The Daily Alaska empire., 1950-01-14
THESE DAYS
GEORGE :. SOKOLSKY
PIE-IN-THE-SKY

l ll0 l w w Q uoSN tO otAA5 o oOAl5
 Tn the sweet bye and bye,
 ThereTl be pie in the sky
 Bye and bye.
 1 Work and pray, live on hay, | You'll get pie, in the sky,
 When you die. :"
 The prophetic genius who wrote this doggerel back in the first de cade of the Twentieth Century must have foreseen Harry Truman's bud get and his various messages Fol our Harry has taken to promising heaven on earth for the year 2000 which is long way off and be- yond his Presidential, to say nothing of his life, expectancy. Harry Tru- man is not likely to be around ir the year 2000, when he could bt 116 years old, to know how many dollars each American will carr in year. And what kind of dol lars? Ten cent dollars? Or penny dollars?
 Both sam and Hitler substi- tuted for the heavenly afterlife oi the theologians, an afterlife upor earth based on rubber dollars. Pay taxes now make sacrifices now i 20 without now, but sometime II the dim and distant future, wher none of us are around anymore to know of it, everything will bt astonishingly fine.
 Hitler fixed it that Herrenvoll would rule all the word, enslavt all human beings, get the bes there is, and all the inferior peop- les would be their slaves Stalir goes even further: Some time II the far off future, all the peoples on earth will be so perfect that government itself will be unnec- essary and will disappear. Mean while, he offers an absolute auto cracy, total dictatorship with the premise that liberty is forswori now in order that it will exist ir the future Give up today so that your great-grandchildren can get what you gave up.
 Harry Truman is not as idealistl6 as either Hitler or Stalin; he is materialiSt. He can only figure 1 in dollars. In effect he says: Fork out SAP, 40O,O00,000 now; increase both taxes and the burden of debt now and sometime along in the year 2O00, that is half a century from now, everybody will have more money. Whereas Hitler promised racial superiority and overlordshif and the satisfaction of the lust fol power and for a Nietzschean sup erman complex, and Stalin promises liberty of such perfection that ev- cry man is a God, Harry Truman promises more cash.
 The fact of the matter is that Harry Truman knows no more about the year 2oOO than you ol I do. Actually, he can tell very little, in the present circumstances about the year 1851. And hidder in his budget is a great fear that he knows nothing at all about it For look at these figures:
 National defense, $13,500, ,000, 900 31.9 percent. Veterans programs $6,- 1OOO00, ,OOO, 14.3 percent. Interest or debt $5,6OO 100000, 13.3 percent. In- ternational aid S4,700,000,000, IL percent. Total for past, present ano future wars, $2s,9oQ 0Oo,oOo, 7o.S | percent
 More than 70 percent of the to- tai expenditures of our govern ment, taken from the citizens, out of their earnings, goes to the cost of past, present and future wars hot and cold, by shooting or by diplomacy and bribery.
 The actual cost of administering | the government is $500, ,000, ,000 which is only three percent of the budget. The last real peace veal was 1888, and the total federal ex- penditures. excluding debt retire ments, amounted to $7,200, ,000, 900 The highest expenditure during the whole World War I period was $18,- 500,00O,0O in 1919. The highest ex- renditure during the World Wal II period was $1O0,400,0 100000 ir 1945. It can be argued that we are now neither at war nor at peace that our differences with Sovict Russia have prevented us from H. quidating the war. On the other hand, it is equally true that ont of the most potent Marxist wea- pons is to destroy the economy of nation by excessive taxes anc labor disturbances and thus so te weaken a country that is economi- cally, socially and morally incap- able of defending itself.