Editor's note: To commemorate the 150th year of continuous publication, The Deseret News is reprinting some of the letters to the editor published through the years.In a news dispatch from Washington the other day discussing the proposed increases in the federal income tax, the writer observed, "But even at that, the small taxpayer is much better off than his English, French or German brother." Comparative figures were then given.
Speaking for the English only, Americans should remember that the small taxpayers over there enjoy greater advantages in the way of government old-age pensions; government-aided health insurance; wage boards; free or comparatively free hospitals providing complete service in the way of medical care, surgery, nursing, X-ray, medicine, dentistry, etc.; and unemployment insurance -- ignorantly called a dole but controlled and aided by the government. The small income taxpayer over there, too, is not expected to subscribe generously to charity organizations such as our Community Chests, most of the money for such purposes coming from taxes or from the rich and well-to-do.
Most assuredly those of modest means are, better off, not worse off in that country than our own, although income tax figures may seem to say otherwise.
Arthur Freeman
June 7, 1933