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Show ! THE AMERICAN WAY ; ; i XA . K -4 HOKUM George Peck In the final paragraph of a i recent column discussing the I invasion of Government into 'the power manufacturing and i distributing business, I said this: . "If no project is plotted for I your particular vicinity, serve notice on your Legislators that i you have a great aversion to being forced to pay part of the cost of furnishing "juice" to citizens in other parts of the nation." na-tion." i From a reader out on the Pacitic Coast comes a .letter inquiring as to just what I meant by that -statement, As the same question may be in the minds of other readers, I have chosen to answer the inquiry in-quiry yia my column. Here I goes; i The Tennessee Valley Authority Author-ity is one of the largest power ' developments so far completed by our Federal Government. I The socialistic planners point ' with great pride to. this project; in fact, glibly cite it as a glowing glow-ing example to prove that the Federal Government is able to furnish power and light to consumers con-sumers at lower rates than privately-owned companies. What hokum! I As the late Al Smith was wont to say, "Let's look at the1 record." So, let's you and ij turn to the 1949 Annual Report of TV A. We find that it oper-' ated in 1949 at a net loss of $7,042,000. That loss was paid by tax payers in every state of the Union, only a small part by tax payers served by the TVA. In other- words, both my Pacific Coast reader friend and , I paid part of the cost of furq-! furq-! ishing "juice" to consumers in the Tennessee Valley, ' Now, I have nothing against I the good citizens; in the Tenn.es-i Tenn.es-i see Valley whq are served by I TVA- They are nice people, but much as 1 admire and esteem them, I dp object to paying part of their electric light bills. There Is no more valid reason for my paying part of their electric light bills than their paying part of my rent, food or laundry bills. Since it was begun in 1933, the American tax payers have invested about $800,000,000 in TVA. It has consistently failed to earn its interest charges on the money borrowed from the national treasury; even at the low government rates. If a privately-owned company operated operat-ed on such a basis it would soon be bankrupt. The TVA manages to stay in business only because it passes the loss on to you and me and the other tax payers. So, this claim of cheapness of public power rates turns out to be a myth from a national standpoint. The taxpayer at large is called upon to shoulder the taxes that the public power agencies escape paying, as well as to provide cheap or free capital to them. While certain areas which are beneficiaries of Federal power programs enjoy lower electric rates, they do so at the expense of taxpayers of the country as a whole. What one citizen saves on his electric rate, another citizen makes up in his tax. But, here is the worst feature of this Government invasion in-! to the power and light business. ' In 1949, while. TVA was taking $7,042,000 out of Uncle Sam's i treasury to meet its deficit, the ' privately-owned power eompan- i ies paid in taxes into that same treasury the tidy sum of approximately ap-proximately $451,000,000. I From this, it is apparent that we get "nicked" twice when Government steps out of line and goes into business. We taxpayers tax-payers have to dig down to meet the deficits incurred; and no longer ts there tax revenue from the p ivately-owned companies com-panies squeezed out by Government. Govern-ment. And so I repeat: If Federal Government is "cooking up" a power project for your section of the country, - let your Congressman Con-gressman and Senators know j that you prefer to buy your "juice" from a privately-owned company; if no project is plotted for your particular vicinity serve notice on them that you have a great aversion to being forced to pay part of the . cost of furnishing "juice" to consumers con-sumers In other parts of the nation. na-tion. There is no valid reason for the Government to enter the utility business. The privately-owned privately-owned companies are doing a magnificent job. Why then alii this maneuvering to have the Government displace them? That is not even a $64 question; the answer is so simple. The socialistic planners believe that government should run everything every-thing schools, medicine, building, build-ing, steel mills, railroads, even us. ,'Ir plain language they would force us into state social-' ism. " gje social! fWti |