Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 298, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1915 — THE CONTRAST. [ARTICLE]

THE CONTRAST.

Secretary McAdoo’s fanciful tabulation of Treasury prospects, accom 1 panied by his grotesque suggestions for further burdens of direct taxation, was issued Nov. 26. The secretary lays special emphasis upon the demanded expenditure for national defense —which he sets at about $93,000,000 —and shapes his course accordingly. of laying up a surplus; or the demorepublican administration had been confronted with a similar problem on the corresponding day. That is to say, let us suppose that on November 26, 1911, the year before the last presidential election, the republicans had had to provide for $93,000,000 of defense money—what could they have done?

They could have paid for it out of the treasury surplus—which then amounted to $129,787,547.91, without levying a single dollar of new taxes. They would have had some $36,000,000 left; and each day thereafter would have shown an increasing treasury balance, a year later, they would have had more than $55,000,000 of surplus on hand. And this result would not have been produced by any legerdemain of book-keeping. Today the democrats must levy more taxes because they have spent the money accumulated by republicans: and in another year they themselves expect to be more than SIOO,000,000 in the hole. Which is the better—the republican method of paying as you go and has grown steadily year by year, cratic method of squandering all along the line and of soaking the people for more taxes?