The Nome Nugget

What Will They Use For Money?
By WILLIS E. STONE
(Willis E. Stone is author of the "Proposed 23rd Amendment" and Chairman, National Committee For Economic Freedom, Los Angeles, Calif.)
The abolition of federal individual income taxes is becoming a major issue for 1960. It is one of the objectives of the "Proposed 23rd Amendment pending in Congress as H.J. Res. 23, and already approved by the States of Wyoming, Texas and Nevada.
An equally important objective of the amendment is the removal of government from direct competition with private taxpaying enterprise.
This amendment provides:
"Sec. 1. The Government of the United States shall not engage in any business, professional, commercial, financial or industrial enterprise except as specified in the Constitution.
"Sec. 4. ... The Congress shall not levy taxes on personal income, estates and/or gifts."
The magnitude of the first section is not generally understood, while the idea of repealing the income tax challenges our immediate attention. An editorial in the Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) News of March 29, 1960, discusses the question of "where the federal government would get the money to support itself if the income tax were to be repealed."
The editorial points out that "This is a sensible question, but according to the proponents of the 23rd Amendment, it has a sensible answer."
"To begin with, they (the National Committee for Economic Freedom) point out that forcing the federal government to liquidate all its corporate activities would immediately produce a savings of over $44 billion a year. Since individual income tax receipts produced a revenue of approximately $37 billion in 1959 this would leave the federal government with a net savings of more than $7 billion a year.
"To better understand this kind of figuring, it is necessary to point out that federal corporations have now taken over control of 40 per cent of the land area, and 20 per cent of the entire industrial capacity. More than half of the current federal revenue is required to pay the losses of these government corporations and defray the hidden costs of their operations, according to the statistics compiled by 23rd Amendment supporters. This is where the $44 billion would come from to compensate for the $37 billion the federal government would lose through the repeal of the income tax amendment."
The New York Daily News, in an editorial of March 21, 1960, dramatically illustrated the areas of savings:
"The government would be kicked out of its current and ever-increasing competition with private industry and business in numerous fields. Foreign aid (by politicians) would be outlawed. Government-owned enterprises such as Tennessee Valley Authority would be sold to private investors and put on the tax rolls.
"Uncle Sam would have to stop competing with private enterprise in numerous other fields," the editorial continued, "including manufacturing, wholesaling, retailing, banking, warehousing, mining and transportation."
A series of six editorials on the subject of federal taxation titled "THE POWER TO DESTROY" recently appeared in the Indianapolis Star and the Arizona Republic.
The 23rd Amendment, requiring the disposition of all federal corporations competing with private industry and business, and abolishing the income tax in three years, should be passed this coming session.
It CAN be "passed" by your State Legislature this coming session if you make certain that the members of your Legislature are so instructed.
It can also be "passed" by the Congress in 1961 providing you make sure that your Representatives and Senators will support it, BEFORE YOU ELECT THEM.
In the words of the New York Daily News editorial-"For further (and highly appetizing) information, write National Committee for Economic Freedom, 6413 1 Franklin Avenue, Los Angeles 28, California."
The sixth editorial in the