The Townsend Plan

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21745, 30 March 1936, Page 10

The Townsend Plan

A Congressional enquiry at Washington into the Townsend plan has already revealed that the national secretary of Old Age Revolving Pensions. Ltd., has been doing moderately well for himself with an annual salary of 12,000 dollars and a daily expenses allowance of 33 dollars. Old Age Revolving Pensions, Ltd., which is the organisation working for a national old age pension scheme in the United States is, apparently, being maintained by people who pay dues amounting to 10 cents

a month. "It appears that there are now 4,000,000 people making these payments. The Townsend plan proposes that 200 dollars a month should be paid to every person over 60, provided it is spent within 30 days after receipt. The money is to be raised by the simple device of imposing a 2 per cent, tax on every kind of business transaction. Dr. Francis E. Townsend, the originator of the scheme, is a retired country doctor who is now living in California. The “Literary Digest” writes of him; “To some elderly folk, the soft-spoken “ physician is a new Moses, bestowing his

“kindly bedside manner upon the economic “ ailments of the aged; to others he is a medi- “ cine-man with a quack remedy which might “ become poisonous to America’s fiscal health. In the last two years the alluring prospects of the plan have made a considerable appeal to aging people, and there has been a suggestion that for the present the brightest prospects are those of the due-collecting Old Age Revolving Pensions. Ltd. Critics of the plan contend that the general 2 per cent, tax would impose an insupportable burden on agriculture, industry,

commerce, and the wage-earners. It has been estimated that the cost of government alone under the plan would be increased by approximately 40,000,000,000 dollars. The National Industrial Conference Board declares: “The Town- “ send plan would drastically redistribute the “ national income at the expense of millions of

“ wage-earners, salaried employees, farmers, “ and owners of small businesses.” An article in the “Review of Reviews” says: “It is a “dangerous delusion promising impossible relief to millions of deserving people who are “in sore distress.” The Townsend organisation, of course, has not been silent; the national secretary has to do something for his living.

Old Age Revolving Pensions, Ltd., has this reply to the critics concerned doubtingly with the economic and financial aspects of the scheme: “Neither income nor business earn- “ ings are fixed, and we claim that, the potential “national income is limitless. We base our “transactions tax on a constantly increasing “ national income which is, in turn, based on “ the vast resources of the country,” The sincerity of the founder of the movement has not been questioned so far; but there have been serious suspicions concerning others taking part in its development. The distant chance of getting 200 dollars a month for a few cents is enough to create a large army of optimists.