Milford chronicle., 1954-04-16
HOW no REDUCE DEFICITS


on a deficit basis And this years deficit
will be. much larger than was anticipated,
due to an unexpectedly sharp decline in tax
receipts.
Moreover, some taxes have been or soon
will be reduced, and there is almost univer-
sal sentiment, in and out of government, for
further cuts at the earliest possible time.
What is the lOng-range solution to this
complex and acute problem?
The most obvious answer is: Stringent
government economy.
But that need not be the whole cure
Very great savings to the taxpayers can and
should be made by getting government out
OF commercial business undertakingS-und
takingS which pay no taxes and almost in
Variably entail heavy losses.
Many-including people in important
government pOSitiOnS-have urged, for ex-
ample, that the government sell its social
lied electric power projects, beginning with
IVA, to private taXpayng enterprise. This
would bring millions into the TreaSury-and
save billions in the future, by getting rid of
the annual subsidies, and by putting the
projects on the tax rolls where they belong
They are wholly or largely tax-free now.
At the very least, all new proposed So
cialized power schemes should be stopped
cold. An example is the pending $400,OO 900
hydrOelectric project at Niagara Falls. A
6AONP VI ACB ulotICOS OuSlllcOS-lIldlldRSuN NuIlI-
tiles wants to undertake this-and if they
are allowed to they'll not only build and
operate it without tax subsidies of any kind,
but they'll pay more than 20 per cent of the
resultant total revenues in taxes If gov
ernment does it, on the other hand, all of us
will have to chip in to pay the huge bill,
there1l be no tax revenues, and the fiscal
problem will be that much worse.
Yes, we need maximum economy in gov
LlaT@
government out of commercial business and
keep it out. In the meantime the advocates
of sOcialized industry block progress in their
efforts to expand government ownership of
business.
EMPLOYEES AND SHAREHOLDERS
There was all kinds of bowling when the
Administration proposed, in it's new tax bill
to give a little relief to people who receive
income from investments. This the cry
went, meant fattening the rich at the ex-
pense of the poor,
President Eisenhower showed how empty
that claim was, by citing the example of one
of the biggest of our corporations This
concern has 100000 workers-and practi
cally the same number of stockholders. ONLY
10 per cent of those stockholders had in
comes of more than $4,000 a year. Fifty
three per cent reported overall incomes O1
less than $4,000 year-and $4,000 is thu
average annual wage of the cOmpanys EN-
plOyees.
AS for the tax angle the company pay,
SO cents to the federal government out O1
each dollar it earns as profit. And more Ot
those earnings go to government whel
shareholders pay their individual income
taxes, under the present unjust system O.
double taxation.
The big point is that the majority O
stockholders in all industries with widel,
dispersed ownership are in the small AM
middle-incOme brackets. Many of them ar
industrial workers, who have invested saw
ings in the corporations which employ them
and other enterprises Investors, far fror
being unduly favored, are disprOportion
ately taxed today.