This bill will cause further migration from the farm areas to the industrial areas and will invite the transfer of workers from the class of those not gainfully employed in order to share in the unemployment benefits…Unemployment insurance, which in many instances places a premium on indolence, would unquestionably defeat this proposed plan of the administration to place workers in the areas of lower living costs and keep them gainfully employed.
It would undermine the fabric of our economic and social life by destroying initiative, discouraging thrift, and stifling individual responsibility.
…in regard to the ultimate consequence of this legislation, that is leaving aside the effect that might be produced this year or next year, on pay rolls, we wish to point out the added incentive it creates for the more rapid introduction of labor-saving machinery for the definite purpose of reducing the total taxable pay roll and thus add to the unemployment....Further there is always a maximum labor cost that any industry can meet and there will be a definite increased tendency for employers to consider this tax as a part of the wages of their employees and keep the direct wage paid as low as possible to reduce such wage by the size of the tax itself; I am indicating that only as a natural business tendency.
…it still is true that the young people of today in this country look to the people who have succeeded in spite of every handicap such as that, as their inspiration for doing things. I think we do not want to kill off that spirit of individualism. I use the term ‘individualism’; I know it is sneered at a lot, but I know if is still a respectable term and I think we ought to cultivate it instead of sneering at it.
No rule of thumb method ... can be devised which will fit all securities in all situations....It would produce even greater injury than the Federal Securities Act in retarding or preventing the follow of securities into new and refunding issues, which are indispensable if employment is to be maintained and increased and the huge burden on the Treasury is to be relieved.
The present law removes all responsibility from the purchaser and fosters litigation. It invites nuisance suits and spurious claims.
Confiscation of private wealth does not make the public or even its agent, the government, rich. It does not create equality of wealth, but an equality of poverty.
[The estate tax] represents a real tax on capital, and such a tax is necessarily unsound and unscientific because it tends to defeat itself as a revenue producer.
This bill will make it difficult for the poor baker to continue to exist, thereby making it easier for the large baker to combine with his larger brother and increase the price of bread or lower the size of the loaf, why, that is a very strong point in opposition to this bill, because the very people you are going to aid—the poor have got to be taken into consideration.
The hardship entailed on a certain proportion of the home workers, without means of support, the distress they will suffer, their loss will be greater than the benefit coming to the public through the elimination of that work.
