Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1879 — GOVERNMENT EXPENSES. [ARTICLE]

GOVERNMENT EXPENSES.

The Experience of an Accounting Officer ol the Treasury. [Washington Cor. Chicago Inter Ocean.] An accounting officer of the treasury, who passes upon the various appropria tions, remarked to your correspondent that, although he had been many years in the treasury, the thirst for appropriations exceeded anything in his experience. He said our legislation, where money was involved, was becoming very vicious, and unless the people put a stop to it there was no telling what the result would be. He said that the lawmaking power seemed to regard our debt as nothing, and went on appropriating money as if we did not owe a cent, and were five times richer than before the war, when, as a matter of fact, the people were less able to bear burdens than then. Yet, as a matter of fact, the public debt is a mortgage upon every man’s property to the extent of 10 per cent, of its vilue, for the true gold value of property was to-day in this country not over $20,000,000,000. The assessed valuation by States is very much less than this, and less than it was in 1870, being then $14,000,000,000, and now about $12,000,000,000. Taking the assessed value as aTbasis, and the public debt is about 15 per cent, of the entire wealth of the country —a mortgage upon every man’s property. This gentleman thought that matters could be improved if people would call public meetings and petition Congress to cut down the expenses and cease to make extraordinary appropriations until the debt is extinguished. There is no good reason why Government expenses should be in 1879 five times what they were in 1860. There had been insufficient increase in wealth and population to justify this large increase in the burdens laid upon tax-payers. The estimates for the next fiscal year were about $285,000,000, and it is not believed that so large a sum can be levied upon the productive industry of the country without prolonging the “hard times” from which all sections of the country at present suffer.