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January 21, 1942 Marriner S. Eccles Board o f Governors Federal Reserve System New York City, N. Y. Sir: I am sending you clippings from Columbus News papers. I think you should read them. It seems that your whole thought is getting more money from the down-trodden taxpayer. I endorse every word that Westbrook Pegler says. It certainly would be refreshing i f same member o f the Administration would suggest that innumerable useless bureaus be abolished and thousands o f p o lit ic a l parasites be ousted from their jobs and made to get out and hustle fo r a liv in g . Very truly yours, BDS/WLW )AY, JANUARY 20, 1942 Eccles Asks W ithholding Tax To Bar Shortages for Taxes N E W YORK, Jan. 20.— Marriner S. Eccles, chairman of the board of governors of the federal reserve system, today predicted an end to the rise in the country’s standard of living under the impetus of the arms program and foresaw sharply higher taxes. Eccles spoke before more than 800 members of the New York State aBnkers Association at its 14th annual mid-winter meeting. Eccles, speaking extemporane ously, told the bankers there should http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ be fewer exemptions and higher Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis taxes on gifts and estates and that, individual exemptions should be cut to $1200 for married couples and to $600 for individuals. He was "unalterably opposed” to a sales tax which he termed as “inequitable.” The reserve chairman stated that the task of collecting income taxes will be stupendous. He recom mended a withholding tax to pre vent consumer spending and to re duce the possibility of people not having the money when taxes were due. FAIR ENOUGH = = = WASHINGTON, JAN. 30.—NOW THAT the income By Westbrook Pegler a' sort of de luxe dole or handout or, not to fumble tax has become p democratic institution, affecting /for a word, gravy, some seven million new subjects in income brackets i Everyone in Washington has personal knowledge as low as $800 a year, the Treasury seriously hopes of many such ill-disguised gifts of large salaries to ", tr banish from the public mind the concept of th^ individuals whose duties are only theoretical, nomi t xpayer created by Will John nal or unnecessary and the same generosity has now s's tone, the cartoonist, who pic spread out over the country. tures him as a scrawny little man UNDER THE OLD SCALE of brackets, the wearing nothing but a barrel held tax was a class tax and those who paid it Up by suspenders and always in m hot fury over the waste of his were deemed lucky to have that much income and tax money by public officers. Our poor sports to ask what was done with the money. friends at the Treasury believe the And anyone who asked too insistently and clamor new members of the lodge will be ously could expect a call from one of the detectiveeager to pay their bit not only accountants of the Internal Revenue who would go to buy the tools of war but to over all his personal items and even demand an ex i stand off inflation. This is the planation of his spendings which were none of the first time the Treasury has seemed to care what Treasury's business, as well as of his earnings. This the income taxpayer thought about anything. Al is literal truth. The income taxpayers were a small ways hitherto he was treated as a rich man who and politically friendless minority and the Govern probably had stolen or inherited his money and the ment itself created the figure in the barrel whom bureaucrats of the New Deal laughed raucously at it is now desired to retire from the scene lest the his futile complaints. I remember an encounter new and much larger group of taxpayers come to ' with an ex-newspaperman who had been drafted regard the tax as a burden. into the long and extravagant war on poverty as an The treasury people are correct in their belief aid to Jim Farley for duties mostly political who that the new income taxpayers will be quite will aaid rather mockingly: “Why don’t you pay your ing to pay the tax for war purposes. The old group income tax and quit squawking?” has the same spirit and, with very few exceptions, I HAD PAID MY INCOME TAX and I was squawk- has been willing all along to pay legitimate costs ing because $6000 a year of the taxes paid by me of Government including the expense of new depart, nonestly intended to ease the nation over the j and others was being pa.d to a relative of a p r o m > ^ V g panJc But neither ^ be happy to ^ | nent idealist for decorating embassies abroad; $6000 tinue to support innumerable political press agents a year had been paid to Theodore (The Man) Bilbo, on better salaries than they ever were worth in pria stranded Mississippi politician, to clip and paste vate industry merely because they are politically newspaper items in scrapbooks, and to keep him off right. Neither group will willingly contribute money neck of Pat Harrison; $10,000 was being paid to ,out of earnings and go threugh the vexation of maknmy Roosevelt to act as one of his father’s sec- ing out returns so that useless, extravagant and retaries and keep out of mischief and countless othei ornate Government reports may be turned out in the Digitized FRASER highforsalaries were being paid to other personal and form of bound books singing the praises of this or http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ political friends and relatives of high personages a s \ that Cabinet member. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis T^HE federal government debt is ap proaching $60,000,000,000. The nonfede^al (state, county, city, etc., debt com bined is $24,000,000,000, a total of $84,000,000,000, which with the interest additional, ' is a burden on the backs of all the present generation of Americans and our posterity at least 1000 years to come. 'his means that the present regime has a blanket mortgage on the nation, as things are at the moment, to the extent above stated until the year 2042 A. D. Even though by refinancing at rates of 2.5 per cent down to 1.5 per cent, this 84 bilj lions will become at least $160,000,000,000. j All this will be in addition to current ex; penditnres. Should the debt go to $200,000,000,000, in 100 years, or by 2042 A. D., it will be 400 billions. We are surely putting a ball and chain on the future workers of America. To lick the Axis, we must cut down on non-war ex penses, and thereby save and help our forcesfor win the war and the peace, too. Digitized FRASER Columbus. ’ J. F. Carlisle.
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