Financial Pamphlets (Volume 5) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1875. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... PUBLIC DEBT, LOCAL AND NATIONAL: HOW TO PROVIDE FOR ITS DISCHARGE LESSENING THE BURTHEN OF TAXATION. LETTER TO DAVID A. WELLS, ESQ., CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF REVENUE COMMISSIONERS: BY HENRY C. CAREY. PHILADELPHIA: HENRY CAREY BAIRD, INDUSTRIAL PUBLISHER, 306 WALNUT STREET. PHILADELPHIA: COLLINS, PRINTER. 7M JATNK STREET. LETTER TO D. A. WELLS, ESQ., CHAIRMAN OP THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR THE REVISIOS OF THE REVENUE LAWS. Dear Sir: -- Believing the real and permanent interests of tax payers and public creditors to be in perfect harmony with each other, and that error in regard to one must be productive of injury to both, I have put on paper my views as to the proper mode of dealing with the principal of the public debt, and have now to ask of you to give to them that consideration they may seem to you to merit. The amount required by the general government for current expenses, interest included, may be taken, as I suppose, at $280,000,000, and to meet that demand, with reasonable allowance for occasional drawbacks, it might be necessary so to arrange our revenue system as to warrant us in expecting from it ten or twenty millions more; say 290 or 300 millions. It has, however, been proposed that the annual sum of $200,000,000 be now, and in all the_future so long as the debt shall continue to exist, set aside for payment of principal and interest alone--a proposition that, if adopted, will require that the revenue be so arranged as to enable us to look to it for fifty millions more, or in the whole at least 340, if not even 350 millions. Two widely distinct modes of action are thus presented for consideration, by the one of which we should appear wholly to overlook the existence of the principal debt, while by the other we should appear to be making provision...