| OCR Text |
Show SCANNING THE WEEK'S NEWS of Main Street and the World Committee's Proposed Tax Increase Hits Lower Income Groups Hardest TAXES ON THE LOCAL LEVEL By July 1, or shortly thereafter, Ihe man on Main Street is going to find himself subject to increased Individual income taxes if the house ways and means committee's proposals pro-posals are carried out. The committee voted to Increase income taxes $2,950,000,000 a year. The increase would raise taxes in every bracket by 3 percentage points. In The News I: " Al I f v ' If '- 1 : For instance, a single man with a net income of $2,000 a year. would pay $322 in taxes instead of $280. This would be an increase from 20 per cent to 23 per cent. In the. second bracket ($2,000 to $4,000), the tax would go up from 22 to 25 per cent, and in the third bracket ($4,000 to $6,000), from 26 to 29 per cent. In general, the increase in each person's tax would be about the same as the jump which took place under the first war-tax bill passed last year. This proposed taxation tax-ation is tentative, however, and subject to possible changes by the house, the senate finance committee, and the full senate. But it is an indication of approximately what the small-towner can expect before the summer is over. WHAT DOES AMERICA THINK? From the time this nation was founded politicians have tried to keep in close contact con-tact with the home towns in an effort to know and understand what the average man is thinking. Very few of them, however, how-ever, have succeeded. With this in mind, Secretary of Defense Marshall made a bold statement during his testimony on the MacArthur-Truman controversy con-troversy when he asserted the American people will stand with the administration on military policy in Korea. Marshall believes the average home-towner home-towner has no desire to expand the war in Asia. He believes the American people "are on the side that the defense department, depart-ment, the joint chiefs of staff, and the civilian authority of the government favor." This side, Marshall asserted, involved a settled conviction that the present policy of limited commitment of force in Korea must go on. TEAM WORK The first thing the American youngster learns, whether he is a city boy or a small town one, is that he has to be a member of the team. To play with the other kids he must cooperate. Americans carry this lesson with them through life. It was with some relief, therefore, that home-towners heard the news that those free nations who have been trading with Communist China had finally agreed it was time to start playing with the home team and to cut off that trade completely. Defense Secretary Marshall Mar-shall (top picture) continued con-tinued to be of top interest in the nation's press as h told senators the home-towners home-towners don't want to expand ex-pand the war in Korea . . . Economic Stabilizer Eric Johnston (center) was in the news again with demands de-mands for extension of economic controls . . . Donald Don-ald Dawson (lower picture) pic-ture) made front pages by swearing he never used Pressure on RFC directors. Britain, trade and dollar hungry, was possibly the worst offender. It could be that the senate vote to cut off economic aid to any nation which permits its citizens to trade with Communist areas had much to do with the sudden splurge of cooperation. FOR HUNGRY BEEF EATERS In an action entirely independent oi the recent projected general rollback on beef prices scheduled by October Octo-ber 1, the government unexpectedly slashed approximately- 12 cents a pound off ceiling prices of some chuck steaks and pot roasts. For the hungry beef eaters of the nation it was a welcome surprise. It is not likely to make relations between the administration and the nation's beef producers, packers and distributors any cosier, however. In The News - ' 7 'I A SECOND ATTEMPT While General Gen-eral Marshall and the joint chiefs of staf testified before congressional committees in rebuttal to earlier testimony of Gen. Douglas MacArthur on the conduct of th Korean war, North Korean and Chinese Communists were ready for a second at tempt in their spring offensive. The first attempt launched April 22, bogged down in little over a week with ai estimated 75,000 casualties. For the second sec-ond try, the Communists rushed thousand! of troops into three buildup -areas armed with an unusually large number of machine ma-chine guns and Russian-type submachin guns. United Nations forces were ready ant waiting for the new offensive, firmly en trenched and, for the first time in the war ready with an air raid warning system UN commanders remained firm in the be lief they could beat back anything thi Communists could throw against them. THE PRICE IS STEEP The weeks o futile talks in Paris by deputies of thi big four foreign ministers has reaffirme in the minds of the average home-towne: the fact you can't reason with the Com munists. For weeks the deputies havi tried to work out an agenda for a meetinj of the big four foreign ministers withou success.- It is apparent that the end of the ropt has been reached. The price demande( by the Reds is too high for a God fearinj and freedom loving nation. The Russian! insist upon an arms-reduction item in thi agenda that would mean the suspension o our defense program. The Russians wan their own kind of arms-reduction formula It doesn't include international inspectioi and control. Dr. Mary T. Martin Sloop (lop picture), 77-y 77-y e a r-o I d of Crossmore, N.C., became big news when she was named American Amer-ican Mother of 1951. Dr. Sloop, wife of a country doctor, became nationally known for her work among the underprivileged in the mountains of her state .... Always sensational news, glamor princess Rita Hay-worth, Hay-worth, arrived in Reno to divorce Prince Aly Kahn. Here again the free world has been blocked in its attempt to east world tensions and try to make some progress toward real peace. THE TALKING CONGRESS At the moment it appears that thi 82nd congress will go down in history as the talking congress, with i record of fewer laws enacted than the 80th congress which was termei the "do-nothing congress" by Fresident Truman. After four full months, the 82nd congress has enacted only 28 publi' laws, a recent check revealed. None of the major platform planks oi which Truman won election for a second term have been approved. O 37 specific legislative recommendations by the President, only three havi become effective as a result of congressional action since January. An two of them affect only soldiers or veterans of the war in Korea. FROM COW TO CAN |
