Milford chronicle., 1950-01-06
OUR WHOLE ECONOMY is MENACED
BY TAKING AND SPENDING

One of the big jobs facing Congress this
year is that of working toward the kind of
Federal financial structure which is essential
to maintaining the Nations expanding eco
nOmic and business activity. 1t is not mat
ter of theory, or of concern only to a few
economists. 1t is a down-to-earth question
involving the, jobs and wages of millions of
Americans and the continued activity of the
businesses which employ them. Unsound
handling Of Federal finances can have severe
and possibly disastrous effect on them ALL
Already there have been damaging results
from unwise Federal tax policies, as Emil
Schram, president of the New York Stock
Exchange, pointed out before Congressional
subcommittee. Federal taxes have made it
more difficult for business to get capital to
expand and harder for individuals to get
capital to invest. Small businesses have been
particularly hard hit by taxes which stile
their efforts to grow.
1t should be perfectly clear that the ma
tiOn's economy cannot stand still. 1t needs to
expand, through the growth of present en-
terpriseS and the launching of new ones. It
must not only maintain present employment,
but also provide jobs for the 100000 per-
sons who are added to the working force each
year. Those jobs won't materialize out of
nowhere. They will come only from an econ
Omy which is encouraged to expand and pro-
vide them. But the present trend of the tax
and-spend policies of the Truman Admins
tratiOn is to place added burdens on the
economy, added obstacles in the way of any
one who wants to branch out and produce
more goods and furnish employment to more
people, The national debt, already in astron-
Omical figures, is growing bigger every day
as the Federal Government spends more than
it takes in. And thus far, in spite of the in
creasing number of somber warnings on all
sides, the only solution the Administration
has to offer is to raise taxes-and keep right
on spending. That means that everybody
farmers, workers in industry and employers
would pay out more money to the Govern
ment and have less left for themselves. 1t
means that there would be less incentive to
broaden business activities, and less money
to do it with. And it would mean large strides
toward the Welfare State, with the govern
ment irving to pay bigger and bigger hand
outs and going broke in the process.
There's no question that the Federal Gov
ernment needs tax money and lots of it to
provide necessary services, pay off the debt
and maintain the American position in the
world. But it doesn't need to pile on taxes
to the extent that they become a definite
menace to continued economic activity and
ing discriminatory taxes which constitute a
brake on economic growth and the nations
ability to meet the needs of rising popula-
tion.
4 Congress should consider some of the
strategic revisionS in Federal taxes" urged
by Mr.. Schram. 1t ought to encourage in
vestment by lessening the tax on dividends
and give boost to new enterprises by ad-
justing the capital gains levies. 1t ought tC
take good look at the wartime excise taxes
which now serve chiefly to raise prices tC
consumers and to slow down certain lines Oi
business. More important, Congress should
reject the tax-and-spend theory as sheer eco
nOmic nonsense. Refusing to spend money
the Government doesn't have will provide
more genuine welfare for the nation thar
slapping on taxes which make it harder fol
everyone to earn his own living.
The trend toward bigger spending anC
bigger taxes is a growing danger to thu
nations economy and to the security of al
Americans 1t must be dealt with before it il
too late