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Show Congressman Vm. Dawson Reports SUMMING UP ... As I write this Congress is preparing prepar-ing to adjourn and the time for summing up the record of the past two years is at hand. It is particularly hard to make any general statements about this Congress principally because be-cause its leadership reversed field and changed goals in mid-session. mid-session. Any unbiased person comparing the actions of Congress Con-gress during the first session with those of the session just ended would have a tough time believing it was composed of the same men. FIRST SESSION . . . Economy Econ-omy and budget slashing were the watchwords last year. Generally Gen-erally speaking, those of us in favor of reduced government spending welcomed support from those who, in the past, were the free-spenders. How ever, when the spenders-tum-ed-misers cut $2.6 billion from the amount the President requested re-quested for Defense we felt they had gone too far. The economy bloc in Congress found ourselves in the strange position of trying to increase appropriations for Defense by $313 million and being voted down by the spenders. This was three months before Sputnik, Sput-nik, by the way, and the $313 million we were seeking was for missile research and development. de-velopment. SECOND SESSION . . . This past session we have been confronted con-fronted with some of the wildest wild-est spending schemes ever proposed. pro-posed. By May of this year, the spenders exhibiting what they called a "sense of urgency" ur-gency" had introduced legislation legisla-tion which if approved would have added $42 billion to the deficit this year alone. That is the staggering sum of $3088 for every working man and ivoman in the United States. We have battled this spending still, Congress finally passed a farm program that is very close to the one he has been trying to get for four years. OUR GAINS . . . Utah has faired well. There has been $103.4 million appropriated for the Upper Colorado project $68.3 million to be spent this year, including funds to start the Vernal unit of the all-important Central Utah project. Legislation I sponsored to permit per-mit the state to get mineral lands for its public schools could add millions to school funds as our mineral wealth is developed. Two of the first four small water projects will spree with all our might ana have had a good deal of success. suc-cess. Congress did, however, increase the budget of every department of government over the amount the President requested re-quested and next year we will have a deficit of at least $12 billion. GOOD WORK . . . There are some solid accomplishments not directly involving appropriations. approp-riations. We managed to give the President just about the Defense Department reorganization reorgani-zation he wanted. After battling batt-ling Secretary of Agriculture Benson's enemies to a stand- be built in Utah. Our national parks and monuments are better bet-ter provided for than ever before be-fore in history. THE TOTAL . . . That is briefly the record of the 85th Congress as I see it. On issues is-sues of a local nature, we were very successful. Much good general legislation was passed. We managed to ward off most -of the wildest spending schemes schem-es but we lost some significant battles. The major defect is the failure of the leadership of the House and Senate to present Congress with any adequate ade-quate legislation to protect union members and the public from racketeers and unscrupulous unscrupu-lous union bosses. |