THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
NOME, ALASKA
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 610
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W. A. Boucher .Owner-Publisher
Emily Boucher .Local Editor
Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943, at the postoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Nome, Alaska, Wednesday, March 9, 1949
NEW TAXES, NEW APPROPRIATIONS KEEP PACE
I
(By James Hutcheson)
JUNEAU, (/P)—As the legislature heads into the
home stretch, the Senate finance committee chairman1
estimates that new taxes are just about keeping pace-1
with the budget and new appropriations.
Sen. John Butrovich, Jr., Fairbanks Republican,
who keeps an eagle eye on the probable income and out
go in his key chairmanship, lists $18,000,000 as the
probable “take” for the general fund from taxes now
on the books. They include the new income and general
property taxes and the quadrupled fish trap taxes.
(Some legislators have expressed fear the fish trap tax
may be open to court challenge as possibly discrimina
tory because of the sharp increase).
Butrovich bases his figures on the estimates of the tax
commissioner, with a bit of paring on figures he con
sidered too optimistic.
He lists another $5,047,000 as the revenue potential
for tax bills which were in his committee’s hands March
2. (They did not include either the major general busi
ness license tax or the $370,000 addition to the school
tax, both of which have passed the House).
The bills before the committee with the estimated
$5,047,000 potential are the raw fish-canned salmon tax,
tobacco tax and admissions tax measures. All are given
a good chance of legislative approval.
That would make the estimated revenue total rough
yl $23,000,000, without figuring the business license
levy.
A $20,000,000 revenue estimate was made by Sen.
Howard Lvng, Democratic rules committee chairman,
in a floor discussion of finances a few days ago. He es
timated there might possibly be a surplus for the bien
nium.
Against the revenue prospect, there is the $17,403,341
request by the board of budget. On top of that, Butro
vich lists $434,000 additional specific appropriations
which the legislature has made and the governor has
signed. The major items are $250,000 for the Alaska
Housing Authoritv, $50,000 for legislative session
expenses, $50,000 increased aid to dependent children
and $50,000 for increased hair seal bounties. In addi
tion, there is a $195,000 total of continuing appropria
tions from the 1947 session—$20,000 for a Territoria1
audit, $165,000 for hospital construction and $10,000
for the game commission—for which money is supposed
to be provided when it is available.
Those items raise the total of budget requests and en
acted appropriations to $18,032,577.
That barely over-balances the $18,000,000 revenue
estimate from taxes now in effect.
Butrovich pointed out that the budget figures might
be cut some. Most departments included salary in
creases which they might not get.
But while most of the tax proposals have reached the
finance committee, the parade of bills with new appro
priation proposals—large or small—continues.
Bills before the finance committee with appropria
tions, at the date of the chairman’s summary, were:
$250,000 for setting up a department of fisheries; $93,
535 for raising Territorial salaries; $900 for a labor de
partment deficiency.
The finance chairman’s revenue estimates for the
general fund are:
Anticipated prior to legislative sessions$5,000,000
New income tax law. 4,000,000
Additional fish trap tax. 4,000,000
General property tax. 5,000,000
TOTAL..$18,000,000
Estimates of revenue potential of bills before commit
IT* A SMALL WORLD
_
tee:
Raw fish-canned salmon tax as amended
by Senate taxation committee .$3,871,500
Taxation committee sub for one section
of it .:. 160,700
Tobacco taxes !.. 827,400
Admissions tax (only one on list not ap
proved by House) . 187,500
- I
TOTAL. $5,047,100
*_
EMPLOYMENT AND 1949
(Cincinnati Enquirer)
While there has been some recession in employment,
many authorities say the situation is not yet indicative
of an important decline in the number of Americans
gainfully employed. That a leveling-off is in process,
however, seems indisputable.
Industrial organizations, with tremendous backlogs
of orders, were in the labor market tooth and nail for
several years immediately after the war. During those
years the shortage of labor was acute. Management felt
forced to take all the men it could get, regardless of
abilities, training—and often regardless of price. This
situation resulted in inefficiencies—inefficiencies re
sulted both in price and quality; or product.
