenly jumped to 5000, which was
accounted for in some slight measure
by the fact that the new law applied
10 65 years as the eligibility mark
instead of 10. But the cost to the
city OF st. Paul which had borne the
entire burden before of 1000 persons
at an expense of $4,000 now rose to
$l8o,0O0 for all of its one-sixth share
which the city was to provide. In
other words. the new expense was six
times the old.
Action Needed.
Why haven't these things been
brought out before? What are the
causes? What can be done about it?
The immediate question will be asked:
What has Congress been doing these
last five years while problem of such
great danger to the solvency of the
country and the raising of tax revenue
has been drifting along in worse and
worse proportions every year?
Finally a committee of the United
States Senate has walked up to the
desperate nature of the whole relief
business and the public may get the
truth. When the facts are known,
the next step is to find out why jobs
are not being created to get people
of the relief rolls. It becomes peril
nent to know whether the administra-