OCR Text |
Show TIME TO DRAW BACK. We liavo stut.eil from Umfi to time that radical lobulation has rendered ( alit'ornia 'rt government the mo.st ox-peiifivo ox-peiifivo state government in the Tinted States, ami wo have declared that the exorbitant taxes have cost California scores of millions nf dollars .by preventing prevent-ing outfddo capital from making investments invest-ments in that. utate. Tho details to Mipport the statements ore furnished by John Ji. Manchester in the first of a j-eries of articles he s writing for The Tribune. And ho has just begun to ti ll the story of commission-ridden and tux-ridden California. As he points out, no other-state has so many high-priced commissioners ; no other state has such a large percent nge. of its populut ion on tho payrolls ; no other date interferes so much in a governmental way with private enterprises. enter-prises. And no other ptate has advanced ad-vanced its per capita cost so rapidly educe HUO and no other state pays such a heavy per capita tax. If the figures were not given one would find it iliflieult to liclieve that California spends more for its state government than any other state in the union except New York. Last year California expended $S4,1 10,-t73 for its government, although it has a population popula-tion of perhaps 2,750,000, whereas New York has a population of somewhat, more than 0,000,000. Texas, with a population 40 per cent greater and an area "0 per cent greater, spent only $1(3(54.7$0 in 1015. Mr. Manchester, after a careful analy.-sis analy.-sis of the figures, estimates that California Cali-fornia is wasting $15, 000,000 a year. Mentioning items of waste he gives only two t this time. The railroad commission com-mission cost tho state last year nearly $750,000, and about $250,000 was ''fed into the mawM of the state's industrial, accident and insurance commission. Although committed to economy by their pre-election professions and pledges the Democratic majority iu the Utah legislature is preparing to enact into law the most wasteful programme eer formulated by a political party in the aunals of the state. They are proposing pro-posing to establish au overhead expense ex-pense that, will be crushing. A business busi-ness can be ruined quickly by overhead expense, but the owuers of the business busi-ness have only themselves to blame in n case of that. kind. But business men are not to blame when they are saddled sad-dled with an overhead expense by their state government. The overhead expense ex-pense is as real in one instance as in the other. In each instance tho men engaged in business must pay .or get out of business. California is suffering today from the burden of an overhead expeuse provided by her politicians who, save the mark, call themselves ' ; progressives. ' The outside investor who contemplates going go-ing into business in California is appalled ap-palled by the comparative statis-t statis-t u-s of the per capita costs of state governments. He finds that California ns pay $12.1 7 per capita for their government, whereas no other state of tho same population pays more than $4.14. If it is a question of locating lo-cating in any oue of several states the busiucss man will not locate in California. Is there not a lesson in all this for Utah 's legislature ? However much ihev may desire to carry out the programme pro-gramme which was foisted upon them hv their party and by the committee (;' il experts" to whom they have delegated dele-gated the duty of framing laws, they diou'd try to realize what harm they will do to their state if they really enact that programme into law. They are going even beyond their pledges by accepting accept-ing from the experts the most radical and costly forms of the laws they pro-poi-o to enact. They are adding to the expense with unnecessary commissioners commission-ers and complex machinery. They are considering a workingmen 's compensation compensa-tion act that has failed elsewhere and has involved the states that experimented experi-mented with it in obligations they cannot can-not meet except by further taxation. : And seeing the tremendous expoudi-turc expoudi-turc that will be fastened upon Utah hv the most expensive possible charac 1 ter of government they cast about for ' as many different forms of taxes as i ,pv can find. Thus they have been led tu iaor an income tax by which they 1 lliink (Jjf-v can mulct rnougli from the t ,-t)'! ind'i:) riin'-- .rhh of the -tale tu pay a. part of the abnormal co -it of their v. a-tcful gu eminent. It is ti mm: for Mtber second thought, time to stop even though at the edge ut' tin abyy. And the. legislature must draw back if the state i-i tu be saved f rom disaster. |