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Show to THE SEARCHLIGHT — A. Message to Legislators Next week His Excellency, Herbert B. Maw, will deliver his message and outline his general recommendations to the Legislature. He will gloss over the pathetic failure of his reorganization scheme to live up to more than a fraetion of his fat promises, and he will try to lay the blame on someone else—perhaps the State Auditor. Governor Maw will play up Utah’s aequisition of war industries and give himself geenerous unshared praise for having obtained them. He will paint an optimistie picture of the savings made in travel expense, purchases of bonds, and other minor items, just to keep your minds off that $1,112.847 exeess eost of State reorganization. Of course, His Excellency will not play up his political and administrative partnership with Gus P. Backman. He’s afraid that may backfire. The Governor will tell you that the cure for reorganization sickness is more reorganization—that all will be well and that Saving’s will be enormous if only you will vote him new powers—even the right to suspend laws you enact that he and Gus don’t like. You will be served a generous helping of Maw arithmetic and Maw promises. So much for the eubernatorial message. You legislators have an opportunity to render supreme service to your State and your Country. If you discard political considerations and buckle down at once to the serious business of re-constituting orderly democratic government you will rank with the genuine statesmen of your time. You ean save taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and ease the burdens of the people at the time of vour Country’s greatest need. Obviously the Legislature should center its attention on measures that contribute most to the war effort. Taxes should be cut to the bone, and the bone seraped. Utahns should not be handicapped with high State, municipal and county taxes when they have new and heavier Federal taxation to meet. Cleancut patriotism demands a brake on home taxes. Superfluous personnel should be eliminated. Unnecessary officials and employees mean unnecessary taxes. And besides, more help is needed on farms and in war industries. While the Legislature is recovering powers it mistakenly delegated to the Executive, it should go all the way and adopt a cabinet form of government. All commissions except those exercising quasi-judicial functions should be one-man commissions. More than $50,000 a year could be saved on that one item and efficiency would improve. To remove political objections one-third of the one-man commissions could be headed by Republicans. The Department of Publicity and Business Promotion should be abolished or put in eold storage for the duration. Its affairs eould be vlaced in the hands of the State Treasurer. Without sacrificing any useful function of wartime administration, $100,000 could be saved. The Department of Agriculture, the Booze Commission, the Welfare Commission, the Kish & Game Department, the Finance Commission and the State Road Commission ean each be run as well or better by a director, or by a one-man commission. Other odds and ends of State Government can be held in abeyance or reduced in scope for the duration. The people of Utah ean vet along until the war is over with half the government activities they now support. Indeed, there is a lot of governmental service that ean be dispensed with altogether. Political inspectors, pay-roll hitech-hikers, fake safety engineers, coal ‘‘eoordinators’’, and other useless barnacles on the Ship of State who help keep the tax rate high should go into productive war work. Persons now loafing on State pay (names on request) should be doing useful war work or should be in military service. The first bill of the session should make legislators ineligible for appointment to State jobs during the term for which they were elected to the Legislature. In no other way ean the integrity of the Legislature be protected adequately. Even now (January 6th) it is. reported that a certain senator is about to line up with the Maw machine’s candidate for Sen(Continued on following page) |