GOVERNMENT ECONOMY

It is a fundamental principle of our country that the people are sovereign.  While they recognize the undeniable authority of the state, they have established as its instrument a Government of limited powers.  They hold inviolate in their own hands the jurisdiction over their own freedom and the ownership of their own property.  Neither of these can be impaired except by due process of law.  The wealth of our country is not public wealth, but private wealth.  It does not belong to the Government, it belongs to the people.  The Government has no justification in taking private Property except for a public purpose.  It is always necessary to keep these principles in mind in the laying of taxes and in the making of appropriations.  No right exists to levy on a dollar, or to order the expenditure of a dollar, of the money of the people, except for a necessary public purpose duly authorized by the Constitution.  The power over the purse is the power over liberty.

That is the legal limitation within which the Congress can act, How it will, proceed within this limitation is always a question of policy.  When the country is prosperous and free from debt, when the rate of taxation is low, opportunity exists for assuming new burdens and undertaking new enterprises.  Such a condition now prevails only to a limited extent.  All proposals for assuming new obligations ought to be postponed, unless they are reproductive capital investments or are such as are absolutely necessary at this time.  We still have an enormous debt of over $20,000,000,000, on which the interest and sinking-fund requirements are $1,320,000,000.  Our appropriations for the Pension Office and the Veterans’ Bureau are $600,000,000.  The War and Navy Departments call for $642,000,000.  Other requirements, exclusive of the Post Office which is virtually self-sustaining, brought the appropriations for the current year up to almost $3,100,060,000.  This shows an expenditure of close to $30 for every inhabitant of our country.  For the average family of five it means a tax, directly or indirectly paid, of about $150 for national purposes alone.  The local tax adds much more.  These enormous expenditures ought not to be increased, but through every possible effort they ought to be reduced.

Only one of these great items can be ultimately extinguished.  That is the item of our war debt.  Already this has been reduced to about $6,000,000,000, which means an annual saving in interest of close to $250,000,000.  The present interest charge is about $820,000,000 yearly.  It would seem to be obvious that the sooner this debt can be retired the more the taxpayers will save in interest and the easier it will be to secure funds with which to prosecute needed running expenses, constructions, and improvements.  This item of $820,000,000 for interest is a heavy charge on all the people of the country, and it seems to me that we might well consider whether it is not greatly worth while to dispense with it as early as possible by retiring the principal debt which it is required to serve.