Our Debts | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 11, 1875

Our Debts.

In an article which we printed a few weeks ago, we drew a comparison between the municipal indebtedness of this country and that of Great Britain. This comparison may now be extended still further. The average municipal indebtedness of twenty English cities smaller than London is about $30 per capita. But the minor American cities, with about the same population as these twenty English cities, owe about $92 per capita. The contrast is presented in still another form. The report of the Local Government Board in Great Britain shows that, deducting the British national debt, there is a total local indebtedness of $360,000,000, or about $11 per capita. Take the same local indebtedness in this country, including everything except the national debt, and we have:—

State debts................................. $382,970,517 County debts............................... 180,000,000 Municipal debts............................ 769,000,000 Total...................................... $1,331,970,517

This is a local indebtedness of about $30 per capita for all the people in this country, or about three times as great as the local indebtedness per capita in Great Britain. The strain in this country is still more notable when we count the interest paid. The interest on the local indebtedness probably averages 7 per cent., which would make it $93,000,000 annually, while the interest on the British local indebtedness does not exceed $15,000,000 a year; so that, while the interest on our national indebtedness is more than $20,000,000 less than Great Britain pays on its national debt, the total interest we pay every year on all debts is from $40,000,000 to $50,000,000 more than Great Britain pays on its total indebtedness.

The statement of local indebtedness does not fully set forth the full measure of recklessness and extravagance that characterize our municipal governments; for notwithstanding the startling increase of local indebtedness, taxation has likewise increased at a frightful rate. A statement of fifteen cities (New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Brooklyn, St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Jersey City, Louisville, Newark, Cleveland, San Francisco, Providence, Albany, Milwaukee) shows that the taxable valuation of property has increased nearly $1,000,000,000 the last five years, and the tax levy in those cities, which was $64,000,000 in 1869-70, was $97,500,000 in 1874-5. It only remains to be stated that in not one of those cities was the debt reduced within the time mentioned, so that the increase of taxation was devoted, aside from the payment of interest on the bonded debt, to the payment of current expenses and local improvements. In 1870 the whole sum raised by State, county, and municipal taxes was about $280,000,000, and the most careful estimate now places the revenue exacted from the same sources at $363,000,000 annually. This is over and above the increase of debt. Deducting the State taxes, the county and municipal governments raise $295,000,000 a year, and have added $130,000,000 to their indebtedness within five years. According to this, our local government really costs, in taxes and increased debt, $380,000,000 annually, or more than the entire annual revenue of Great Britain for all purposes, which is $376,000,000.

We commend this exhibit to the earnest consideration of our readers, as presenting the most serious problem of popular government. —Chicago Tribune.