As the employment picture returns to balance, these
detracting factors will shrink. Employees will be as
sured of jobs, but the day of pay without production
will pass. This will react to the great benefit of the con
sumer—as well as to the ultimate benefit of labor and
management. Cutthroat competition for workers also
is on the wane—and that too will have a beneficial ef
fect on our entire industrial structure.
In general, the outlook is encouraging—encouragin'?|
for management.'We can hope that industry, within the'
coming months, will arrive at a state of balance in
which nrices, supply, employment and profits will as
sume the more normal levels which go with true and
satisfactory prosperity. ,
BAKU RESTORATION PUSHED
MOSCOW, (/P)—From Baku it is reported that the
last three years have seen progress in the restoration of
oil output of the important oil fields of this petroleum
center. An editorial in “Baku Worker” stated recently
that during the first three years of the postwar five year
plan, 1946, 1947, 1948, oil production there had increas
ed 21.9 percent. In addition it stated oil refining had in
creased by 31.4 percent in the same period and that nat
ural gas extraction had increased 23.6 percent.
The Chairman of the State Planning Commission of
the USSR, N. A.^Voznessensky, announced in 1946 in
connection with the postwar fourth Five Year Plan that
during this plan Baku oil output would increase by 50
percent and reach 17,000,000 metric tons in 1950.
We can’t expect to get on with people by telling them
off!
WASHINGTON
NEWS LETTER
(By Mary Lee Council) I
%
Four of Delegate Bartlett’s bills, *
having been reported favorably
by the House Public Lands Com
mittee, will come up for vote in
the House within the next few
weeks. In addition three private
relief bills sponsored by the Dele
gate have been reported favorably
i by the House judiciary committee, ^
and one such measure was passed
by the lower house last week.
One of the four genlral pieces
of legislation would provide that
patented mining claims in Alaska,
for purposes of taxation by the
Territorial legislature, would be
valued at a flat rate fixed by the
legislature or at the price paid the
United States.
The Alaska Council of Boy
Scouts would be able to buy
through the secretary of the inte- L
rior 240 acres of land situated ^
midway between Anchorage and
Palmer on the Anchorage-Palmer
highway if the second measure re
ported is enacted into law. The
land is desired for recreational
and other public purposes.
Alaska will have a princess in
the Cherry Festival scheduled for
|Washing:on the latter part of
March or early in April, depend- ' |
eat upon the blooming period of
I the blossoms.
| Delegate Bartlett has designated
Miss Virginia daGanahl to repre
sent the Territory. Miss deGanahl,.
of Juneau, is the daughter of Mrs.
deGanahl ami the late Command
er Joe deGanahl, USN. She is at
tending Mount Vernon Seminary
for Girls in Virginia.
Delegate Bartlett, pointing out
that the plan under which the
agreement with Alaska Steamship ;
! Company was recently approved.
i like previous plans have been
temporary only, and has asked
Congress to appropriate $50,000
to work out a long-range program
to solve the Alaska shipping prob
lem. He has proposed that the In
terior Department Appropriation
Bill for the fiscal year 1950, now
i being considered on the House t
side, include such a sum, as he be- <
lieves that officials of that depart
i ment are the best equipped in the
federal government by their
knowledge of the situation to work
' out the long-desired solution to
the problem.
Grant R. Jackson, president of
the Miners and Merchants Bank
of Alaska, is a Washington visitor
from Nome.
j Excise-Tax Cut
\ Made G. O. P.’s ►
Major Goal
I WASHINGTON, <tV) — The
House Republican leadership to
day made a cut in wartime excise
taxes its major objective for this
Congress.
At its first meeting of the year,
the party’s House policy commit
tee approved a statement saying
“the wartime excise taxes should
be cut back at once to the prewar
1941 rates.”
Excise taxes are the levies on
telephone bills, railroad tickets,
furs, luggage and the like. All of
them were raised sharply during
the war.
The G. O. P. committee took no
stand on the question of general
tax increases or reductions. Presi
dent Truman is asking for a four
billion dollar increase in taxes on^
, corporations and persons in higher
income brackets.