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Show Columnist Charges U. S. Censorship Through Taxation We are on dangerous ground when the government uses a tax law to restrict the rights of citizens citi-zens to advise Congress on legislative legis-lative proposals of vital interest to them. Washington Columnist Clinton Davidson said this week. Yet that is being done under a 1954 Internal Revenue Code which holds that "expenses lawfully law-fully incurred in supporting, opposing op-posing or otherwise influencing legislation shall not be allowed as a proper deduction from the gross income." The law applies not only to "lobbying" before Congress, but also to similar representations to 'state and local legislative or rule making bodies of the various governments by citizens or nongovernment non-government groups, Davidson said. Administrative officials and agencies of the various government govern-ment bodies, however, left completely com-pletely free to maintain expensive expen-sive and powerful lobbies at public expense to influence the act'ons of legislative branches. Rep. Hale Boggs, Democrat of Louisiana, in a House speech, called the law "censorship by taxation" and a serious threat "to the democratic processes by which we remain free." He introduced in-troduced HR 640 to repeal that section of the tax laws. The best way to build up a dictatorship is to rule that no one except the administration in Dower shall have the right to lobby. Congress far from discouraging dis-couraging advice on pending leg-;slation, leg-;slation, seeks it constantly. "Today," Rep Boggs said, "the scope and pace of our activity in Congress and other legislative bodies is such that infinite care must be exercised to prevent our being insulated from the public opinion. "Silenced by restrictions, no facet of our economy can carry on trade or a business on a basis of equality with those working on the other side of the street," Rep. Boggs said. The imposition of punitive taxes is one of the most effective deterrents to the exercise of the constitutional right of every citizen citi-zen to freely express his views, Rep. Boggs said. A 1958 ruling by the U. S. Supreme Su-preme Court held that "speech can be effectively limited by the exercise of the taxing power" and that "denial of a tax exemption exemp-tion for engaging in certain talk necessarily . will have the effect of coercing the claimants to refrain re-frain from the prescribed speech. Rep. Boggs pointed out that the section of law in question is not for the purpose of raising revenue, but that "it is punitive taxation, which limits the right of free and continuous access of all of the people to their elected representatives." We do not believe that Congress Con-gress ever intended the law to be used to restrict the right of the people as guaranteed in the Constitution Con-stitution to petition the Congress. It should therefore, repeal the law. |