Flanders Asks Tax Decrease, Welfare State

Senator Ralph E. Flanders came out in support of lower taxes and the principles of the "welfare state" last night in New Lecture Hall.

An audience of 100 heard the Republican junior senator from Vermont deliver the first of three Godkin Lectures on "The American Century."

He will give the second of the annual series at 8 p.m. tonight in Littauer auditorium, not, as previously announced, is New Lecture Hall. His subject will be America's "responsibilities and opportunities in its dealings with the rest of the world."

Last night Flanders discussed the nation's internal strength, with emphasis on economics and particularly on depression.

"Our government is charged with responsibility for steadying and improving the economic situation of its citizens," he said. "Unemployment compensation, old age pensions, and various forms of relief have become firmly established" duties, he declared, "but equality of opportunity . . . depends on attention to . . . housing, health, and education."

Taxes Too High

Taxes, he said, are basically a means of redistributing production, but "the fact is we have reached the limits of redistribution of production so far as such redistribution is of any benefit whatsoever to the ordinary man. Taxes are already too high. For the benefit of the ordinary citizen we must find some way of reducing them or of giving advantages to those who are in a position to contribute to raising the standard of living of our people."

In particular, Flanders opposed excise taxes, as "weighted against the lower income groups."

Flanders termed one of the most valuable lessons of the "Great Depression" "that it should be easier to avoid a depression than cure it."