Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1947-12-12
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Released by WNU Features.
High Taxes Boost Prices

by various unions about the high
cost Of food, 1 wish to submit
this farmers viewpoint:
For one fat hog we can get a
carpenter for two days and he
sharpens his tools on our time
besides.
This hog requires II months
from breeding time to selling
time and plenty of feed, care and
risk.
For one fat lamb plus So we
can get plasterer for six hours.
For the eggs from 720 hens in
one day plus $500 we can hire
painter for eight hours. That
is figuring eggs at ~ cents and
US a day which painters want.
For one 14-months-old steer
(23 months from breeding date)
at rs cents a pound we can get
10 pieces of 1 by IL inch board
III feet long, second quality. We
nave to feed and entertain the
cow and calf for % months.
For four good cows a friend
got an osteopath to deliver his
wife's baby. This did not in
clude hospital fees.
For IL fat hens neighbor got
a tooth pulled.
l am not trying to be funny,
Just giving you facts and can
furnish many more.
The President wants to econo-
mlze. All right, just start at the
top and come down and he'll find
us on the bottom.
Fred Lee.
Pomona, Calf.
I could not, if I wished, dispute
the figures of that farmer contribu-
tor. do not hold a brief for the
SIS a day the plasterer is credited
with receiving, but does not; or the
81 pound he pays for bacon, and
which the farmer does not receive.
But-"the pot calling the kettle
black" does not uncover the real
culprit or does not provide remedy
for excessive prices.
We Americans pay approximately
one and half times as much for
government as we pay to eat.
Reduce government expenditures;
curb the gun-toting tax collector,
and we will have solved much of the
problem of high prices. Profligate,
extravagant, wasteful government is
the culprit.
We do not realize the taxes we
are paying. They are purposely COW
cred up by every tax levying and
tax spending government, local,
state or federal. Those who cover up
point the finger of guilt at the farm
er or at the worker as being respon-
sible for our price troubles.
LEVIES BOOST COST.
For that pound of bacon, for which
the plasterer paid 81, the farmer
received 80 cents. less the taxes he
paid on his farm, on the transporta-
ton of the bacon to market, and
any profit he may have made on
the hog. Between the farm and that
plasterer's breakfast table, that
pound of bacon passed through
many hands, and each one who
touched it was assessed tax. There
was multiplicity of taxes, all of
which were, of necessity, added as
parts of the price the plasterer must
pay.
On the other hand, the plas-
terer pays, not one, but several
taxes on what he receives as
wages. To cover the cost of those
several taxes and the cost Of
the taxes on the bacon he buys,
he demands more wages. More
wages mean higher costs for
what he produces, with more to
go for taxes. Back along much
the same road as that travelled
by the pound of bacon, goes the
product of the plasterer to the
farmer, and the farmer pays the
multiplicity of taxes that have
accumulated along the way.
Our excessive prices are caused
largely by the extravagant and
wasteful costs of bureaucracy at
Washington, in our state capitols
and our county and municipal build
ings. 1t is the tax on tax, and tax
again to cover the ever expanding
expenditures of our elected officials,
whose every thought seems to be on
how to get more money, and how
to cover the getting.
We, the voters of the nation, can
collectively stop the operation of the
vicious system when, and if, we
wish. We can demand simplified
form of tax levying, so we will know
the exact amount of taxes each
one pays.
AS it is now we are wasting our
time and our energies in each Dot
calling each kettle black and per-
hitting the real culprit to get away
with the loot.
1t is not efficiency that regu-
lates the salaries Of bureau
chiefs in Washington. II one be-
comes so proficient that he per-
forms the work Of his bureau
with a decreased number Of en-
ployees he is compensated by
cut in his own salary. To get q