State of the Union AddressesPolk, James K. (James Knox)
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State of the Union Addresses
Polk, James K. (James Knox)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The expenditures for the same period, including the necessary payment on
account of the principal and interest of the public debt, and the principal
and interest of the first installment due to Mexico on the 30th of May
next, and other expenditures growing out of the war to be paid during the
present year, will amount, including the reimbursement of Treasury notes,
to the sum of $54,195,275.06, leaving an estimated balance in the Treasury
on the 1st of July, 1849, of $2,853,694.84.
The Secretary of the Treasury will present, as required by law, the
estimate of the receipts and expenditures for the next fiscal year. The
expenditures as estimated for that year are $33,213,152.73, including
$3,799,102.18 for the interest on the public debt and $3,540,000 for the
principal and interest due to Mexico on the 30th of May, 1850, leaving the
sum of $25,874,050.35, which, it is believed, will be ample for the
ordinary peace expenditures.
The operations of the tariff act of 1846 have been such during the past
year as fully to meet the public expectation and to confirm the opinion
heretofore expressed of the wisdom of the change in our revenue system
which was effected by it. The receipts under it into the Treasury for the
first fiscal year after its enactment exceeded by the sum of $5,044,403.09
the amount collected during the last fiscal year under the tariff act of
1842, ending the 30th of June, 1846. The total revenue realized from the
commencement of its operation, on the 1st of December, 1846, until the
close of the last quarter, on the 30th of September last, being twenty-two
months, was $56,654,563.79, being a much larger sum than was ever before
received from duties during any equal period under the tariff acts of 1824,
1828, 1832, and 1842. Whilst by the repeal of highly protective and
prohibitory duties the revenue has been increased, the taxes on the people
have been diminished. They have been relieved from the heavy amounts with
which they were burthened under former laws in the form of increased prices
or bounties paid to favored classes and pursuits.
The predictions which were made that the tariff act of 1846 would reduce
the amount of revenue below that collected under the act of 1842, and would
prostrate the business and destroy the prosperity of the country, have not
been verified. With an increased and increasing revenue, the finances are
in a highly flourishing condition. Agriculture, commerce, and navigation
are prosperous; the prices of manufactured fabrics and of other products
are much less injuriously affected than was to have been anticipated from
the unprecedented revulsions which during the last and the present year
have overwhelmed the industry and paralyzed the credit and commerce of so
many great and enlightened nations of Europe.
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