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Show The Administration contends that, the 140,000 new public housing units authorized by the House bill would cost $3.7 billion, raising the bill's total to $5.8 billion, and "could at best house no one for several years to come." Under the Senate bill, 45,000 new units would be authorized at an estimated cost of $874, 500,000. Opponents pointed ou that 110,-of 110,-of the. 810,000 units previously authorized have not yet been built, and that this backlog should more than meet the demands of the most ardent public housing advocates. Rep. Herlong asserted that present pre-sent authorizations would "keep ' ' us busy for three years" and approval of any additional ones at this time would be superfluous. But the House rejected, 91 to 175, a motion by Rep. Colmer (D. Miss.) to eliminate public hous -ing authorization from the measure. It voted, 222 to 201, however, for an amendment by Rep. Thomas (D.Tex.) slamming the door against any further "back door" financing of housing projects through the Treasury. As explained by Rep. Smith (D-Va.), the bill (without the amendment) "completely abdicates abdi-cates the functions of Congress and the Constitution of the United Uni-ted States and says that the President Pres-ident can authorize expenditures in an unlimited amount by simply going to the Secretary of the Treasury Trea-sury and handing him a note." Senator Robertson (D.-Va.)has estimated that this type of borrowing borrow-ing from the Treasury has totalled more than $143 billion since it was started in 1932. Members of the economy bloc have strongly urged that the practice be stopped. No Comment by James W. Douthat Washington, D. C May 27 The battle between President Eisenhower and the big spenders in Congress "is approaching the showdown stage.. Specifically at issue is the fate of housing legislation, but tied up in the whirling controversy contro-versy is the all-important question of whether the nation is to have a balanced budget or is to continue con-tinue inflation-stimulating deficit financing. An opportunity also is presented pre-sented for checking the current practice of massive government spending by by -passing Congressional Congress-ional Appropriations Committees and borrowing directly from the Treasury. This method of "back door" financing was prohibited by the House in passing a $2.1 billion (exclusive of public housing) housing bill, an amount considerably consid-erably in excess of the $1.3 bil-- bil-- lion program supported by the Eisenhower Administration and by a coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats. The $1.3 billion "proposal, offered of-fered by Rep. Herlong (D.Fla.), was turned down by a vote of 117 to 203. It proposed no new public housing construction. Administration supporters predicted that a presidential veto faces whatever housing legislation finally emerges from Congress. Mr. Eisenhower is represented as being deeply serious in opposing op-posing what he regards as unessential un-essential spending. He is said to be ready to veto any legislation, including housing, airport and school construction and aid to - depressed areas which would throw his budget out of balance It is certain, unless a substantial substan-tial number of House Members reverse themselves, that a veto of housing legislation cannot be overriden by the required two-thirds two-thirds of both the House and the Senate. The $2.1 billion measure was passed by the House, 261 to 160. That is 20 less than two-thirds. A House Senate Conference Committee will now seek to reconcile re-concile differences between the House -passed bill and a $2.7 billion bil-lion (again exclusive of public housing) measure previously approved, ap-proved, 60 to 28, by the Senate. |