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Show more noticeable desire on the pa it of employers to settle their differences differ-ences without interference with defense de-fense production. But outbreaks of new major strikes continue to threaten and many congressmen are still in a mood to vote for leD-islation leD-islation curbing strikes. They fee that the majority of voters would be behind them in backing sucn legislation. jj IN Washington HOTTKST POTATO OK ALL The hottest of the hot potatoes which congress has had to handle in the past few months- that of defense taxes has now been tossed toss-ed into Its lap. Problems of voting billions for defense, unlimited powers to the president and all-out aid to England, Eng-land, although of more world-shaking world-shaking importance, have been comparatively easy to handle because be-cause the people were clearly behind be-hind those measures. But reaching reach-ing into the public's pocketbook without being charged with playing play-ing favorites has always been practically prac-tically Impossible. And now congress con-gress must reach deeper into our pockets than it has ever reached before. dltional $3,500,000,000 by taxes. The treasury department has estimated that present taxes will bring in approximately $9,000,-000,000 $9,000,-000,000 during the fiscal year beginning be-ginning July 1. The committee hopes to comply with the treasury department's wishes by increasing tax income so that it will pay two-thirds two-thirds of our $19,000,000,000 estimated es-timated expenditures during the coming fiscal year. The other one-third one-third will be met by borrowing. Many suggestions for increased taxes already have been made, which include: a 33 per cent increase in-crease on all present taxes; an increase in-crease on the present lowest tax rate from 4 to 8 per cent and working out a higher scale for other tax brackets; raising additional addi-tional revenue by a general sales tax; lowering present exemptions; increasing present taxes on liquor, tobacco and gasoline; wiping out the 10 per cent credit now allowed allow-ed for "earned income"; curbs on present deductions; and combinations combina-tions of all these plans. It is the opinion of some congressmen con-gressmen that taxes should be increased in-creased enough to bring in more than two-thirds of the treasury's expected obligations in order to put defense on a pay-as-you-go I'robably the final decision on what those taxes will be will take two months or so to work out and no matter what Is proposed some groups will be penalized more than others. The house ways and means committee, which must make tax recommendations, has come to no conclusions yet except that it will aim at raising an ad- i is such a basic product in industry, indus-try, he decided to fix prices in order or-der to prevent price rises in other lines of business. There is some question over the legality of Mr. Henderson's right to fix prices and his action is expected ex-pected to lead to a court test of the extent of his authority. Other business leaders argue that if price fixing is apt to follow wage rises, this possibility will stand in the way of quick settlement settle-ment of other threatened strikes. On the whole, the labor situation situa-tion has improved and there is a basis, but it is noi expecieu wui congress will finally vote any more taxes than are specifically requested request-ed by the treasury department. It is the general opinion here, however, how-ever, that people in the $2,000 to $10,000 class should plan to pay at least twice as much tax next year as they paid this year and that millions who paid no tax this year will be called upon to pay something. DRAFT AMENDMENTS Amendments to the- selective service act are predicted for the near future which will include all or any of these three changes: (1) reducing the minimum age from 21 to 18, which would make about i, 500, 000 more men eligible; (2) decreasing the maximum age limit, lim-it, since so many men over 30 have physical defects; (3) continuing the training of present draftees for longer than the present one-year limit. President Roosevelt has hinted his approval of reducing the minimum mini-mum age limit to 18 and the maximum maxi-mum limit to 25, but no changes will be made until further study has been conducted of the 400,-0 400,-0 00 draftees now in camp and the 4,000,000 which already have been classified. So far almost 40 per cent of registrants have been rejected re-jected for physical defects. A plan for drafting leading business executives for jobs in the defense program has been proposed propos-ed by Representative Johnson of Texas in order to assure the government gov-ernment of the nation's best managerial man-agerial brains. His bill would require re-quire key men In industry to accept ac-cept government jobs if so ordered. STEEL PRICES Many business men are indignant indig-nant over what they consider a high-handed and unwise action of the government in freezing steel prices following the granting of increased wages by the steel Industry. In-dustry. This was done by the new Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply, whose head, Leon Henderson, said, that he did not think the increased wages justified justi-fied increased prices. Since steel |