Date: December 26, 1930
Location: Northampton, MA
Summary: Opinion that the legislature should not increase expenditures of public money to fix the U.S. when the cause has been from high taxes. The people of the U.S. need to work out of their difficulties without legislative interference.
(Original document available here)
Fear is not on1y contagious, but reaches our representatives. It affects the neighbors and has its reaction on the officeholders. That will be the great difficulty with the Congress and with all the state legislatures. Something is the matter with the country, and they will all feel an irresistible temptation to try to provide a remedy. That would be fine if they had any such power. But only the people themselves have the power to work out of their difficulties, which they can best do without legislative interference.
The trouble is that efforts will be made to save a situation by legislation when no legislation can save it. In general we may expect to see many proposals to increase expenditures of public money when high national and higher local taxes have been a great contributing factor to the present situation. When the country needs the courage and confidence that relief from high taxes would give, increasing appropriations only add to the discouragement. What a refreshing spectacle it would be if a little band of officeholders would announce they were ready to risk defeat by resisting these unsound proposals! The whole country would rally to their support.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge Says: Dispatches Written by Former-President Coolidge and Syndicated to Newspapers in 1930-1931 (Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation)
The Coolidge Foundation gratefully acknowledges the volunteer efforts of Jill Leavitt who prepared this document for digital publication.