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Show by JameS Preston Typical of Washington is the way in which tax measures designed design-ed to raise added revenues for defense, de-fense, which seemed to be going along as swimmingly as could.be expected, have come a cropper In the last week or so. And the reason rea-son for all this is as curious as it is unfortunate. The progress of the new tax bill was upset by the injection into the house ways and means committee of highly controversial material coming directly from the adminis- tration as "must" legislation. Included among the "musts" listed by the administration were even stiffer levies on industry, which was already heavily taxed and in line to be taxed still more heavily under the terms of the original ori-ginal measure. It is believed by many who ought to know, these steps would have a disastrous effect ef-fect upon many business concerns, included in that category being some of the most enterprising. Actually, the gist of the matter is this: Extensive hearings had been held in committee on the proposed new tax legislation. Experts from many fields had the opportunity to present their case. Then suddenly, sud-denly, after a bill had been drafted draft-ed on the basis of all this discussion, discus-sion, the White House "musts" were tossed into the situation like eggs into a revolving fan. In other words, the introduction of the tax "musts" was a last-minute last-minute thought or lack of it. Meanwhile, the taxpayer awaits a decision and wonders what his fate will be. A congressional committee, in reporting a new army appropriation appropria-tion bill, is quoted as declaring that among those who deserve congressional con-gressional thanks are "our peerless peer-less industrialists and those of their work forces who have responded re-sponded magnificently" to the needs of defense. This startled one Southern editor edi-tor to the extent that he sat down and wrote the following comment: "One can almost see the embattled embat-tled business leaders, rising warily war-ily to inquire, 'What dat sed who dat?' One can forgive them their natural suspicions. But it may be a good sign. There may actually be a change of heart high in administration ad-ministration centers." Of course the editor in question expressed that hope before the above-mentioned tax bill changes were suggested by the administration. administra-tion. If he had had the opportunity opportun-ity to observe the short-notice at- Rep. A: "I respectfully submit that, outside of California, there is not a single plant west of the Mississippi river. It seems that the Mississippi river is the dividing divid-ing line." Rep. B: "The gentleman is in er-j ror because many of them go to Chicago." Rep. C: "Chicago is not west of the Mississippi river, may I inform the gentleman . ." With all the talk about "gasless Sundays" that is now being heard, this might be a good time to re-j member the wry comment being credited here to newspapers in one foreign city that is under totalitarian totali-tarian domination. These ism-fearing papers are reported as saying that the height of luxury in their country is to "spill a drop of oil and wipe away the spot with gasoline." tempt to reverse carefully studied legislation, one wonders whether his comment on the general situation situa-tion would have been quite so optimistic! op-timistic! Washington Sidelights: You've all heard of sectionalism in politics. poli-tics. It is frequently a dangerous force, destructive of what is good for the nation as a whole. But in the following congressional exchange ex-change among three members (who shall be identified here only as Congressmen A, B, and C) it was merely comic. The subject is location of new defense plants: |