OCR Text |
Show INFLATION' SA HOT A (J KR, ROBBER March 15th is tho deadline for your federal income taxes. In Utah this year the I.'. S. Collector of Internal Revenue may obtain as much as 95 million dollars. A considerable con-siderable part of this money will be wasted and thrown away with a lavish hand. Some of the abuses of the federal fed-eral government, which could not be, accomplished without the billions in taxes collected from the private individual, are called to our attention by the Utah Taxpayers Ass'n. : During- the last session of congress, overburdened American taxpayers pleaded tor a reduction in federal spending. Those pleas for the most part were drowned by the clamor of selfish "gimme" gangs and entrenched bureaucrats. Some members of congress, seeking to excuse ex-cuse continued high federal spending, responded to constituents', con-stituents', demands for economy by replying, "Sure, we want economy, but where-do you want us to cut?" Congress Con-gress is now determining your "cost of federal govorn-rnont" govorn-rnont" bill for the next fiscal year. Proof that this bill can be cut Ls contained in the following examples ranging rang-ing from questionable expenditures to downright extravagance extrava-gance selected at random from hundreds that might have been used. All these examples are derived from official of-ficial records of eongres.s, Largely from hearings on fiscal 1948 budget requests. Look them over : While we were being committed to the responsibility responsi-bility of feeding a starving world, our federal government govern-ment in 1946 bought 96 million bnshels of potatoes, out of which approximately 27 million bushels were destroyed de-stroyed or left to rot. Acres of potatoes were plowed under while American housewives were grumbling -about their cost in the market place. Did the abolition of OP A reduce the cost of fjoce.rn-mentf fjoce.rn-mentf NO! Because a substantial portion of its personnel and funds were transferred to other federal aqeucies. This is a common practice in. bureaucratic Washington. For the current fiscal year, the Veterans Administration Admin-istration requested $7,900,000 for the purpose of j printing 3,674,000,000 blank forms. This amounts to ceived from,the Congressional Committee on the District of Columbia two pamphlets compiled by this committee. One of these contains (i2 pages of fine print, being the committee's report on the need of legislation necessary to change the District's form of government. The other has 152 pages, and is a copy of the proposed bill to remodel re-model the District's government, licit li are on a. high-grade high-grade paper, and the printing was done by the Government Govern-ment Printing Office. in addition to (he estimated 20,000 copies received by the newspapers, it is safe to estimate than an equal number were sent to libraries, schools, chambers of commerce, etc., making it total of 40,1)00 copies printed. By actual test, these pamphlets weigh 17 ounces, a little over 20 tons of white paper, representing an expenditure of approximately ijcji 1,000 lor the scarce material. The paper cost on a printing job, compared with ihe total cost of production, averages 5 per cent. This means that some $400,1.00 of the taxpayers money has been spi'iit on this one item. And this is not counting what it c,,si ihe Postal Department to distribute tliein by first class mail. This newspnijcr does not wish to ;inn ' in I In. i;.,l,i -w iorms lor each veteran, or 30 forms for every person per-son in the V. S. It also asked for 303,217,500 letterheads letter-heads at a cost of $557,902. This would have permitted each employee of the Administration to write '1 348 letters in fiscal 1948. Congressional investigators found $505,075,000 in income in-come which tho Maritime Commission another federal agency failed to report. In 1940 the appropriation for the Public Buildings Administration, which designs, constructs, operates and maintains federal buildings, was less than 15 million dol-wis. dol-wis. His agency's appropriation request for fiscal 194S was approximately $73.5 million-, times as larae in seren years. - . For fiscal 1948 the Research and Marketing divi- sioii of the Department of Agriculture requested an appropriation ap-propriation of 19 million dollars, without offering a irr proraM of any dosorip,ion to j,,sii'-v There are 22 federal agencies engaged in handling 1 of gaSriUc'- This is but one of the manv exam-Plos exam-Plos of overlapping and duplicating federal government of a "light wad," and gripe a-bout a mere million dollars dol-lars ; but we gel frightened when we see a little, insignificant insignif-icant committee of congress spending this amount ol' money -on a proposition that cannot be of more than passing interest to anyone outside the District of Colum- ""'iiy pons and surveys conducted bv wheth' "a Kv",1,m?nt h '' as one to determine whether Mrs. America preferred cotton or svnthetic 0. esses. 1 his particular poll onlv cost .,-.0,000-a mere tnt e . Washington where thev glib v t,,' aW, bilhons-bnt a substantial sum to most W u,.n taxpayers - and paid for out of ,axpa,J -Most Americans are now grumbling about the hi-h cos, of Imng lint the price of bread has onlv increased .V per cent snico 1940, as compared to a 370 per cent ' ncrcat ' feferal spend,,,,,. A part of this increase is due o ountless .stances of waste and extravagance. It 's in e to stop grumbling and start acting. Tell vour S ef - tors ""d representatives to start trimming' ' I iah's share of the cost of the proposed budget for '"Th'-'-r" n h0V IPlotion r'a.io, is n : ST' ThVS 276-"6 "' Pson in the state o, 1,10, tor each tam.ly of four. Reaver count Vs share' ! 41Q T,? . m 1 bl,dKef WOuld fH "Pproxiniatelv .1,4.19,000 I-ittlo Daggett county, with onlv ;J00 population, popula-tion, would be called upon to furnish the spenders in hi-h places in ashington, the sum of $83,000 Another deplorable instance of' norcrumeul waste a,l useless spendiua-vhich, after all, is the primary cause ot the staggering budget requests is cited bv the Rockingham (X. C.) Journal: The Journal, along with an' estimated total of 20,000 other newspapers in the United States, has re- nia- " is mi example ol what congressional com mittees are doing in Washington, it 's getting about time someone besides Ihe country newspapers start 'griping'. ; To which we add a fervent "Amen !" Congress could icst serve their laxpaying constituents l,v appointing a oiigressioiinl eoimnittee to invcslijrate ' Washington vith an eagle eye on finding out how many million un-needed un-needed employes each bureau has on the pav'roll sucking in the taxpayers' pocketbooks. The.,, start hewiii(,and i t the rhips lull irlierr flie; mu if. For every vote a congressman con-gressman lost thru insisting on honest; in government, ic would gain a thousand voter-friends. The (juickest way to break the back of the American W ay of Life is to continue to load the taxpayer with more and more debt-demands. And the quickest wav to bring ('ommunism to power in America, is (o hreak'down our 'ami in our government. .Maybe Wallace and his pro-Russia pro-Russia campaign isn't, after all, the greatest threat to our future security. .Maybe our lethargy, our tvpically American complacency, is leading us into a deeper mire. It we don't wake up to the dangers of our "spending brethren in "Washington," we're afraid there won't he much left to wake up to. |