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Show HomE Toiun IN WASHINGTON 3ff i Tax Controversy REPUBLICAN leaders are jubilant in declaring that President Truman signed his political death warrant by his veto of the Knutson-Taft tax reduction bill. On the Democratic side, leaders point to the President's courage and sound government jisz ' 11,1 finance policy and to the "inequalities" "inequali-ties" in the tax bill, asserting that any saving to taxpayers in the low income brackets would have been more than offset by the rent Increase In-crease bill. Non-partisan appraisers point to four mistakes the GOP leadership made as at least partially respon-lible respon-lible for the tax reduction impasse: First, failure to set a ceiling on government spending as required re-quired by law; second, using "political face-saving devices" to force through the tax bill to keep campaign promises; third, seeking to make the tax cut retroactive re-troactive to January 1, 1947, and finally, after five months' delay, compromising on July 1, 1947, when they were assured Democrats Demo-crats would go along and the President would sign a tax cut bill effective January 1, 1948. Only the 1948 elections will determine de-termine whether tax reduction is an effective campaign issue. , Farmers Home administration has applications from some 30,000 World War II veterans for purchase pur-chase of farms. Action of the bouse nullified that section of the GJ. bill of rights by withdrawing funds, thus suspending the government's gov-ernment's declared policy. Another Fight Looms Indications now are that the fight between TVA and the fertilizer industry in-dustry will measure up almost in intensity to the fight private utilities made against this government enterprise. en-terprise. TVA won out against the powerful utilities. The fertilizer industry in-dustry is not nearly as powerful, so indications are that TVA will win again and provide low-priced fertilizer, fertil-izer, which may or may not be a yardstick for measuring private industry in-dustry prices on fertilizer. About half of the small cities and towns which hoped to get federal aid for airports and airparks under the federal aid airport program will be disappointed. disap-pointed. The reason: Congress cut 50 per cent of the appropriation appropria-tion which had been set up by tb Wst congress. Municipal government officials in hundreds of small towns and other units of government are interested in the Hinshaw bill, which seeks to clarify authority of the securities exchange ex-change commission by placing public pub-lic bond issues outside jurisdiction of the SEC. At least some good news no more tax on general admission to county or farm fairs, but still admission tax to amusement 1 enterprises. Sympathetic Chord AOU may disagree with every-1 every-1 thing Henry Wallace says. You may call him a crack-pot, an idealist, ideal-ist, a Communist or whatever comes to your tongue. But 10,000 people don't pay up to $3.50 each, Q . as they did here In l 'W Washington, and f pf, then make a dona- lfiF tion of $8,000 just to NKVfc hear a political afSfT speech. Neither do V ?1 200,000 people in oth- fAf er sections of the . .vj nation. What is it V 1 then? Can It be that people today are worried and confused and that the one Idea in their minds and hearts Is peace and sccu-rltyT sccu-rltyT Is that the sympathetic chord which draws people to pay to hear this man make his plea for world peace? Soil Bankrupt Sen. Lister Hill of Alabama says farmers of the nation today are facing fac-ing soil bankruptcy. Battling the fertilizer lobby, Ed O'Neal, American Ameri-can Farm Bureau federation president, presi-dent, declares senate bill 1251 will increase production of high analysis fertilizer. O'Neal says farmers now buy five pounds of filler to get a pound of plant food and that plant food must be stepped up to at least double present content, to save on labor la-bor and transportation costs. |