HON. STUART SYMINGTON OF MISSOURI IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES Friday, August 20, 1954 Mr. SYMINGTON. Mr. President, Because of the drought in Missouri, farmers in my State need action now under S. 3137, the extension of the Water Facilites Act of August 28, 1937. This bill has now been signed by the President and is Public Law 597. Provisions of this law should be made immediately available to droughtstricken farmers. Since this legislation is now public law, the benefits of this legislation should be made immediately available. Further delay seems inexcusable. Despite the immediate need, however, Mr. R. B. McLeaish, Administrator of the Farmers' Home Administration, has just written me that it will be approximately 30 days from date of signature by the President before the rules and regulations will be issued. This means it will be the latter part of September before the county FHA supervisors will be in a position to receive and process applications for loans. The basic provisions of S. 3137 are not new. Loans for development of facilities for water storage and utilization have been made in the arid and semiarid States of the United States since August 28, 1937. As the farmers in Missouri and other Midwestern States suffered the ravages of drought, they repeatedly requested that the provisions of this act be made available for them. On March 10, 1954, True D. Morse, Under Secretary of Agriculture, wrote to the President of the Senate, submitting a proposed bill to make this assistance available throughout the Nation. On March 16 Senator AIKEN introduced the bill S. 3137. The bill was reported by the Senate Agriculture Committee on May 17, and was passed by the Senate on May 24, and by the House with amendments on July 27. The Senate agreed to the House ame ndments July 28. On August 5 the bill was sent to the President. In view of the history of this legislation and the fact that the basic provisions had the approval of the Department of Agriculture more than 5 months ago, and the last amendments were adopted nearly a month ago, it is difficult to understand why the necessary instructions and regulations are not ready now. Mr. President, at this point in my remarks I ask unanimous consent to have inserted in the RECORD a letter which I wrote to Mr. McLeaish on August 19; a copy of his letter dated August 17; a copy of my letter to Mr. McLeaish dated August 9; and a copy of a letter from Mr. McLeaish dated There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows: UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT Hon. PAUL C. JONES, House of Representatives. DEAR CONGRESSMAN JONES: This is in response to your letter of July 21 regarding the extension of the Water Facilities Act now being considered by the Congress. The amendment to the act being considered by the Congress provides for loans for soil- and water-conservation measures for the installation of water facilities. These loans may be made as direct Government loans or insured by the Government in the same maner as loans are now insured under the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act. As the result of these new features, present policies and procedures for making water-facilities loans will have to be revised extensively to provide for the making and servicing of both direct Government loans and insured loans. At the present time the new features are being studied carefully, and the new policies and procedures are being developed. It is expected that within approximately 30 days after the bill is signed by the President the Farmers' Home Administration will be in a position to announce the new program to the public and to its field officials. The program will be administered by the Farmers' Home Administration through its State and county offices. Each agricultural county of the country is served by a county office of the Farmers' Home Administration, with a county supervisor in charge. Farmers who are interested in receiving assistance under the program will file their applications with the county supervisor. You will observe, from the enclosed pamphlet entitled "Loans for Water in the West," which briefly explains the water facilities program as it is presently administered by the Farmers Home Administration, that farmers are expected to pay as much of the cost of the facilities from their own funds as they are able. However, these loans have been made for 100 percent of the cost of facilities when it appears that applicants are carrying on sound farming programs and have some equity in their property after providing reasonable security for the loans. The enclosed pamphlet states that the interest rates on water facilities loans is 3 percent. Under the present act and the proposed amendment, the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to fix the rate of interest on insured loans. It provides, however, for a loan insurance charge of not less than 1 percent on outstanding principal balances. In view of this provision, the interest rate on both direct loans and insured loans likely will be between 4 percent and 5 percent. If we can furnish you additional information, we shall be pleased to do so upon your request. Sincerely yours, R. B. MCLEAISH, Administrator. AUGUST, 9, 1954. Mr. R. B. McLEAISH, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. It is our understanding from conversations with your office that it will take