OCR Text |
Show f Time to Retrench . o QTATE deficits have jrown from 22,600 in 1910 to $806,990.36 in 1920, according to figures compiled by the state auditor. The tendency ten-dency is not in the interest of sound business practice and demands serious consideration from the legislature. Immediate steps should be taken to close the avenues to expenditures which but add to the debt of the state. Private institutions, and individuals as well, must operate within their income or eventually confess bankruptcy. The spending of . unearned money ira snare and meets only the immediate emergency. It provides no permanent relief and merely postpones the day of accounting. The Utah legislature should endeavor to place the state on a basis which will reduce rather than Increase the total indebtedness. Taxes cannot very well be reduced when state institutions are spending a half million a year more than is provided by the state revenues. Taxes cannot be increased without injury to the state, because the taxpayer's burden has reached the brtalung point Since taxes cannot be increased, in-creased, there is but one way out of the difficulty diffi-culty and that is to reduce expenditures. The state must get back to a sound operating basis. It cannot afford to maintain institutions which are beyond its means, unless a corresponding correspond-ing measure of service is rendered the state as a whole. The state, like the individual, must adjust its wants to its pocketbook, embrace the necessities necessi-ties it can pay for and forego the luxuries that it cannot afford. |