The Key West Citizen

NEEDLESS BILLIONS

News from Washington yesterday about the federal government's spending money, and arranging to spend more, like a drunken man, was heartening to proponents of cuts in appropriations bills.

Senate Republicans, voting solidly, added eight Democrats to the GOP's strength in the senate, 44 to 37, on a recommittal motion made by Senator Robert A. Taft, Republican, Ohio, to send the Labor-Federal Security appropriations bill back to committee for reductions.

It was an upset victory that caught the administration leaders flatfooted. Taft had pleaded for at least a five percent reduction, but added that 10 percent would be more in keeping with the economic conditions prevailing in the United States. He asserted that the federal deficit the next fiscal year will amount to $3 billion $200 million unless federal spending is slashed drastically. President Truman has placed the deficit at $800 million.

It is an easy matter to determine the differences in the estimates made by Taft and the President. The President's estimate is based on higher income taxes, while Taft maintains that the people of the United States are carrying an overburden of taxation already. He declared that further increasing the tax burden could destroy the free enterprise system and turn the United States to a Socialist system.

Senator Taft further pointed out that Secretary of Agriculture Chester Brannan's new farm proposals would "subsidize all the farmers and all the consumers in the United States." Such a proposal "deceives the people," Taft said, and added that the same is true of President Truman's health program based on payroll taxes.

This movement toward less extravagance in federal government spending may result in the adoption of some of former President Hoover's committee that would cut needless billions from the budget.

The mass of propaganda swallowed by the so-called intelligent people of the United States is little short of miraculous.

As the Wall Street Journal puts it, "Congressional and Treasury tax experts think the chances of some tax increase legislation in 1949 are good enough to justify painstaking spade-work on new levies." Whether or not Congress will favor tax boosts won't be known until May, when the annual budget requirement is passed and the lawmakers have a better idea of future income and outgo.