approximately 30 days after the bill is signed by the President before the Farmers Home Administration will be in a position to make available the provisions of the new program to the public. As shown by a recently completed survey of the State by Dr. Edward L. Clark, State geologist, 56 counties in Missouri are in critical to bad condition and 22 are in only fair condition, insofar as water supplies are concerned. More than 200 well drillers in Missouri now have a big backlog of orders for wells as soon as information is ready on these loans. Thousands of other farmers will order wells drilled just as soon as they are sure they can obtain the financial backing for this purpose. DEAR MR. MCLEAISH: As I am sure you are aware, thousands of farmers in Missouri, suffering as they are from the third straight year of drought, are intensely interested in the Water Facilities Act as amended by the Congress. In many sections of Missouri the hauling of water became a commercial business in recent weeks. Much of this would not have been necessary had it been possible for the drought-stricken farmers to drill wells or install other water facilities. Hon. R. B. McLEAISH, Administrator, Farmers' Home Administration, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. MCLEAISH: This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter of August 17, replying to mine of August 9. On March 15, Senator AIKEN introduced a bill to extend the Water Facilities Act. It was passed by the Senate on May 24 and by the House on July 27. The House changes were adopted by the Senate on the next day and it went to the President for signature on August 5. The water-supply emergency in Missouri has been fact for months and such fact has been fully known to the Department of Agriculture. As you know, I have been urging action for some time. On July 28, in a letter to Congressman PAUL C. JONES, you stated that your program EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. CHARLES B. BROWNSON OF INDIANA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Friday, August 20, 1954 Mr. BROWNSON. Mr. Speaker, the constructive record of the 83d Congress is proof that the Congress and the President can work together. This successful cooperation between the executive and the legislative is in marked contrast to the bitter struggles which have been so evident in previous administrations with almost disastrous results to our national welfare. With mutual respect and a shared goal great enough to command a common loyalty, President Eisenhower and the Republican 83d Congress have succeeded in reversing long standing trends toward higher and higher spending, have overhauled income tax laws and reduced income taxes, and have accomplished the happy transition from war to peace with minimum disturbance of the economy, now virtually free of shackling controls. The theme of this cooperative effort on the part of Congress and the White House is best expressed in the simple philosophy of President Eisenhower as I heard him state it at the Lincoln's Birthday rally in Washington, this year. He said: In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with the people's money or their economy, or their form of government, be conservative-and don't be afraid to use the word. During the first 18 months of each term I have been given the privilege of presenting a weekly report to the citizens of the 11th Indiana District over radio stations WIBC, WIRE, and WISH. As the date of a campaign approaches this privilege is quite properly suspended. Because I believe that the folks back home are entitled to know in detail the accomplishments of the 83d Congress and This has been a Congress of constructive achievement. The people did get the change for the better they voted for in 1952. This has been a "can do" and a "will do" Congress. Its program has been neither New Deal nor ultrareacOn the whole, this Congress tionary. has wisely applied traditional American principles in working out thoughtful solutions to today's serious problems. ECONOMIC AFFAIRS-SPENDING The Republican 83d Congress appropriated, overall, $26 billion less to run the Government for 2 fiscal years than the last Democratic Congress appropriated in 1951 and 1952. In his first year in office President Eisenhower and the Congress cut over $12 billion from the budget President Truman submitted and emphatically said could not be cut. Even though the Eisenhower budget requests for the last 2 years were about $232 billion below those of the preceding Truman administration, Congress cut an additional $4.6 billion from his budget requests during the first session and trimmed an additional $22 billion from the administration's estimates during the second session, which has just adjourned. Congress took $657 million from the President's requests for foreign aid, alone, in this year's economy drive. These economies were effected by exercising rigid controls over spending, by reducing the Federal payroll by over 200,000 employees, by taking a new and realistic look at defense requirements, and through 14 reorganization plans submitted to the Congress by the President and considered in the House of Representatives by the Committee on Government Operations, of which I am a member and a subcommittee chairman. As a "watch dog" committee charged with examining into the economy and efficiency of nonmilitary activities overseas, the International Operations