<--PREV Doc #785  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #787 Document #786; March 19, 1954 To George Magoffin Humphrey Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series ; Category: Memorandum The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XV - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part IV: "Pushing ahead along the broad center"; December 1953 to March 1954 Chapter 9: Fending off "the reactionary fringe"   I have received a number of good letters--both pro and con--as a result of the tax speech of last Monday.1 Two are attached for your consideration.2 Would it be worth while when someday we may be considering proposals involving increased tax exemptions, to apply the idea only to dependent children--to no one else?3 I do not know how much this would decrease the anticipated revenue loss, but I do know that I got the most appealing letter from a father of three yesterday than I have seen in a long time. This was his idea.4 After you have read it, please return Mr. Ellingham's letter to me.5 1 On the President's March 15 address see no. 783; for background see nos. 773 and 784. There is additional correspondence on the speech in AWF/D. 2 Only one of the two letters, written on March 16 by James E. Ellingham of Brooklyn, New York, is in AWF/M: OF, Humphrey Corr. 3 In recent weeks the question of increasing individual tax exemptions had been hotly debated in the House of Representatives; Democrats sought an increase in the $600 personal exemption allowed individual taxpayers and their dependents. The Administration was vigorously opposed to the proposal--so much so that Treasury Secretary Humphrey vowed that he would advise the President to veto any measure designed to increase such exemptions (Congressional Quarterly Almanac, vol. X, 1954, p. 481). On the fight in the House see nos. 773 and 784. 4 Ellingham had written of the problems of supporting his family in the face of rising costs for food, clothing, health care, and taxes. "I advocate a higher exemption for children," he wrote--"say $700." He said that he was not "trying to set up an argument that people with families shouldn't pay taxes," but he did believe that "a family, those with children, should be shown some consideration." Writing on March 19 Eisenhower thanked Ellingham, expressed sympathy for his problems, and reaffirmed the Administration's position. In a postscript Eisenhower swayed slightly: "However, my instant reaction to your basic idea of increasing for dependent children rather than increasing the exemption for the taxpayer is that it contains an appealing implication. I do assure you that we will study it carefully" (AWF/M: OF, Humphrey Corr.). 5 Humphrey would reply on March 29 that the matter suggested by Ellingham had been considered many times by the Treasury Department, but "when lower individual income taxes are possible we favor rate reductions rather than increased exemptions." Should increased exemptions be proposed in the future, he explained, "we would probably recommend a uniform per capita increase rather than an increase for dependent children only" (AWF/M: OF). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Memorandum To George Magoffin Humphrey, 19 March 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 786. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/786.cfm <--PREV Doc #785  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #787

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