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Show EDITORIAL: One Way To Cut Taxes Every agency in Washington that depends for its existence on the taxpayers' money is currently current-ly under fire as the result of the Hoover commission reports on government reorganization aimed at efficiency and economy. We don't know the facts on many of the agencies but we are kept well informed on the Government Gov-ernment Printing Office and related re-lated activities of other federal agencies, and if what goes on in the printing field is any indication, indica-tion, there is no doubt of the need for a general overhauling along' the lines suggested by the Hoover reports. Reams and reams of government govern-ment publications costing untold millions of dollars pour annually from the Government Printing office and many other government govern-ment agencies. No one knows the actual tax outlay that is required re-quired for the fabulous list of government publications. No one even knows how many government govern-ment publications are printed. There is a complete record of the activities of the Government Printing office. But there is no record on the unauthorized printing activities of many individual indi-vidual agencies who don't know the law requiring all government printing to be done at the Government Gov-ernment Printing office, or who are deliberately seeking to evade the law in a desire for expansion and self-exploitation regardless of the cost to the taxpayers. Many agencies of the government have their own printing plants1 throughout the country, and also award contracts to outside printing print-ing firms. A survey revealed that 83,723 different publications were issued is-sued by various federal agencies agen-cies during the past fiscal year, but that was only a fraction of the actual output since that does not include countless publications publica-tions issued for the government's own purposes, and thousands more which apparently it was just impossible to assemble for a complete listing. These individual agencies also order vast quantities of copies for free distribution despite the fact that the Government Printing Print-ing office, which also has copies for distribution, is required by law to sell them at a nominal cost. Investigation shows that in many cases where large printing orders have been made, even giving away copies doesn't begin to exhaust the supply and thousands thou-sands of copies remain undistributed, undistri-buted, representing tons of paper and many dollars in sheer waste. The Bureau of Budgets has estimated that the over-all printing print-ing and binding cost for the entire en-tire government in fiscal 1948 was 45 million dollars, but this does not include the cost of distribution dis-tribution or cost of research, editing, ed-iting, typing and other details in preparing the copy lor puo-lication. puo-lication. One can imagine the nice bill the taxpayers have to foot for research on such government publications as "Ancient Water Codes," "Irrigation" in Australia," and "Afghanistan's Reclamation Program." Other equally useless and costly ventures in government govern-ment printing cover such subjects as getting rid of bats in a building, build-ing, Japanese fishing terms, the care of Darrots. rcciDes for cook ing muskrat meat, and a tome on sable-fish hash, according to Sen. Styles Bridges of New Hampshire, who has been doing a lot of looking into the costly government printing business. "Not only is the Federal Government Gov-ernment the largest publishing house in' the world, but it's the largest publisher of inane, stupid and childish literature," says the Senator. "This kindergarten approach ap-proach to the written word only serves to make the government look ridiculous in the eyes of its own and other people." It makes the taxpayers, who pay for all this trash, look even more ridiculous. Admittedly, many government publications serve a useful purpose, pur-pose, and many probably are necessary within the government agencies themselves, but it's high time the pure junk be eliminated elim-inated in the name of economy if nothing else. It's time, too. that the millions of dollars being spent annually in unauthorized printing' and binding in violation of the law by agencies other than' the Government Printing office be stopped. |