Subcommittee was gratified to be singled out by Herbert Hoover for mention in his nationwide broadcast from the Government economy rally of the farm-city conference, May 25, 1954. In comment ing on the Brownson subcommittee in vestigation of the construction of staff quarters in Germany during a previous administration, former President Hoover said: While the authorities can carefully watch efficiency and waste in Washington, their influence seems to decrease inversely with dis tance. Working closely with the Appropriations Committee in cooperation with the Bureau of the Budget and the General Accounting Office, investigating committees of the Congress are credited by responsible students of the Government scene with major achievements in cutting Federal spending. taxes it is necessary to review briefly 20 years of recent history. TAXES In order to understand fully the significance of the 83d Congress actions in cutting excise, excess profits, and income In the 20 years of Democratic Presidents there were many new taxes imposed, many tax rates raised and many tax exemptions cut. Direct tax collections from individual citizens went up from $427 million in 1933 to more than $30 billion-70 times as much. The individual was also paying the Federal Government more than 3 times as much tax on his automobile, twice as much tax on his gasoline, twice as much tax on his radio, 25 percent more tax on cigarettes, 50 percent more tax on his beer, and 10 times as much tax on liquor. Between 1932 and 1952, personal income tax exemptions fell from $1,500 to $500. The "little man," for whom the Democrats profess so much sympathy, in 1952 paid seven times the income taxes he paid in 1933. World War II, the Korean police action, and the efforts of the New Deal to spend its way out of a depression were important factors in explaining some of these tax increases. In these 20 years of tax increases, there were only 2 tax reductions. The first was when the excess-profits tax was allowed to lapse temporarily after World War II. The second was when the Republican 80th Congress balanced the budget and cut income taxes in 1948 over the veto of President Truman. In contrast, the overall tax-cut program of the Eisenhower administration and the Republican 83d Congress, the greatest in all history, will save the citizens of the United States $7.4 billion every year. Of the total amount, individuals will receive an overall tax saving of nearly $434 billion. mainder will be translated into investMost of the refor more people. ments that will create more employment The 10 percent reduction in Federal income taxes which went into effect last January 1 saves individual taxpayers a total of $3 billion annually. This tax cut would not have been possible if Congress and the administration had not cut the Truman budget for fiscal year 1954 by $12 billion. Nor would the $2 billion tax saving by elimination of the excessprofits tax have been possible without this budget cutting. It is significant that the 52 percent income tax on corporations had to be retained. The Republican excise tax reduction law will save taxpayers nearly a billion dollars more a year by reducing the Federal tax on such every-day purchases as bus, train, and airplane tickets, household appliances, cosmetics, movie admissions, telephone calls, and telegrams. The omnibus tax revision act will not only save taxpayers $1.4 billion, of which $827 million is for individuals, but will help millions of Americans by giving them fairer tax treatment than they now receive. This is the first complete revision of the Federal tax code in 75 years. It will help parents of dependent children who work, retired persons, and widows living on retirement income, farmers active in soil and water conservation and working widows and mothers with child-care expenses, persons receiv ing sick benefits, and those burdened theory of centralized power and the matching philosophy of tax and tax, In signing the nearly 1,000-page measure, President Eisenhower said: I congratulate the Congress and its leaders for having enacted this monumental tax revision. • In addition to removing inequities in our tax system, this law will help our economy expand and thus add materially to the strength of our Nation. It will help our people produce better goods at cheaper prices and it will help to create more jobs. FARM POLICY President Eisenhower sought to replace the wartime system of high, rigid price supports for farm products with a flexible, or sliding-scale, rule. The aim was to provide leeway for the Government to encourage production of needed crops by high-support prices and to discourage surpluses of others by dropping the support level. Specifically, the proposal was for authority to support prices of five basic commodities; wheat, corn, rice, cotton, and peanuts; between 75 and 90 percent of parity. Support at 90 percent was mandatory. The House approved the flexible system but limited the range to 82.5 and 90 percent of parity for the first year. The Senate followed, five weeks later, with the same action. It is interesting to note that throughout the entire United States only 20 percent of cash receipts to the farmer come from the 5 basic commodities affected by this legislation. In Indiana only 14 percent of the farmers cash receipts are derived from wheat, corn, rice, cotton and peanuts, but, 68 percent of agricultural cash receipts come from