Speedup

Like a trained crew whipping together a prefab, the House and Senate last week were hustling out a bill guaranteed to give the U.S. housing industry just about everything it wants to assure it of its biggest year in history.

The work pace was set by Senate Democratic Leader Lyndon Johnson, who called for final passage of an omnibus housing bill before Congress starts its Lincoln's Birthday recess on Feb. 9. Senate Housing Chairman John Sparkman rushed through hearings on his bill almost before witnesses had time to take off their hats. Sparkman's bill was due on the floor of the Senate this week, with more than enough votes lined up for immediate passage.

Over in the House, Speaker Sam Rayburn pushed his crew to be ready to complete action on Lyndon Johnson's time schedule. There had been some worry that House Veterans' Committee Chairman Olin E. ("Tiger") Teague would throw a roadblock in the way, as he has in the past, by refusing to permit an increase in the G.I. mortgage rate, from 4 1/4% to 5 1/4%, which was incorporated in both Senate and House bills. But Rayburn took Teague aside, and he permitted the higher interest rate to go through.

With so much political pressure and savvy behind it, major housing legislation at this session is assured. What both Houses seem likely to settle for in the end is a bill in which the Administration will gain some minor points, give ground on others to proponents of more extensive subsidies. Already dead, apparently, is the President's idea of lifting all ceilings on FHA mortgage insurance, the backbone of the private-enterprise housing program. Instead, Congress is moving in the direction of handing out $5 billion of mortgage insuring authority for the rest of this fiscal year, $5 billion for next. Nearly dead too, is Ike's idea of cutting out public housing authorizations, of raising the local share of land costs in urban renewal. Democratic housing leaders last week predicted: 1) authorization of 17,500 more public housing units, 2) a six-year, $350 million-a-year urban renewal program, with the Federal Government still paying two-thirds of the cost instead of the gradual reduction to 50% asked by Ike, and 3) a $150 million direct G.I. housing loan fund to backstop the new, higher 5 1/4% mortgage rate in areas where private capital fails to come forward to finance G.I. housing.

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