Wasted Words

For six days last week the House of Representatives debated the $258,000,000 revenue bill of 1934. But all its words were wasted inasmuch as it had adopted a rule forbidding all amendments except those offered by the Ways & Means Committee which wrote the bill.

There was a single chance to alter the bill--by voting to send it back to the Committee with instructions to write in one change. Republicans could think of no better change than to reduce first class postage rates from 3-c- to 2-c- at a cost of $75,000,000 a year to the Treasury. On this vote they were beaten 271-to-133. Thus for a full working week hamstrung Representatives argued the Committee's plans for rearranging nominal and surtax rates; for a 10% tax reduction on earned incomes up to $8,000; for a new system of calculating capital gains and losses; for placing a 35% tax on the undivided earnings of personal holding companies; for raising the penalty tax on consolidated corporate returns from 1% to 2%. When they had talked themselves dry without changing a line in the Committee draft, 390 Representatives voted "yea," seven lone Republicans cried "no." The bill was passed on to the Senate. When weeks or months hence it is returned to the House for concurrence, few Representatives will be able to recognize the bill they approved last week with such tender care.

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