meat animals and dairy and poultry products for which price supported feeds are an element of cost. A majority of Indiana farmers insist that the flexible system is the sensible solution to the growing problem of overproduction and costly Federal aquisition of surpluses. But President Eisenhower, his Republican administration and his Republican Congress brought a different policy to Washington-less government in business. The executive and the legislative branches are cooperating in a large-scale reduction of Federal commercial-type services and manufacturing operations, with accompanying cuts in the Federal payroll and budget. Up to now, it is estimated that the sale of the Government's commercial-type enterprises to private taxpaying owners would return as much as $40 billion to the Treasury. Specific programs where marked progress has already been made include: Sale of the Inland Waterways Corporation for $9 million. Liquidation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Sale of Bluebeard's Castle Hotel in the Virgin Islands for $410,000. This is a 48-room luxury establishment built in 1934 as a New Deal public works project. Disposal of tin and rubber facilities. Closing of a uniform factory in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Reducing paint manufacturing. Returning certain airport control Eliminating certain mapmaking activities in the highway field. Much of the exhaustive study on the problem of effectively eliminating Government competition with private enterprise has been undertaken by the House Committee on Government Operations, of which I am a member. Special credit should go to my colleague and fellow subcommittee chairman, Hon. CECIL M. HARDEN, of Indiana, whose work in this field has continued the efforts of the Bonner subcommittee, on which I served, and has attracted national attention. The President, his Cabinet, and the HEALTH AND WELFARE The heart of the President's housing program was the liberalization of FHA home mortgage loan terms and the construction of 35,000 new low-rental public-housing units every year for 4 years. Slum-clearance measures were also recommended. further to $500 at his discretion. This should provide an expanded market for new-home construction and make it possible for many veterans who have used up their GI loan privileges to trade in the equity they now have in a small house as downpayment on a larger home to meet the space requirements of expanding families. Public housing was limited to 35,000 units for a single year. While this is at the rate of construction requested by the President, some critics have stated that restricted language in the bill makes attainment of the full number of starts doubtful. Administration supporters generally believe that the omnibus housing bill will result in additional employment in the building industry, increase the numbers of low-cost housing units built by private enterprise, and tighten up the loopholes which made possible the FHA scandals of the previous administration that have come to light during the past year. The 83d Congress did liberalize the program for insurance of loans for home building and home improvement. Included in the law was the Brownson amendment, the only amendment passed by the House, which ultimately provided for reducing downpayments required on new housing from $2,000 on a $10,000 house to $700, with authorization for the President to reduce these requirements HEALTH Congress approved two major items in President Eisenhower's health program. These were bills granting Federal money to the States to help build diagnostic and treatment centers, rehabilitation facilities and nursing homes and expanding the vocational rehabilitation plan. One major proposal for health legislation was killed in the House. It was a plan to set up a $25 million Federal fund to reinsure private, voluntary health insurance policies involving exceptional risks not ordinarily covered now. This plan received support from many medium and smaller sized insurance companies and Blue Cross groups. It was opposed by the American Medical Association at the last minute. The defeat of this plan was a blow to the President from the Democrats who opposed it with an almost solid bloc of 162 votes, many from the same Congressmen who were most enthusiastic in support of the Ewing socialized medicine proposals. The bill fell under a strange crossfire. On the one side, ultraconservatives in both parties claimed it approached socialism. On the other side, New and Fair Deal Democrats spurned the Eisenhower approach as altogether too tame for them. SOCIAL SECURITY In this field, the 83d Republican Congress gave the President a victory that was in strictly human terms the most significant of his administration. Feeling that it was time the Republicans put some gold in the gold painted brick called social security. Congress allowed the rate to rise, raised the base from $3,600 to $4,200 and extended the protection of old-age pensions and survivors insurance to 10 million additional Americans. Beginning in October the 6.3 million now receiving old-age and survivors benefits will get from $5 to $13.50 more in their monthly checks. This was not a contentious issue. In the House both parties overwhelmingly approved the administration's proposal, in fact the vote was 355 to 8. Nowhere during the long discussion of this issue was there a significant and informative record