CONGRESS FOR EITHER PAYING SOLDIER BONUS WITH SALES TAX OR POSTPONEMENT OF BONUS
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On February 16, 1922, both houses of the United States Congress officially expressed the view "that either the funds to pay the (soldier) bonus* should be raised by a general sales tax or else consideration of the bonus should be postponed."
President Warren G. Harding, who recommended the bonus, had "dismissed every other source of revenue except the sales tax."
As to the idea of postponement, the President said...
"I can see in such a postponement no lack of regard for the servicemen."
*The Bonus was granted in 1924 by the World War Adjusted Compensation Act in the form of certificates redeemable in 1945.
In 1932, veterans marched to Washington, D.C. (Bonus Army) to demand their bonus be paid early due to unemployment in the Great Depression.
SOURCE
"Congress In Quandary As Harding Advocates Sales Tax for Bonus," by Carter Field, The New York Tribune, February 17, 1922, Newspaper Archive, Newspaper of The New York Tribune, February 17, 1922, page 1.
