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Show Control of Public Expenditures j j j Article 5 Some Conclusions and Miscellaneous Facts j consistent, meet with the boards of county commissioners and with the city cr tovtn officials, to discuss frankly with them the problems of public finance. This will enable the tax-spending officials to get the point of view of the taxpayers, and what is just as important, it will give the taxpayers the opportunity to get the point of view of their officials whom they have placed in public office. A frank discussion between public official of-ficial and taxpayer will enable the official to understand how much can be afforded in the way of public expenditure, ex-penditure, and at the same time it will enable the taxpayer to understand under-stand the problems which he has placed upon the shoulders of the officials of-ficials in the services of government which the taxpayer expects the public pub-lic official to give. Government costs money. It is not free like the air, and it is useless for taxpayers to expect their officials to perform miracles in (Continued on last page) The State Tax commission has endeavored en-deavored in the articles which have already been printed to indicate the way in which taxpayers may control the amount of money which is to be expended for public purposes. The revenue which is to be expended for town, city and county purposee next year will be determined upon during the month of December of this year. If the taxpayers of the state wish to 'iave any voice in determining these amounts, they must act during the month of December. Now is the time to study your local budgets atid to determine the amount of money rhich you can afford for the various purposes pur-poses which come within these b ranches ranch-es of the government. The scho ol budgets bud-gets for the school year 1932-33 will not be determined until next J.'une, so that phase of the problem can bo postponed until that time. We urge that the taxpayers of the state, as far as it is pra'ticaj'de or ! Control of Public Money Explained (Continued from page 1) the way of providing many public benefits at no expense. So much has been said within recent re-cent years of the high cost of government govern-ment in this state, that it may be interesting in-teresting to compare the cost of government gov-ernment for state, county, schools, and municipal purposes in Utah with similar costs in other western states. The National Industrial Conference board of New York City has made the following comparison based upon ; collections for the year 1927. This is j the last figure available at present, but it is probable that the taxes for I more recent years will be computed by this organization within the near future. State and local tax collections: States Per Capita Tax in 1927 New Mexico... $27.37 Montana 39.82 Utah 43.94 Idaho 44.43 Arizona 44.96 Wyoming .. 49.45 Colorado 50.28 Washington 36.34 Oregon . . 68.27 California 78.16 Quoted from "Cost of Government In the United States, 1927-28" the National Industrial Conference Board. From this it will be observed that the wr canita tax in Utah for the year 1927 is lower than any other western state except New Mexico and Montana. This comparison is based upon all taxes for state and local purposes in each case. The fact that the per capita cost of govermnent in Utah shows up very favorably as compared with the per capita cost of government in other western states does not mean that we should neglect to control our public expenditures on a careful basis in the future. On the contrary, we should feel proud of this comparison and do everything in our I power to make it even more favorable in the future than it is at present. The fact of the matter is that the plan of administration of state and local government in Utah is superior to that in most states of the union and this has made it possible for Utah to have a favorable situation when compared with the other states in the cost of government. |