Editorial: Bricker goes to Washington
Governor Bricker of Ohio went to Washington last night to make a campaign speech. His indictment of bureaucracy and of concentration of power in the President was effective.
He read the record: Relegating Congress to an inferior position, attempting to pack the Supreme Court, moving into fields of state and local administration, expanding authority of the White House at the expense of coordinate branches of government. This process, he said, operates on pap and patronage – particularly the deficit financing of spend-waste-borrow-tax. Unless checked, it can destroy the autonomy of state governments, the federal system, and free enterprise.
Apparently, the President himself is aware of the public reaction on this subject, or he would not be so anxious to bury the New Deal label, which now evokes more moans than cheers.
Governor Bricker, for his domestic policy would eliminate overlapping boards and bureaus. He favors “a sound constructive post-war tax policy,” including simplification of returns stabilization, taxation for revenue rather than for social changes, adequate revenue sources for the states, encouragement of venture capital and private enterprise, and reduction of federal taxes “as soon as possible after victory.”
His foreign policy was hardly mentioned. To say that “we want no super-government,” but membership in a cooperative organization among sovereign nations, is clear so far as it goes.
But to say “an international cooperative organization, whatever precise form it may take, can solve the problems which lead to war and fulfill the hopes of our people for a peaceful and better world” means little or nothing. If he has knowledge of foreign affairs or conviction on foreign policy, he is keeping it quiet. Maybe he will speak out as the campaign progresses.