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Show quences that can result from the passage of HR8232 ... increased in-creased inflation and higher living costs, Federal domination domina-tion of state systems, and unheard un-heard of benefits that will increase, in-crease, not decrease, unemployment, unem-ployment, the bill will die. BENEFIT OR BONANZA ? By Washington News Service "If it passes, the unemployment-compensation bill now before Congress will cost additional billions, encroach en-croach on the states' traditional rights, and bring us all a step nearer to the complete welfare state." So say Earl and Ann Selby, writing in the February issue of The Readers Digest about H.R. 8282, officially entitled "Unemployment Compensation Act Amendments." Is the bill all that bad? To answer that question one must look back to the New Deal days when the Federal Government first moved into the field of unemployment compensation. At that time few states had enacted unemployment insurance laws despite the fact that the nation was deep in the throes of depression and unemployment. In order to remedy that situation without putting the Federal Government into the unemployment insurance field. Congress Con-gress enacted a law designed to encourage the individual states to set up U C systems of their own. The first Federal Unemployment Compensation Act imposed a 3.1 tax on employers to be applied to the first $3,000 of each employee's earnings. The entire tax would be paid directly to the Federal Government UNLESS UN-LESS the state in which the employer was located had its own system of unemployment insurance. In that case the employer would be permitted to deduct 2.7 of the 3.1 which he would pay into the state system, with the remaining .4 going to Washington to cover administrative admin-istrative costs. The idea was successful. Employers, preferring to do business with their own states rather than get them-' them-' selves involved in the inevitable red tape that always goes hand-in-hand with Federal programs, encouraged their states to set up their, own systems. ..All the states of course ,to help those who are temporarily unemployed through no fault of their own. Through its provision, HR 8282 would make just about anyone eligible for benefits. And what benefits they will be! The Digest article quotes estimates that range as high as $125.00 per week for periods that could last as long as a year and a half . . . certainly 9mall encouragement to the unemployed un-employed to secK new jobs during that long stretch of time. The bill is drafted in a clever manner. It doesn't come out and do these things openly. Instead, In-stead, it sets up standards with which the states must either comply or else suffer severe penalties in taxation, assuring that compliance will result. Thus the bill's supporters support-ers can claim that the states have a choice while, in fact, the choice is little more than death by hanging or death by a firing squad. Objective observers see little lit-tle reason for monkeying with a successful system of state unemployment un-employment compensation programs. pro-grams. They see even less reason rea-son for remaking these programs pro-grams into what can only prove to be a bonanza for the few and a massive headache for the many. The bill will be coming up for action in the Congress in this session. It may well provide pro-vide one of the hottest fights of this Congerssional election year. How it will turn out will depend on whether or not the bill's backers can succeed in stifling opposition on the doubtful grounds that to oppose op-pose this bill is to be against the unemployed. If the public pub-lic swallows that whole the bill will pass. If, however, the public understands un-derstands the unhappy conse- (Editors Note: A summary of HR8282 shows that it would: 1. Establish a permanent system of Federal extended benefits; 2. More than double the wage base on which the unemployment un-employment payroll tax is levied and would also increase in-crease the tax rate; 3. Set the stage for the abandonment of experience rating; 4. Establish Federal benefit bene-fit standards that would disrupt dis-rupt state laws and dictate benefit levels; 5. Force all states (after a maximum of six weeks' postponement) to pay regular benefits to people who quit their jobs voluntarily, who are fired for misconduct, or who refuse suitable jobs; 6. Provide Federal grants to encourage state spending for benefit liberalization. These proposed changes would federalize the effecive-would effecive-would federalize the effectively effective-ly operating state unemployment unemploy-ment compensation systems. The added burden on the industrial community would hinder its ability to provide the necessary economic growth In fact, rather than sustain jobs ,it could destroy de-stroy them. eventually complied, and from that point forward the system worked, and continues to work, outstandingly well. Now comes H R 8282, which proposes to set up a whole new program designed, for all intents and purposes, to give the Federal Government Govern-ment virtual control over all unemployment compensation compensa-tion systems and radically altering existing set-up. The purpose of the bill, however, is not exactly clear. As already al-ready stated, the present system sys-tem Is working very well indeed in-deed and cetrainly appears to need no drastic change. To begin with it raises the tax and, more important, raises the wage base from the first $3,000 of an employee's earnings earn-ings to the first $6,600 of earnings earn-ings by 1970, more than double the present scale. All in all, it has been estimated that the cost of this increase in payroll taxes alone will be in the neighborhood of 60. And since this cost is paid by employers em-ployers alone, with no payroll deductions from the employee's wages ,it is the buying public who will eventually pay the bill for the increased costs of goods and services provided by the nation's employers. Opponents Op-ponents of the bill point out that this feature alone should make Congress hesitate to pass it in a time of rising inflation and rocketing costs of living. The bill would also meddle with the present system of "experience "ex-perience rating" credits now allowed to employers with steady employment records. In brief, this provision would probably abolish experience rating and with it an employer's employ-er's incentive to maintain steady employment records and an interest in policing phony claims by former employees a feature which has cut down fraud against the system to a bare minimum. Moreover, the bill would alter the present reason for the very existence of unemployment unem-ployment insurance which is, |