American Notes of the Week
(By Cable)
TAXATION AND DISARMAMENT.
PRESIDENT HOOVER and Secretary Mellon have given American business corporations and other taxpayers a substantial Christmas gift in the promised reduction of $160,000,000 in taxation. It was a present help in time of adversity. Indeed, but for the urgent need to lighten the gloom which was settling over the country, it is unlikely that the Government, committed to immense new expenditures for Farm Relief, Flood Control and Inland Waterways Development, would have effected any tax reduction this year. The reduction follows a recent announcement that the National Debt to-day is lower than at any time since the War, having been de- creased by approximately one thousand million dollars annually since 1919. With taxation reduced, at the request of both major political parties, and continued reduction of the National Debt generally desired, and the need, on the other hand, for the Farm Relief and Public Works to which the country is committed more urgent than ever, the Administra- tion naturally finds its case against increased expenditure on Naval armaments very tangibly reinforced. Thus, one Christmas gift may lead to another, and that the exceedingly appropriate one of marked progress toward world dis- armament.
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