Willkie hits veto message
Blames administration for ‘inadequate’ tax bill
New York (UP) –
Wendell L. Willkie, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, today assailed President Roosevelt’s veto message on the tax bill as “violent and ill-tempered” and said that the administration is to blame for the “inadequate” tax bill.
In a speech here Feb. 3, Mr. Willkie said that if President Roosevelt meant by a “realistic” tax program the $10-billion plan proposed to Congress by the Treasury, then the administrations fiscal estimates for paying the costs of the war were “far too low.” Mr. Willkie proposed instead a tax program “more than double” that of the administration.
Need additional revenue
Mr. Willkie said in a statement today that the administration:
…has so extravagantly and wantonly wasted the people’s money that many Americans see the payment of additional taxes as merely providing additional funds for more profligate government spending.
If it had not been for this record of extravagance, the need for additional taxes now would be both obvious and accepted by all Americans. The American people recognize that a hard war must be fought the hard way – that it must be an all-out war. They are eager to match at home, as best they can, the sacrifices being made by our fighting men who are risking and giving their lives.
The additional income that the war has created should be taxed and taxed heavily. For we need this additional revenue to pay for the war – to pay for as much of the war as possible while we fight.
Must pay now for war
But we need additional revenue now for another basic reason. We must pay now so that after the war is over, taxes may be lowered in order to give that stimulus which lower taxes always give to our economy – the stimulus necessary to provide jobs and opportunities after the war for our present war workers and our returning soldiers.
The violent and ill-tempered presidential veto message advanced none of these causes.