Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1869 — Democratic Remedies. [ARTICLE]

Democratic Remedies.

Trams i* * Democratic grumble about taxes When yon reply that this burden was made necessary by an armed rebellion which the Government was bound to suppress, you are told that that question belongs to a “ dead past.” Democracy does not wish to discuss the merits of the war, or its own jmrU in causing and protruding it The verdict of the people lias been taken so often, and expressed so emphatically, that no sagacious Democrat wishes it tried over again. All arc ready to plead, nolo contender* ; our party, Justly or un Justly, Is held responsible by the country. We may as well admit it. But can you not, say they, Just as well “ let bygones be bygones ? " Not *o long at you try to hold the Republican party responsible for the pretext heavy taxation, say we. Taxes come of the war. They were the inevitable consequence. Wc only accepted the war as a necessity. It was only prolonged at such a cost of life and treasure, by Democratic opposition and sympathy wilt the rebel lion. And thus the old issues come up, and will continue to do so, until the Opposition takes a “ new departure.” But suppose we indulge our opponents, for the time being, and listen to their proposals for the ftiturc, if the people will entrust them with the national power. What are their promised remedies? Passing over the threat of repudiation, which is thrust forward so prominently in the Democratic State plat form, and which is the real policy towards which Democracy is rapidly tending, let us see what the AV, gHirer proposes in its issue of the 24th inst. :

“In th« first place the Democrat* would lake the taxes off of sugar, tea, coffee, milt and other neccwtt■rten. It won and continue th- income lit. It would reduce the tariff upon manufactured arliclus, such as clothing and other fabrics, to oue-tbird or oucquaner their present duties.” So much to begin with. Tea, coffee, sugar, Ac., consumed by all classes, hut more largely, of course, "by those in the best circumstances, it would admit duty free; ready-made clothing, worn almost exclusively l»y persons of moderate means, it would still require to pay a duty, though reduced ; and the income tax, of which no man pays a penny whose income does not exceed one thousand dollars a year, is to be abolished altogether. So much for the impartiality of its distribution of the burden, as between the rich and the poor. The duty on tea and coffee is of course not for protection, as neither is raised in this country. The time was when they were regarded only as luxuries, nor is ariy man who can regularly provide them tor his family too poor to afford tire trivial tax now levied on them. But it is the proposition to repeal the income tax, that sounds most strangely in a paper that professes championship of the poor against the rich. Comment is not needed. After thus curtailing the means of the Government to a ruinous degree—chiefly by exempting the rich from the income tax—the Enquirer proposes, in order to reduce expenditures, to “ pay off the bonds in greenbacks ” and stop interest. Does any sensible person think the greenbacks will come at the bidding of the Government? They can be printed without limit, it is true, but long before half enough were put afloat to pay off the bonds, the whole would be made" worthless by the expansion. Every sensible Democrat knows this, and when you hear one talking in this way, you may know he really wishes to repudiate the debt, because he hates the • patriotic cause it was created to sustain. But even after this extinguishment of national currency, and national credit and national character, the Enquirer childishly talks of‘‘saving thirty million dollars annually by dispensing with the National Banks and by issuing greenbacks in their place.” Dispense with hundreds of millions of private property 1 And then the place of National currency is to be supplied by issuing more greenbacks, which the Democratic scheme has already made as worthless as Continental shinp'lasters. Nor is this all The Enquirer has the bonds all taken up and canceled, and the interest stopped. The country is flooded with irredeemable greenbacks, and the National Banks, driven to take this currency in exchange for the bonds which were their basis of circulation, are “dispensed with,” so far as there was anything left for the dispensing process to take effect on; and now, lo and behold! the Enquirer has still something more to be done: “ Then they would tax the bondt the same is other property is taxed, and in that manner collect fifty millions more/" Here you have, literally stated, the Dan ocratic remedies for taxation, according to the Enquirer. Was there ever a grander culmination of a lofty financial scheme ? The problem is to get rid of high taxes. The Democratic plan begins by taking off the tax from inaomes, caiefly, which can pay it better than atyihing else in the world, and actually do pay out of the coffers of the rich a large proportion of all; then it would issue a snow-storm of greenbacks, pay off all the bonds, and stop the interest, which eats up half our receipts ; then “dispense with” whatever of value the National Banks may have left at this stage of affairs; and then—yes, then, not a moment earlier—it would raise fifty millions a year by taxing those everl&sting bonds! For everlasting they must be to endure through all the previous processes, and come out so healthy, robust and productive at last. Perhaps we ought to add that, being successful thus far, the Enquirer proposes to wind up in a blaze of glorv by applying the torch to the Freedmen s Bureau—“the free negro boarding-house in the South ” —which has no more existenee now Uian a canceled tend or a castle in the air.— Cincinnati Ghronide.