Fiscal policy

“ The Economic Report, which I shall submit to the Congress shortly, will discuss in detail the economic background for these recommendations.
One of the most important factors in maintaining prosperity is the Government's fiscal policy. At this time, it is essential not only that the Federal budget be balanced, but also that there be a substantial surplus to reduce inflationary pressures, and to permit a sizable reduction in the national debt, which now stands at $252 billion. ”

“ We have made great strides in bringing the Federal budget deficit under control. Fiscal restraint has prompted a surge in business investment. We are in the process of implementing a policy that encourages private and public partnerships. ”

“ The measures I am recommending to the Congress concerning both our foreign and our domestic policies represent a carefully considered program to meet our national needs. It is a program which necessarily requires large expenditures of funds. More than 70 percent of the Government's expenditures are required to meet the costs of past wars and to work for world peace. This is the dominant factor in our fiscal policy. At the same time, the Government must make substantial expenditures which are necessary to the growth and expansion of the domestic economy. ”

“ We must continue to pay particular attention to our fiscal, monetary, and tax policy, programs to aid business—especially small business—and transportation, labor-management relations and wage-price policy, social security and health, education, the farm program, public works, housing and resource development, and economic foreign policy. ”

“ A just system of taxation will take account of these variations in the valuations made by different classes of people, and adjust the fiscal burdens to the citizens by covering the costs of state-administration with contributions graduated accordingly. ”

“ The budget recommendations I shall shortly transmit to the Congress show that we can expect a substantial improvement in our fiscal position over the next few years, as the cost of some of our extraordinary postwar programs declines, and as the Government revenue rises as a result of growth in employment and national income. To further improve our fiscal outlook, we should make some changes in our tax system which will reduce present inequities, stimulate business activity, and yield a moderate amount of additional revenue. ”

“ It will be sufficient to draw attention to the different points of view from which the Eastern and the Western approach the subject of fiscal administration. The latter urges with unanswerable logic that financial equilibrium must be maintained, and [Pg 43] that he cannot frame a trustworthy Budget unless he knows the amount he may count on receiving from direct taxes, especially from the land-tax. ”

“ From the beginning of our administration I promised bold action with a plan for economic growth. We moved to put our fiscal house in order, to bring the deficit down, to spur business investment, and start investing in our own people again. ”

“ Economy, or that paltry system of paring, which passes with the Whigs for such, is, after all, a political virtue of minor import. What we require from every administration is the adoption of such measures only as shall tend to promote the general wealth and prosperity of the country; and, in consequence, render more easy the payment of the national burdens. Any fiscal change which affects the revenue, must, as a matter of course, affect some particular class of the community. ”

“ We can get them done, but only in the context of a realistic, responsible, balanced budget, one that maintains our fiscal discipline and makes the most of this great moment of prosperity. Now, that's a budget that makes sense, one that works for working Americans. ”

“ You will find in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, also, abundant proof of the entire adequacy of the present fiscal system to meet all the requirements of the public service, and that, while properly administered, it operates to the advantage of the community in ordinary business relations. ”

“ That our finances are in a prosperous state notwithstanding the commercial derangements resulting from this calamity and from external embarrassments is a satisfactory manifestation of the great extent and solidity of the public resources. Connected with this situation of our fiscal concerns, the assurance that the legal provisions for obtaining revenue by direct taxation will fulfill the views of the Legislature is peculiarly acceptable. ”

“ The budget already submitted for fiscal 1962 will remain in balance only if the Congress enacts all the revenue measures requested—and only if an earlier and sharper up-turn in the economy than my economic advisers now think likely produces the tax revenues estimated. ”

“ With the great reduction of taxation by the acts of Congress at its last session, the expenditure of the Government in collecting the revenue will be much reduced for the next fiscal year. It is very doubtful, however, whether any further reduction of so vexatious a burden upon any people will be practicable for the present. ”

“ The surplus revenue of the last five years has been the natural result of the fiscal reforms of 1844, which have extended commerce and promoted internal prosperity, at the same time that their success has paved the way for further and more extensive reforms in the same direction. ”

“ Now, it is true that when it comes to our budget, we have real challenges to meet. And if we’re serious about getting our fiscal house in order, we’ll need to make some tough choices. I’m prepared to make those choices. ”

“ Public Finance ‘Abdu’l-Bahá suggests that each town and village or district should be entrusted as far as possible with the administration of fiscal matters within its own area and should contribute its due proportion for the expenses of the general government. One of the principal sources of revenue should be a graduated income tax. ”

“ I shall endeavor to show how the removal of $40,000,000 to $50,000,000 of obnoxious taxes now imposed upon this class of materials may open the way to products, sales, wages, and profits amounting to at least $500,000,000 a year, which such a policy would add to the resources of this nation, to be divided equitably among the people in the form of additional wages and profits; thus promoting domestic industry, enlarging the home market, raising both the rate and the purchasing power of wages, and increasing profits. ”

“ In the sphere of financial policy, it was the Treasury’s own responsibility to plan the appropriate precautions—a programme of taxation without any misjudged mercy in it, and a programme of borrowing to bring in the genuine savings of the people. ”

