Shape of the Future

The 78th Congress, after the exciting days of its birth and its blessing by Franklin Roosevelt, got to work on Capitol Hill. Its future now looked a little clearer. This was a Congress full of vim & vinegar, eager to get on with the war, busting to assert its independence, and judging by the temper of many members, eager to throw its weight in constructive rather than destructive fashion. Of party politics there would be plenty, but each side had a shrewd notion that the successful way to make political hay was to beat the other in getting on with an effective, efficient war.

Observers, watching the Congress' mood and its first official actions, thought they could predict, in broad outline, some of its history-to-come:

Taxes. No matter what the Treasury proposed, Congress was likely to pass a pay-as-you-go income tax plan, a sales tax, compulsory savings. It was more likely to increase taxes on individuals than to risk breaking the profit motive by heavier loads on business. But nobody expected Congress to vote the $16,000,000,000 of new revenues that the President called for. A likelier figure: $10,000,000,000.

Economy. Senator Harry F. Byrd's committee was already hard at work on plans to slice the budget wherever fat appeared. (Many a Senator and Congressman would join in the surgery more out of distaste for New Deal bureaus than love for saving.) But there would be more oratory than knife-wielding: the budget called for cuts of $458,000,000 in nonwar expenditure, and few observers believed that Congress could raise this figure above a billion.

The New Deal. For the first time, the New Deal theory of government could not count on a majority on Capitol Hill: the Administration would hesitate to risk any new legislation. But most Republicans want to hold their fire on the New Deal until 1944: there would be no serious attempts to repeal laws on the books.

Lend-lease. This act, which expires in June, would be renewed--but only after a searching examination of 1) Lend-Lease Administrator Harry Hopkins, 2) the clause, written into the Lend-Lease agreements, which pledges the U.S. to postwar trade agreements and reduction of tariffs.

Reciprocal Trade. State Secretary Cordell Hull's beloved trade pacts must also be renewed or allowed to die by June. Of all early tests of the temper of the 78th Congress, this will be the most significant. Abandonment of the reciprocal trade principle would be a defeat for freedom of world markets, a victory for high-tariff isolationism. On the debate over this issue, and how it turns out, the U.S. will get its first sharp picture of how the members of both parties in the 78th Congress feel about the postwar world.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.