PAGE SIX
EDITORIAL
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 1940.
The Kansan Comments -- EDITORIALS LETTERS PATTER
Curtail Federal Profit to Aid Private Business
Some expert economists and a greater number of small investment bankers have begun believing that the United States has hit a permanent state of stagnation as far as big business is concerned. The solution to the situation, if one can be found, lies in persuading persons with surplus funds to invest in business. In order to give these key business men an incentive to invest in business, it may be necessary for the government to do away with some of its profits and give private businesses a chance once more.
Principal arguments used by those who say the United States will never again revive its business industry are these: (1) private investment would revive if government would stop placing restraints on business and refrain from taxing away most of the profits when there are profits, and (2) private investment can never revive because there is no longer much chance for private profit, for (a) population growth is slower, (b) most of the national savings are now in the hands of banks, insurance companies, and institutions which cannot take normal business risks anyway, and (c) no new industries requiring funds are appearing.
All available statistics point to the fact that corporations, as a group, fail to register high enough earnings to attract the investment capital needed to make our economic machine run smoothly. Even more dismal is the evidence that the average small corporation has few or no earnings at all. There is little incentive for idle money to compete for available profit.
Whether or not government policies are responsible, it is clear they are now doing nothing to ease the situation. Federal income and excess profits taxes, state and local property taxes, business privilege levies, and pay-roll taxes to support the social security program bear heavily on little businesses and cut the profits of corporations as a whole in half. Furthermore, investment in tax-exempt government securities yields investors more return with less risk.
The Treasury, however, would be willing to use a double-edged sword to cut away this impediment to investment. Officials have suggested lower surtaxes on excess profits as well as the abandonment of the tax-exemption plan as applied to Government bonds, on the theory that if government would take a thinner slice of income, individuals would try to cut themselves bigger slices.
Experts estimate that the federal government would lose $44,800,000 in tax revenue by lowering the top surtax rate from 75 percent to 50 percent. To tax securities which are now tax-exempt would cost the treasury from $19,-000,000 to $50,000,000 in higher interest rates. These losses, would be more than offset by gains of from $179,000,000 to $337,000,000 which would result fro mtaxes on government bonds.
These calculations indicate the Federal government would get more revenue by trying to induce individuals to invest in private business
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instead of in government securities. To make private investment still more attractive by definitely encouraging business operations might prove more difficult, but statistics suggest the experiment may be worth the effort.
Forum Basis of American Life
Three forces, city school scandals, governmental programs for adult education, and the increased promotion of democratic rule, have stimulated the public forum of late. These movements possibly may build this form of group discussion into an American institution, for this combination vitally touches free speech, respect of rights and opinions, and other concrete liberties to which Americans have held tenaciously.
Schools always have been the center of public interest, for national progress has rested greatly with the education of youth. Recently revealed irregularities in St. Louis city schools, it is declared, might have been averted had public education been the subject of public discussion. Instead, officials of that city found it simple to keep the public eye blind to mismanagement of school affairs. Similarly, events in Kansas City, Missouri, have led to an open forum on the future of the public schools and their set-up in that municipality.
Governmental attempts to activate adults toward wider thinking have had modern birth. Relief officials, to aid unemployed in rationalizing their distress, have set up discussion groups wherein anyone can express himself on a wide range of subjects. Thus liberally, the half-forgotten is now acquiring a broader knowledge and a richer life.
The last of the trio, the impetus given to the upholding of American ways of living, has come largely through the use of forums. Instigators have found that forum discussion achieves leadership, organization, and more intelligent talk. Group discussion can cross-section community life and thought, sum up agreements and disagreements of the people. As a result, uniting citizens in forum fashion will re-interpret the old definition of democracy in terms of concrete experiences. Making abstractions into real life will help the forum-goer gain a deeper confidence in the superiority of a society whose very existence depends upon the revitalizing of these abstractions into life itself.
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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
OFFICIAL BULLETIN
Vol. 37 Tuesday, March 19. 1940 No. 114
TAU SIGMA: Tau Sigma will meet tonight at 7:30
—Gearidine Ulm, president.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Official Student Paper of
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
University of Kansas
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The annual all-Kansas high school physical science conference was held here Saturday with lectures rang-sponsored by the departments of chemistry, physics, geology, and astronomy.
ing from the stars to the subsurface
of the earth. The convention was Two-hundred and seventy-five high school students and teachers attended the conference which was opened with an address by Chancellor Deane Malott. After the opening address Dr. R. C. Moore, professor of geology, gave an illustrated lecture on "The Geologist's Work in the Development of Water Resources." Dr. N. W. Storer, professor of astronomy, lectured on "Bringing the Stars Down to Earth."
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