Congress' Week

House Republicans sternly laid about them with their economy ax. Last week they worked over Harry Truman's budget for the State, Commerce and Justice Departments. Only one neck was spared--J. Edgar Hoover's.

The chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has a standard routine for appropriations committees. First, he swears members to secrecy. Then he tells them what his FBI is doing to keep such things as crime and the menace of U.S. Communism in check. The Congressmen are flattered at being taken into Hoover's confidence, impressed by the magnitude of his job and the efficiency of the FBI. For fiscal 1948, Hoover wanted $35 million. He got every nickel of it. Thanks largely to Hoover, the entire Justice budget was trimmed a mere $3 million, down to $108 million.

Ineffective Voice. But cuts in the other departments were severe, despite the protests of Secretary of State Marshall and Secretary of Commerce Harriman. All told, in the bill reported out by trumpeting John Taber's House Appropriations Committee, State's budget was chopped down 22% (from $279 million to $219 million), Commerce's 33% (from $287 million to $191 million).

State's Office of International Information and Cultural Affairs had asked for $31 million. It got nothing. Unless the Senate showed mercy and intervened, the much criticized Voice of America radio programs and other OIC projects were due to die. OIC had been given a thorough examination by Nebraska's hardheaded, hard-working Karl Stefan, chairman of a House appropriations subcommittee. He concluded that it was extravagantly operated, overstaffed with aliens, and--worst of all--pretty ineffective. Secretary Marshall disagreed. But to Karl Stefan, it seemed as if $31 million worth of food shipped to Europe would do more good than the best of OIC's propaganda efforts. John Taber agreed with Stefan.

Commerce's Civil Aeronautics Administration was mutilated almost beyond recognition. Despite congressional concern over air safety, the Taber committee recommended a $70.5 million slash in CAA funds, which would mean that after July 1 CAA could no longer maintain airport control towers (except in Washington). Its program for modernization of navigation aids would be cut in half. Observed the committee: "Air accidents will only be eliminated when people stop flying."

The Senate was mostly preoccupied with getting out a labor bill. The Republican majority finally reached an agreement on a bill which contained no ban on industry-wide bargaining and was much less rigorous than the one approved by the House.

But the Senate, too, had time to swing the economy ax. The Administration had requested an appropriation of $1,779 million for the Labor Department and the Federal Security Agency. The House had already knocked off $95 million. The Senate lopped off another $8 million.

One thing Republicans of both houses had in mind was a tidy present for U.S. taxpayers. How big the total budget slash would ultimately be, it was too early to tell. But Republicans were counting on its being big enough to justify the sizable cut they contemplated in income taxes. The tax program was being whipped into final shape. The Senate Finance Committee approved the House's tax bill with one major change. Instead of being retroactive to Jan. 1, cuts ranging from 30% in the lower brackets to 10.5% in the upper brackets would not take effect until July 1. Estimated total savings to U.S. taxpayers: $4 billion a year.

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