Whalen Asks Reverse Tax

Rep. Charles W. Whalen (R-Ohio)last night endorsed the negative income tax as the most effective means of combatting poverty in this country.

Addressing the Young Republican Symposium on the Urban Crisis, Whalen charged that present federal poverty programs "discourage the poor from trying to work, to save, and to support their families." The administrative approach of an "expanding bureaucracy" must end, he declared.

Whalen, who for twelve years before his election to Congress was chairman of the Economics Department at Dayton University, said. "We need a new approach to poverty, not just new people." He predicted however, that the Republican party probably will not include a negative income tax proposal in its 1968 platform.

State Rep. John W. Sears '52, who ran third in the recent mayoralty primary, supported Whalen, claiming that "the federal government has become the landlord" in an increasingly feudal relationship. Sears scored the Republican party's "abdication of responsibility" for the urban crisis.

Both Republicans at the Symposium agreed that urban problems cannot be solved by money alone. Attacking the "Democratic party's mechanized approach" to poverty, Sears said, "We must encourage people to use what they have." He added, "You don't solve the problems of the ghetto by forming another committee."