“ The revenue derived from the exploitation of industrial309 undertakings and from the national domains being thus eliminated from the list of effective revenues, as being nominal or insignificant, we see that the nation has no other positive resources than the customs duties and imposts upon consumption. This explains the development of the budgets of the last few years, in which the domestic and indirect duties have increased the fiscal receipts. ”

“ The fiscal system aims at satisfying the financial needs of the State and other public bodies, as well as a fair partition of the incomes and the wealth. (2) Taxes are created by law, which determines the incidence rates, concessions, and safeguards for taxpayers. ”

“ The proposed constitutional solutions provide safeguards against any excessive burdening of personal incomes and of the income of organizations of associated labour. Fiscal burdens - taxes and other dues levied on income - will be determined in accordance with the ability of the work organizations to ensure the satisfaction of the personal and common needs of their workers and a specific level of expanded reproduction, in line with the business results achieved by them. ”

“ If we persuade him that it is revenue, he will note the vast disproportion of its incidence compared to that of other taxes, and his efforts will tend to remedy the inequality, and to lay upon other classes and interests a more equitable share of the fiscal burden. ”

“ As I am pledged to economy in my requests for funds, so you are pledged to economy in the expenditure of the funds which may be granted by Congress. No longer are the funds appropriated by Congress regarded as the minimum amount which is to be expended. Every dollar that is saved by careful administration adds to the amount by which taxes may be reduced in the future. It is practical economy which I have in mind and which we must practice. ”

“ As we lurch forward into the future, we derive new strength and fresh inspiration by surveying the horizon we have traversed during the year under review. We see that we have reached new heights of prosperity and development as a result of our momentous decision to enact into legislative mandates the fiscal stabilization measures which we implemented vigorously. ”

“ For every dollar saved in cutting the growth in the Federal budget, we can have an added dollar of Federal tax reduction.
We can achieve a balanced budget by 1979 if we have the courage and the wisdom to continue to reduce the growth of Federal spending.
One test of a healthy economy is a job for every American who wants to work. Government--our kind of government--cannot create that many jobs. But the Federal Government can create conditions and incentives for private business and industry to make more and more jobs. ”

“ Owing to the many necessary burdens assumed by Congress in previous years which now require large outlays, it is with extreme difficulty that we shall be able to keep the expenditures for the next fiscal year within the bounds of the present year. Economies in many directions have permitted some accommodation of pressing needs, the net result being an increase, as shown above, of about one-tenth of 1 per cent above the present fiscal year. ”

“ A due regard for the interests and prosperity of all the people demands that our finances shall be established upon such a sound and sensible basis as shall secure the safety and confidence of business interests and make the wage of labor sure and steady, and that our system of revenue shall be so adjusted as to relieve the people of unnecessary taxation, having a due regard to the interests of capital invested and workingmen employed in American industries, and preventing the accumulation of a surplus in the Treasury to tempt extravagance and waste. ”

“ Tonight I would like just briefly to explain some of my major recommendations in the three main areas of national need.
1. A GROWING ECONOMY
BASIC POLICIES
First, we must keep our Nation prosperous. We seek full employment opportunity for every American citizen. I will present a budget designed to move the economy forward. More money will be left in the hands of the consumer by a substantial cut in excise taxes. We will continue along the path toward a balanced budget in a balanced economy. ”

“ We want a financial policy so honest that there can be no stain on the National honor and no taint on the National credit; so stable that labor and capital and legitimate business of every sort can confidently count upon what it will be the next week, the next month, and the next year. We want the burdens of taxation so justly distributed that they will bear equally upon all classes of citizens in proportion to their ability to sustain them. ”

“ He plans to raise only just enough revenue to satisfy the grants made in Committee of Supply, and leave a modest surplus to cover possible errors in the estimates and probable fluctuations in the returns from taxation. Our Committee of Ways and Means, on the other hand, follow a very different policy. The revenues which they control are raised for a double object. They represent not only the income of the government, but also a carefully erected commercial policy to which the income of the government has for many years been incidental. ”

“ A further reduction of expenses, in addition to a reduction of interest account, may be relied on to make this practicable. Revenue reform, if it means this, has my hearty support. If it implies a collection of all the revenue for the support of the Government, for the payment of principal and interest of the public debt, pensions, etc., by directly taxing the people, then I am against revenue reform, and confidently believe the people are with me. ”

“ This combined program, by increasing the amount of our national income, will in time result in still higher Federal revenues. It is a fiscally responsible program--the surest and the soundest way of achieving in time a balanced budget in a balanced full employment economy.
This net reduction in tax liabilities of $10 billion will increase the purchasing power of American families and business enterprises in every tax bracket, with greatest increase going to our low-income consumers. ”

“ I grant, then, that the remission of the assessed taxes might be productive of great individual benefit; I allow that it would be beneficial to individuals, that they should have so much more income at their own free disposal; and I am ready further to allow, that the expenditure of this income would, in particular instances, create a great extra demand for labour and commodities. But this is not the whole question.—Would the demand for commodities and labour, looking to the community at large, be increased? ”

“ It will be the duty of Congress wisely to forecast and estimate these extraordinary demands, and, having added them to our ordinary expenditures, to so adjust our revenue laws that no considerable annual surplus will remain. We will fortunately be able to apply to the redemption of the public debt any small and unforeseen excess of revenue. This is better than to reduce our income below our necessary expenditures, with the resulting choice between another change of our revenue laws and an increase of the public debt. ”