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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 15. The Negro in the Public Economy - 1. The Public Budget - 2. Discrimination in Public Service
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334 An American Dilemma
over more and more items of expenditure from the lower budgets, or pro-
vide funds for the lower budgets in order to pay for certain expenditures.
Control follows financial responsibility, and minimum standards are raised.
This trend works toward equalization between regions and individuals.
It is, indeed, an important part of the general process toward economic
democratization in our society. There is a corresponding trend in the struc-
ture of taxation. Taxation as a whole is becoming more ^^progressive,” that
is, the rate of taxation increases more than proportionately as we go up the
income scale. The trend in public services is that they are being made avail-
able to all citizens who care to make use of them, or otherwise are being
distributed equally according to ^‘needs” as defined in laws and relations.
We shall take these two ideals, “ability to pay” for taxation and “equal
distribution according to need” for public services, as our value premises
for this chapter.
In both respects the principles are still somewhat fluid. The predom-
inance of indirect taxation makes it highly probable that the total burden
of taxation, at the outbreak of the Second World War, was “regressive,”
that is, proportionately higher for the poorer people.^ In the higher income
brackets, however, taxation was steeply progressive. The principle of
“need” also is in flux as there is no definite and fixed dividing line between
social welfare provisions—as, for instance, unemployment relief—and
general benefits for all citizens. Free schools were once for the poor only.
Today they are for everybody. Free or subsidized hospitalization can, in
this country, usually be used only by low income families. There are other
countries where such services are enjoyed by everybody. There is a trend
visible in America, as in the rest of the world, not only to increase public
benefits for the needy but to make them available to everybody.
Deciding upon the rules to determine the actual distribution of the tax
burden among the citizens, and the availability of the public services to
them, constitutes a major part of the activity of legislative bodies in a
democracy. One principle has been settled for a long time, however, and
constitutes a main basis for the legal structure of any democracy: the prin-
ciple that the individual citizens have equal duties and rights in relation
to the public household. In America this principle has constitutional sanc-
tion. Our value fremise in this chapter is this principle: that the Negro
should partake of the burdens and the benefits of the fublic economy like
other citizens in similar circumstances^
2 . Discrimination in Public Service
There is no evidence that there is any direct racial discrimination in
regard to taxation, and it has never played much of a role in discussion,
•This is only a corollary of the premise of nondiscrimination stated in Chapter 9,
Section 3 .
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