vote. The 83d Congress also HIGHWAYS FOREIGN TRADE Here the Congress gave the President considerably less than he had requested. On the basis of a study made for him by a special commission headed by Clarence B. Randall, an industrialist, he had strongly appealed for a 3-year extension of a reciprocal-trade, tariff-cutting program and had asked for authority to make further tariff reductions up to 15 percent. Congress voted a 1-year extension with no additional tariff-cutting power. Part of the Atomic Energy Act permits limited exchange of atomic material and information with allies and thus becomes a foregin policy measure. A treaty of mutual defense with South Korea cleared the Senate easily. PUBLIC WORKS From the Roads Subcommittee of the House Committee on Public Works, of which I am a member, came a 2-year Federal-aid highway program authorizing $975 million annually for 1956 and 1957 to be spent in cooperation with the States. This is an increase of approximately $500 million in Federal moneys available annually to the States for road work and represents the return of virtually all of the Federal gasoline tax money to the States. New emphasis is being placed on the interstate highway system establishing a new formula of 60 percent Federal funds and 40 percent State funds. Helpful to Indiana will be the new provision that half of the funds for interstate highways will be apportioned among the States in the ratio of each State's population to the national population. ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY Herbert Hoover and every President since has favored United States participation with Canada in building on the St. Lawrence River a seaway linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. This year a bill authorizing the seaway, the cost of which to the United States is indicated in this legislation to be about $105 million, was passed by the House, 241 to 158. In the Senate the vote was 51 to 33. Although I originally supported the Dondero bill which provided for sale to private investors of seaway bonds, I opposed the Wiley bill in committee and on the floor of the House because I felt that the estimated $105 million represented only a fraction of the ultimate cost of the seaway to the taxpayers and because it seemed obvious that if the project had merit private investors would buy the bonds and eliminate this drain on the Treasury. ATOMIC ENERGY The President's request for legislation encouraging private enterprise to participate in the development of peacetime atomic power was bitterly contested by Democrats in a 13-day Senate filibuster. They predicted private monopoly of atomic power and high rates to users. But the measure, which also authorizes fuller international cooperation in atomic-energy matters, was passed by both Houses. ANTISUBVERSION Passage of legislation to outlaw the Communist Party, to grant witness immunity, to make peacetime espionage and sabotage punishable by death, and to provide for citizenship forfeiture, was enacted in the closing days of the 83d Congress. The President's request that evidence secured through wiretapping be made admissible passed the House and died in the Senate. The bill outlawing the Communist Party declares as "findings of fact" that the Communist Party is an "instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow" the Government and is "the agency of a hostile foreign power." This bill also deprives the party of "the rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof." Under this provision the Communist Party would be prohibited from holding bank accounts, obtaining enforcements of contracts in the court, or filing candidates for public office. is on a membership list, has contributed money to the party, has written, spoken, or otherwise carried out its orders, or indicated willingness to carry out its purposes. The anti-Communist bill also makes anyone "knowingly or willfully" a party member "subject to all the provisions and penalties of the Internal Security Act of 1950 as a member of a 'Communistaction' organization." In other words the new bill would require that party members must now register individually, regardless of whether the party itself ultimately registers. This legislation also provides that in determining whether a person is a Communist Party member, juries shall consider evidence under 14 headings including whether he The economic program being enacted by the present Congress marks a milestone in constructive legislation. It will help to reduce unemployment and to stimulate enter prise and development in all directions. Do you remember 1952? That was the year when they told us, "You never had it so good." President Eisenhower comparing the first half of 1954 with the same period in 1952, President Truman's last year in office, said he found industrial production up 3.3 percent, the gross national production up 4.4 percent; nonagricultural employment up 1.1 percent; personal incomes up 7.2 percent; disposable personal income up 8.8 percent, per capita disposable income up 5.3 percent, and bank debits outside New York City up 10.2 percent. The daring young men who came to Washington with President Roosevelt are old and tired and disillusioned now. All they can predict for the future of their great country is doom, disaster, and depression. They insist on campaigning again and again on the basis of a depression they were unable to lick until |