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Show What They Are Saying At the Grassroots (Views of Various Americans R e p ri n t e d to Stimulate Thought. They Do Not Necessarily Nec-essarily Reflect the Opinions of This Newspaper.) lion dollars of taxes is the total production of every working man and woman in this United States for one eight-hour day. Sixteen billion dollars added to the tax bill of this country is the total work of each and all of us for 16. days, about 2y2 weeks. A total 'estimated tax of 71 billions of dollars a year means 71 days of our labor not only my labor, not only your neighbor's neigh-bor's labor, but the labor for 71 days, that is 14 weeks, a quarter of a year, of every man and woman working for gain in the United States of America. Amer-ica. And if you happen to get less than $1.75 per hour, it may even mean more days and weeks. When the President makes a tax request of Congress, he is actually asking for hours, days and weeks of your life and mine. When Congress appropriates that money they appropriate so many hours of our labor. ready receives splendid service from a taxpaying enterprise doesn't bother the boys promoting promot-ing socialism. "One thing about this job it is not even hidden behind the old cry of 'flood control,' since it's to be steam-powered and is to cost only $5,733,000, which is a mere drop in the bucket compared com-pared to the billion-dollar baby over in Tennessee." VIEWPOINT NO. 3: A FARMER LOOKS AT TAXES by Fred H. Sexauer Politicians and some economists econo-mists deal in so much double-talk double-talk about taxes that we of the soil sometimes become a bit confused. con-fused. Items of 5, 10, 20, 50 and 70 billion dollars roll off the tongues of the bureaucrats like water out of the end of a hose. Talk of billions is so common today to-day that the words million and billion are often confused with each other. Probably this is because be-cause neither . a million nor a billion can be understood by most of us. Anything less than a billion dollars becomes confused con-fused with fractions or the sum to the right of the decimal point. To some of us taxes mean hours and days of work. How much is a billion dollars? As I figure it, $14.00 per working person for each of the 70,000,000 working people in this United States is just one billion dollars. dol-lars. Working eight hours a day at ?1.75 per hour, a man earns just $14.00. So one Toil- By A. B. Genung, FreeviUe, N.Y'. VIEWPOINT NO. 1: This little community of ours in the hills of New York, like probably every other in the United States, thinks more about war and defense these clays than anything else. The majority opinion as to Europe is that it is a baited trap. Europe Is a natural and perfect per-fect set-up for the most gigantic gigan-tic military ambush in history. All Russia had to do to set the spring was to beat the West to arms. This she has done. She is ready and can spring the trap whenever she pleases, after we walk in. Europe itself knows all this. It knows the meaning of suicide. sui-cide. It is tired and fatalistic and scared stiff. The continent Of Europe comprises the world's choicest collection of realistic, cynical, completely, self-interested peoples. It cares not a rap for us nor for our vaunted way of life. It will move solely to save its skin. No one questions that IF CIRCUMSTANCES CIR-CUMSTANCES ALLOWED, IT WOULD ALWAYS BE BETTER BET-TER TO FIGHT OUR WARS ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE OCEAN. The whole point is that this time, realism and common com-mon sense tell us to watch our step. VIEWPOINT NO. 2: NO SHORTAGE FOR SOCIALISM! "Uncle Sam may be short on hard cash for a lot of things," says the Bernice (La.) News-Journal, News-Journal, "but when it comes to bootin' off a few billion bucks for more of these government-controlled, government-controlled, non-taxpaying power plants the old boy has plenty of the long-green. "The latest such project to come to our attention is up at Ozark, Ark., a little town already al-ready adequately served with electricity. . . . But the fact that the town and community al- |