The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1939-05-04
The Cherry Tree
Where We Hutchet Out
The Truth
o TAXATION DULL SUBJECT
@ "PAY-AS-Y0U-GO" BASIS
@ BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
q MAY BE RIGHT OR WRONG


Taxation is dull subject. Most peo-
pie can't make bright remarks about
it. Talk at parties or other affairs
where people gather for enjoyment is
not about taxation.
In other words, people don't like to
talk about taxation. They growl about
paying taxes and show interest when
a specific matter of local taxation is
up, as pavement of highway for ex-
ample but they don't say much about
what it means to the nation.
At least this has been the case up
to recently. Now taxation is forcing
itself on the people as a subject of
discussion and some people are actual
ly thinking about it, too.
Which is all to the good. Taxation
has got to be talked about and the
people have got to determine where
they stand on it. If they don't, they
are due for big bump and not in the
far distant future, either.
x X x
With national debt far higher
than ever before, which shows not the
slightest indication of decreasing. It's
time taxation became the livest kind
of subject.
Some theorists, who have been in
fuential in New Deal councils, say
big national debt is nothing to worry
about. Forget it, they say.
That is bunk of the bunkiest
kind. A big debt, for nations or in
dividuals, is nothing to cause re-
joicing. The experience of mankind
since the beginning of history
teaches that.
The theory has been that big gov
ernment spending, which makes big
national debt, produces abounding
prosperity and than can be paid off
almost painlessly.
| Well, we've had some half dozen
years trying this theory and it hasn't
worked.
Slowly the idea that huge national
debt is not exactly thing to make
merry about, is gaining ground.
This interest in taxation is reflected
in labor's opposition to sales taxes and
punitive chain store taxation and in
labor's stand on changes in Federal
tax laws.
Over year ago, in January, 1888,
the American Federation of Labor Ex-
ecutive Council declared for modifica-
ton or repeal of the capital gains and
undistributed profits taxes.
Congress later modified both taxes.
Now comes the Brookings Institu-
ton, recognized as one of the nations
leading research agencies and suggests
a detailed plan of tax modification to
bring increased industrial expansion
and INCREASED EMPLOYMENT.
X x x
Brookings Institution proposes,
among other things, complete elimin-
alton of the capital stock and undis
tributed profit taxes, reduction of So
cial security taxes to ''pay-as-you-
go" basis for financing old age bene-
| fits.
The institution says the nation is
confronted with a situation where a
clear-cut choice must be made, whether
''to continue the present tax system,
which arrests the flow of funds into
capital enterprises, or to modify the
| system in the interest Of industrial
expansion, greater employment and
higher standards of living"
An expansion Of capital enterprise,
it added, is the only means of solving
the unemployment problem, decreas-
ing the burden Of relief and increas-
ing progressively the nations stand
ard of living.
X X X
| Brookings Institution may be right
or wrong in its recommendations
Point is that the program calls for
thorough study, as do other tax pro-
posals.
If the present economic system can't
be made to provide work for all, the
nation will have to make up its mind
to try something else. No system
can long tolerate having a quarter Of
! its working population unemployed. If
taxation changes will help to put the
idle to work, they are bound to come.
The nation as yet has given no real
indication of wanting an entirely diff
ferent economic system.
But if the present system can't be
made to work more efficiently, another
system will take its place, whether for
| good or evil, no one can say.
-BIG RAIL GAME IlIME To-