It [this bill] would increase unemployment by aggravating the very conditions which it is attempting to correct, by crippling the agencies which furnish opportunities for employment, by discouraging efforts to relieve unemployment, and by placing a premium on idleness.
It would result in further and unnecessary intrusion of the Government into the domain of private enterprise, thus aggravating the hardships which have already been caused industry by extensive government regulations, restrictions, and competition.
It would undermine the fabric of our economic and social life by destroying initiative, discouraging thrift, and stifling individual responsibility.
Industrial corporations represent the principal source of livelihood of a very large percentage of our total population. Accordingly, any legislative program which impose unreasonable hardships on manufacturing industries will react to the detriment, directly or indirectly, of every taxpayer.
The imposition on industry at this time of the tax burden contemplated by this measure would render business recovery absolutely hopeless. Manufacturing industry is now engaged in a desperate struggle in an effort to continue operations and provide jobs. Most industries have been operating at a loss for several years. Industry is not prepared at this time to accept the added burden as contemplated by this bill.
The fact is that one of the reasons why our business leaders, large and small and in almost every kind of business, are fearful of the future is because of the well-defined campaign of a very few people to foist upon this country a complete scheme of compulsory social insurance. The little group—and it is astonishingly small in numbers, though tremendously vocal—is largely of foreign origin, a substantial part of the advocates of this system coming from Germany and from countries lying further east.
In all probability, however, compulsory unemployment insurance cannot be had without an amendment to the Constitution, probably both state and federal, as such a measure might be attacked on the grounds that it is confiscation of property without due process of law.
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