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Show r mendations as a gesture "for i making political capital for this year's congressional elections." But I think we'd better take it a lot more seriously than that. Certainly there can be no question about the fact that too much government spending, at all levels of government, is based on a prime consideration of political .expediency. To heap new spending programs on top of the present staggering federal fed-eral budget is outrageously unsound. un-sound. Though there isn't any fFZ0OlONG AHEAD VfC6 GEORGE s- BENSON . 74 PresidentHarding Coltege j Scare). Arkansas POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY AND DEBT If by some miracle out of a "" Thousand and One Nights, the genie of Aladdin's fabulous lamp, were to appear before me and grant one wish and one only I think I should wish that the financing of government be removed from the realm of expedient ex-pedient politics for at least the ' next 10 years. It would be the greatest blessing that could come to the 150 million people of America in these crucial times. But Aladdin's Lamp is merely a beautiful fairy tale And big spending politicians are a bold reality, as yet un- Aladdin's Lamp, if the public actually becomes awakened to the seriousness of this they will put a stop to it. mittee's study of the new program pro-gram costs and the present budget showed,1 he said, "that to support such expenditures on a pay-as-you-go basis will impose im-pose a tax burden of $433 annually an-nually for every man, woman and child in America. This, added to the amount of taxes already levied for state, county and municipal governments, will make the annual tax obligation obliga-tion of the American people more than 40 cents out of every dollar they earn." "So far as I know," said Sen-McClellan, Sen-McClellan, "only one other nation na-tion today, among the free peoples peo-ples of the world, have a tax obligation in comparison, and that is England and England, as we all know, now has an austerity standard of living j which we, by gratuities of a I billion dollars a year, are helping help-ing her to support. The prospects pros-pects of our traveling the road that England has taken are appalling." No Aladdin's Lamp Available The executive department has just recommended costly new increases in unemployment compensation payments (to $120 monthly) and a revision making it possible for idle workers to draw the payments six months out of the year. One commentator commen-tator who reported the news from Washington said political observers considered the recom- bridled. It's doubtful that there are more than a handful of people outside Washington who know the full facts about the spending spend-ing program being persistently pressed on congress by the executive department. To get the facts and correlate them would require a considerable staff of specialists. And to present the findings in an objective ob-jective manner, justifying public pub-lic acceptance, would require nonpartisan handling. Fortunately, Fortun-ately, such a study has been made and such an objective report re-port has been presented by the staff of the senate's own Committee Com-mittee on Executive Department Depart-ment expenditures. Shocking Facts The facts revealed are enough to shock every free and independent person in the country. coun-try. If the congress should enact the 15 new major spending spend-ing programs being urged by the president, the aggregate annual cost within the next five years would exceed $25 billion. 1 The committee staff added this j figure to the requested regular budget of $40 billion plus, and. got $65 billion plus, or about 30 per cent of the earnings of all the people in the USA. j Some of the costliest new items being urged are: National health insurance, $7 billion. Social So-cial security expansion, $6 billion; bil-lion; housing and public works 1.4 billion; the Brannon farm program, 6 billion; aid to education, edu-cation, 560 million (to be very rapidly expended), etc. The total new $25 billion is recommended recom-mended in spite of the fact that the executive department is already deficit spending to the tune of $5 or $6 billion a year, and the national debt has climbed beyond the quarter-trillion quarter-trillion mark ($256 billion). Th People Must Pay A report on the committee's findings was made to the senate by Committe Chairman John L. McCleUan (D., Ark.). The com- |