Congressional Confusion

Most important business event of last week was the opening of Congress and the jack-in-the-box stockmarket which it produced. Up on Franklin Roosevelt's mild opening message, stocks flopped on the next day's offering of his 1939 budget figures, with their near-record deficit (see p. 13).

That the stockmarket should react unfavorably to indications of continued pump-priming was proof of business' confusion. Heretofore, such pump-priming talk has boomed the market, and even Wall Street admits that sharp curtailing of government largess would toboggan stock prices. Last week's pessimism apparently stemmed from the realization that new deficits may mean new taxes. But this was one matter on which Congress gave signs of having its back up.

What else Congress might do to or for business was equally conjectural. First on the House list was the Patman chain-store tax bill, designed to put interstate chains out of business. Other dire legislation may come from the monopoly hearings to be resumed next week. On the plus side, business anticipates juicy returns from the national defense program. And the railroads, pleading on bonded knees for legislative aid, seem fairly sure to get it.

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