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Show REDUCE PUBLIC EXPENSES AND TAXES WILL GO DOWN SAYS TAXATION EXPERT A reduction of public expenditures was given as the only sound and proper policy to follow if lower taxes are de-sided, de-sided, at a meeting of representatives of the Utah county farm bureau federation, the Utah county commission and the state board of equalization. The advice was given by William Bailey, chairman of the state board of equalization, who commended to the farmers j present the legislative program outlined by the Utah State Farm Bureau federation. In response to the request made by the farmers of the north end of Utah county for a blanket reduction of farm values in that section, it was pointed out by the county commission com-mission that the only proper way at this time would be a careful care-ful consideration of all assessment values in the entire county. James T. Gardner, chairman of the commission, suggested i that committees be appointed to go over the assessment lists tcTmore equalize the burden of taxation. 1 Mr. Gardner said that about the only fair way of taxation taxa-tion would be to pass an income bill in the next legislature so that everybody would share alike in the expenses of the government. ' James H. Gardner of Lehi, superintendent super-intendent of the Utah-Idaho Sugar company, said that it was imperative impera-tive for the farmers to get relief from the heavy tax burden. He said that conditions among the farmers of the north end of the county was such that it would be impossible for them to properly care for their expenditures. He asked that everything every-thing possible be done to cut the budget of the county. That the farmers of the American Fork district feel quite discouraged was the statement made by George F. Shelley, member of the last state legislature and city recorder of American Fork. He declared that , the land has been assessed too I high, higher, in fact than its real market value. He said that the farmers feel as though they would like to get from under the heavy load, but that they cannot find a jumping off place. Mr. Shelley quoted one farmer in American Fork as saying that last year his taxes on a certain piece of prop-j ; erty was $32 more than the entire1 ! amount of the crop the land pro-! duced. ! I "All farmers complain of the high ; taxes," said Thomas Gleason of Pleasant Grove. "I am positive that i more farmers will be unable to this I year to pay their taxes than were unable to do so last year. The state j I has really confiscated the farms, i i The state would be unable to produce pro-duce from the farms the amount of money it collects from them in j taxes. I "Everywhere the men are leaving J the farms. Mortgages cover most I of the farms of the county and the: farmers are willing to leave them and go out and work for wages. "There is a crisis coming. You can't drive these people into serfdom. serf-dom. They refuse to be driven. Things must come to a stop some place and it will stop. Let us see if we can't be fair and square in this matter." L. P. Larson of Spanish Fork, Samuel Taylor of Payson and H. W. Gore of Geuola spoke for the farmers farm-ers of the south end of the county 'and asked for relief. They stated that although the south end had more water than the north end of the county the conditions there were equally distressing. The schools of the county came in for a great deal of rapping from the discouraged farmers. Extravagance in the school systems were deplored and a return to safer and saner methods were urgently stressed. The Alpine school district was especially flayed for its extravagant methods of spending the public funds. The farmers were told to do all in their power to see to it that the building program for American Fork schools Is halted and to encourage en-courage the converting of the $50,000 gymnasium needlessly built a few years ago, be converted into class rooms instead f the construction construc-tion of new buildings. Mi. Gardner of Lehi explained that had it not been for a committee waiting on the Alpine school hoard the levy from that distrtict would this year be 12 mills as compared with 10 mills a year ago. As an example ex-ample of the needless expense for which the levy will be raised half a mill this year in the Alpine district dis-trict -some one pointed to the appointment ap-pointment of a grammer grade supervisor su-pervisor for next year. It was said that, this was an enrlrely new office in the district and that it was unnecessary, un-necessary, since former superintendents superinten-dents of the district had always supervised su-pervised this work themselves. E. T. Capener, director of the tax committee of the state farm bureau federation, urged that values be decreased de-creased on the assessment '"lis and said that the lax committee would then wait upon the levying boards and insist that the levies be reduced from previous years. "I agree with you men that we must have relief," said Mr. Bailey, "but you are going at it in the wrong way. I will go with you to the end of the board to get that relief. You have bonded heavily for the county courthouse and you have spent more than double the amount of any other county in the state for road purposes. Stop building build-ing courthouses, stop building roads, stop putting into the curriculums every newfangled idea that comes along, cut down expenses everywhere every-where and your taxes will be lowered.' |