Show Report From Washington By Rep Laurence Jo Ja Burton the first of oC the Congress is now history It is too early for an objective analysis sis of Its successes and fall ures notwithstanding the fact that ev every ry pundit In the country has tried his hand at it it Some say ay the Congress should be faulted because it it failed to support the President in all of his legislative goals while others are critical because the I Congress went along with the theas President as mu much h as It did Like the old saying goes It depends on whose ox Is getting gored One thing is certain the record of this Congress will be betha bethe the tha subject Sl of longn partisan and heated discussion during the Important election camp camp- alga that is about to begin And like most such discussions there will be n a lot of blarney mixed In with the truth This is what the Congress did didor didor or did not do In 1967 together with my personal observations on several of the decisions made The Tax Increase The House Ways and Means Committee chaired by Wilbur Mills D came away from hearings unconvinced that a tax hike Is needed Instead Mr Mills and a majority of his col leagues lea ues told the President that the best way to get the federal budget into balance is to reduce spending This is a point Of f fI view that I share The matter I still Is not resolved however II and further consideration will willbe willbe be iven to the ta tax increase proposal when the Congress reo re convenes in in January If a tax In Increase rease is needed as the President and his advisers insist it seems only fair to me that those In Congress who vot vot- vot voted ed down the line Jine for the new spending spendin measures that ar are the cause of of the the big budget deficit now vote to support higher tax tax- taxes ES E'S to take care of It It But in- in interestingly interestingly enough many of the people who supported the costly new programs are the same ones who now refuse to vote for the tax increase In other words they want the programs but they haven't the courage to insist that the vet vot ers ems pay for them Foreign Aid Ald A new foreign aid bill was passed but with the lowest appropriation ever 23 billion Hooray Im I'm only sorry that it wasn't cut more The whole program in my opinion needs need to be ed and mu much h of it scrapped Too much of our foreign aid money has simply been thrown away Firearms Control No lye Ive action taken yet although hills bills for this purpose have been en approved by bv subcommittees of both the House and Senate Tremendous pressure is being applied to get approval of leg of this type I am op- op opposed op posed to these bills because I Ido Ido do not believe be will keep firearms out of the hands ot of criminals On the contrary they will only help render the House The same is true of the clean elections bill The campaign n subsidies bill was repealed No civil rights action was was approved vea This The Senate fa fail l ed to act on a anti fiot bill The Congress returns to the battlefield batlle on January 15 fol lowing the Christmas and New Years Year's tr l truce e victims defenseless and create vexatious hardships for law v abiding sportsmen Crime Control A weak but better than nothing crime con bill was passed by the House It Is still pending on the Senate side School Aid Extension An appropriation of 92 billion was authorized for aid to ele and s condary than tion I supported the measure Social Security Benefits A 13 per cent hike In Social Security ity fits benefits was enacted This means higher payroll taxes Because of Inflation an in in- in increase crease was necessary Poverty Program The Con Con- Congress gress voted 1773 billion for extension of the War on Poverty This is considerably less than the Administration requested Congressional Ethics The House refused to seat Adam Clayton Powell the Senate cen cen- cen censured Thomas Dodd Com Com- Committees are at work on a much much- needed code of ethics Items At Random The fol lowing additional pieces of leg leg- legislation were enacted an in in- in investment vestment credit bill a mea rnea- sure to end the wide nationwide rail strike extension of the draft clean meat and clean air bills a federal and military pay raise and a postal rate Increase The Senate ratified the Soviet Consular Treaty and the Outer Space Treaty Some items that didn't get passed in the 1st session No action was taken on the merger of the Commerce and Labor De- De Departments Departments and the West East trade agreements The Truth Lending In-Lending bill p passed the Sen- Sen Senate Senate ate is still pending in the |