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Show Democratic Advisor Council Diagnoses Republican Failings islation, similar to that vetoed by the President after the 85th Congress had adjourned and which passed the Senate last month by a narrow margin, with the Democrats voting almost 3 Editor's Note: Following is the second in a series of two articles arti-cles by the Democratic National Advisory Council, The first appeared ap-peared last week, President Eisenhower insists that we can save ourselves from inflation at home and from the , challenges of hostile govern ments abroad by spending less. This means that we should try to save ourselves by doing less. Such counsel points the way to disaster. And disaster, at home, is now being suffered by the unemployed un-employed and their families. The Democratic Party does not believe in spending for its own ment of the Free World. Legislative programs to meet these urgent needs must be enacted. en-acted. We recognize that many of them will meet with the opposition op-position of leaders of the executive execu-tive branch of the government and that of their counterparts in he legislative branch. Some needd programs may be blocked by this combined opposition. But this expectation should not deter forward looking Democrats from pressing ahead with the policies and programs so overwhelmingly overwhelming-ly endorsed , by the American people last year. In the interim, we must meet tirement benefits to a realistic level which will reflect today's living costs.' A sound, national unemployment unemploy-ment compensation program is critically important and urgently needed today but in the longer run, it should be regarded as a palliative, not a solution. Healthy expanding economy, sufficient ! to meet our national and inter-ntaional inter-ntaional needs and responsibili-, ties is the true solution to the unemployment problem and to i most of our other problems as well. ! to 1 in favor and the Republicans Republi-cans voting over 7 to 1 against. Once more we are witnessing callous Republican indifference to the suffering and needs of people, who, through no fault of their own, are unable to obtain jobs. We support the immediate increase in-crease of the national minimum wage to at least $1.25 per hour with a realistic broadening of the coverage provided under it to include more than 10 million additional workers. We aso favor an increase in social security and railroad re- our responsibility as a nation to the individual unemployed. Approximately Ap-proximately 2,000,000 persons have already exhausted both state unemployment benefits and the temporary extension voted by Congress in 1958, or are not covered by such benefit programs. pro-grams. The Department of Labor sake but we know that a nation which is doing too little is not spending too much. We are not doing enough when millions , of Americans cannot find work, and when the billions dollars of goods and services they could produce are being permanently lost to our country. estimates that almost 200,000 more will exhaust their state unemployment un-employment . benefits in each month from April through October. Octo-ber. To meet this problem, therefore, there-fore, requires, at the very least, the continuation in full for another an-other year of the temporary extension ex-tension of unemployment compensation com-pensation benefits, as enacted in 1958, and its application to those not covered by existing state unemployment compensation organizations. or-ganizations. The proposal to close out this program by providing provid-ing benefits for a short period only for those who have already exhausted their state benefits does not even meet this most minimum of requirements. The temporary extension of unemployment benefits is not, however, the full answer to the individual problem. As our experience ex-perience of the past year graphically graph-ically demonstrated, state unemployment unem-ployment compensation systems are woefully inadequate, both in We are not doing enough when our children have inadequate schools, when thirteen million American families are living in sub-standard housing and when many American men and women are undernourished and when many more have too little or no medical or hospital care available avail-able to them. We are not doing enough when scores of American communities are scarred by spreading slum areas, and woefully over-loaded public and private services in transportation, waste disposal, and air pollution. We are not doing enough when our natural resources are being I insufficiently developed and insufficiently in-sufficiently protected from private pri-vate exploitation. ' And, we certainly are not doing do-ing enough when our nation's military defenses are in jeopardy and when we are failing to meet our international responsibilities and our own self interest in promoting pro-moting the economic develop- the duration and in the amount of the benefits which they provide. pro-vide. It took a Republican recession reces-sion to demonstrate vividly how far we have gone backward in the matter of unemployment compensation. In relation to current prices, wage levels, and living standards many states today provide smaller small-er unemployment compensation benefits than were provided 20 years ago. In a period when business profits are immeasure-i ably greater than they were in the 1930's, the contributions required re-quired from employers to finance unemployment compensation are only a fraction of those which were required when the systems were first established, under the force of federal law. Those few states which have sought to meet their responsibilities in this area have been placed at a disadvantage disadvan-tage by the refusal of other states to do likewise. What is called for here is the reestablishment of the system of unemployment insurance in its intended role as protector of the unemployed and stabilizer of the economy! The federal congress in 1959 should follow through on the principle first established in 1936 and condition the exemption exemp-tion of employers from the tax provisions of the federal unemployment unem-ployment tax act upon the provision pro-vision by the states of adequate unemployment benefits. Such a program, as contained in bills already introduced in the Senate and in the House would cost not one cent in federal appropriations. appropria-tions. We also again urge the enactment enact-ment of area redevelopment leg- |