| Show LETS PAI AS ASE 11 E GO reprinted by special permission from the saturday evening post copyright 1933 by the tile curtis pub bishing company the financial consciousness of many an amerle Amerl cin in city and state Is dominated by a fallacy which it if its grip cannot be broken will inesita bly bring disaster this fallacy baldly stated is that the way to has ten the revival of prosperity is to go 90 deeper in debt and the way to light en the burden of taxation Is to bury old obligations under heaps of new ones the proponents of such plans do not describe them in any such crude and forthright terms they enlarge rather upon what immediate eapen deture of a given number of mill ions tons in their community would mean in the way of new jobs new ang power and the revival of trade they even go so far as to invent sol dmn arguments to prove that such action would not result in higher taxation their rhetoric often cor vinces their hearers especially those thoe who would be direct beneficiaries of the spending project but it leaves the simple of state or mu finance quite unaltered essentially such plans purpose to mortgage the future to buy a little temporary prosperity at the cost of decades of very real hardship the mayor of philadelphia was re bently confronted by a typical in stance of this sort of thing it was proposed that the city get a grant of thirty millions from the govern ment borrow seventy millions more and then go out and spend a nun hun dred millions million on local undertakings maor moore refused to be stain stam ceded by the enthusiasm of the dele gation that came to talk this over with him on his desk were figures that the net indebtedness of the city was already nearly four hundred and sixteen millions and that out of a total budget of eighty one millions thirty nill millions lions had to go for interest and sinking fund charges these figures represented realities and not mere moonshine and in our ion mayor moore was right when he said the thing tor for us to do Is to leep 1 beep on economizing and retrench ing until we are ready to re sume our big municipal activities with a reasonable prospect of being able to pay tor for them the ers out of whom come the thirty mil lions of interest and sinking fund charges were able to see the mayor s point states counties and townships as well as cities which indulge in spending orgies will have to meet their day of reckoning the bonds of more than a thousand of our po lotical subdivisions are in default the circumstances include In solven cy cynical repudiation and plain wel shing the legislature of the state of arkansas has undoubtedly worked injury to that common wealth by its action in calling in 4 75 per cent highway and bridge ninety one millions of bonds and offering to replace them with a new issue of 3 per cent bonds many of the political subdivisions which have defaulted upon pal or interest of their obligations have been sorely pressed their un fortunate situation should serves as a loud and clear warning to other communities to pay as they go and no not to mortgage too heavily even in good faith the uncertain pos ties of an unknown future mad had delta resolved lets let s pay as we go in about 1917 and 18 this mess were we re in now wouldn t have happened we thank the saturday evening timely and excellent article it has post tor for permission to reprint this a very pertinent local application |
