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Show til m 1 and SMALL &d I BUSINESS Egg&jgP I A MaSIer of Priorities I It would seem logical, if the august Congress of these United States is actually concerned con-cerned over the erosion of the family income, it would devote all of its collective energies to figuring out ways to reduce government spending and taxes. Governor Rona.d Reagan of California is seeking: to get on the ballot a measure which would reduce the tax take of the state government -i suc-cesive suc-cesive steps over the next few years. It is his contention that taxes are now gobbling up 43 per cent of income. By contrast, despite the new higher level of food prices, U.S. Department of Agriculture experts claim that food is only taking 17 per cent of family income. in-come. Regardless of the precise validity of any of these figures, it is apparent that it costs a whale of a lot more to keep the tax man satisfied, than to satisfy satis-fy the human stomach. The nation's Independent business people, once almost unanimously of the opinion that labor has brought on inflation, in-flation, now are swerving quite rapidly to the opinion tha. Inflation In-flation is a creature of government, govern-ment, according to the respondents respon-dents to the field surveys of the National Federation of Independent In-dependent Business. Yet, . instead of concentration concentra-tion on the basic problem, the tax gouge, Congress is spending spend-ing a lot of time on the matter of how the interest should be charged on retail credit accounts. ac-counts. One proposal would prohibit minimum finance charges on revolving credit accounts ac-counts unless imposed on all accounts, and especially those more than 60 days delinquent. Now the facts are that nobody no-body really has to run a revolving revolv-ing charge. If they wan to enjoy en-joy the goods or services before be-fore they have the cash in the pocket, they expect, and should expect, to pay for this additional addi-tional service. But nobody forces the consumer con-sumer into a position of paying pay-ing interest on amounts charged charg-ed by the consumer. Most retailers re-tailers still observe the quaint old system ot accepting cash. So it might be said that whether or not a consumer decides de-cides to pay interest on an unpaid un-paid balance is a matter of negotiation with the seller. But there is nothing discretionary discre-tionary about the payment of taxes. It is either pay, or the long arm of the law reaches out. Neither does the taxpayer have any discretion on how his money is spent. Congressman H. R. Gross of Iowa recently pointed out that the taxpayer's money Is currently cur-rently being spent to collect moss in Burma, while another tax paid person is gathering ants and termites in Guinea, and still another Individual is using tax money to make a survey of the wild goat and sheep population in Pakistan. But the Congressmen worry if consumers are paying a few extra day's interest on an unpaid un-paid balance. It is weird. National Federate -'ependent Business j |