Congress Week

Back from a long weekend, Congressmen settled back in their chairs, loosened their ties and sighed with satisfaction. Behind them was a week of solid accomplishment.

For three days, Colorado's Eugene Millikin had been on his feet defending the income-tax reduction bill that his Senate Finance Committee had whipped into shape. Armed with a huge loose-leaf notebook crammed with statistics, he made his replies to colleagues' questions short, sure and pithy. He turned back Democratic efforts to postpone the tax bill, to nationalize the community-property provision of some states, to raise individual exemptions. Millikin's able defense of the bill ended in complete victory. The Senate passed it, 52 to 34, without amendment.

It took conferees only 90 minutes to agree on making the tax cut effective July 1 (instead of retroactive to Jan. 1 as approved by the House), and to iron out minor details in the tax-reduction brackets (see box).

Almost simultaneously, the labor-bill conferees composed their last differences. Ohio's Bob Taft wore a broad grin. The bill had emerged substantially as it had been fashioned in the Senate.

Rough Road. In the House the Republican economizers had found the going as rough as a plowed field. The Appropriations Committee's stiff 32% cut in the Department of Agriculture's budget had made some rural Republicans jumpy. With the aid of these waverers, the Democrats came close to restoring funds for soil conservation, school lunches, rural electrification.

The Republicans made one major concession and one minor. They agreed to a $40 million increase in price-support funds. As a favor to the "very gracious and charming gentlewoman from Ohio," Frances Bolton, they added $7,500 to pay the salary of a department marketing-news reporter for the Cleveland area. But when the chips were down, the G.O.P. ranks held firm. The final cut was a whopping $340 million.

The Senate also:

P: Approved a rent-control amendment sponsored by New Jersey's Albert Hawkes (and backed by the real-estate lobby) to allow landlords and tenants "voluntarily and in good faith" to agree on a lease calling for 15% rent increase, provided it extended to or beyond Dec. 31, 1948. Democrats objected bitterly that tenants would have to sign or face even higher demands and possible eviction early next year when all controls are scheduled to expire.

P: Heard that the Armed Services Committee had agreed on a bill to coordinate and unify the direction of the armed forces. The bill carefully stipulated that the services were not to be merged. P: Chuckled over North Carolina's William Umstead, who suggested an old English test for D.C. drivers charged with drunken driving: "Not drunk is he who from the floor

Can rise again and drink once more.

But drunk is he who prostrate lies

And who can neither drink nor rise."*

The House also:

P: Received a report from its Labor Committee that a 1941 strike at the Allis-Chalmers plant near Milwaukee was called at the direction of the Communist party. The committee charged Harold Christoffel and Robert Buse, past & present presidents of the U.A.W. local, with falsely testifying while under oath, asked the Justice Department to prosecute them.

CONGRESS' INCOME TAX BILL

(Man and wife with two children)

Net Income (before personal exemption) Old tax New Tax

$2,500 $ 95.00 $ 66.50 3,300 247.00 193.00 3,500 285.00 228.00 4,000 380.00 304.00 6,000 798.00 638.40 8,000 1,292.00 1,033.60 10,000 1,862.00 1,489.00 12,000 2,508.00 2,006.40 14,000 3,230.00 2,584.00 20,000 5,890.00 4,712.00 40,000 17,442.00 13,953.00 60,000 31,179.00 24,943.20 80,000 46,170.00 36,936.00 100,000 62,301.00 49,841.00 300,000 233,700.00 193,895.00 400,000 320,150.00 271,075.00 1,000,000 838,850.00 735,175.00 5,000,000 4,275,000.00 3,825,000.00

*A slightly befuddled version of a translation from the Welsh by 19th Century Satirist Thomas Love Peacock.

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