OCR Text |
Show Your Congressman by Henry aldous Dixon HIGHWAYS: One of the items of Interest to the people of the West, and especially es-pecially to the people in Utah is highways. That is the reason that the Utah delegation has watched closely the legislation on highways high-ways during the 84th session of Congress. Highway legislation in this session has taken two opposing points of view, one from the president, the other from the Democratic majority In Congress. Several months ago President Eisenhower appointed a commission, commis-sion, under the direction of General Gen-eral Clay, to investigate the national na-tional picture on highways and to come up with concrete suggestions sug-gestions on how to meet the growing need for highways in our fast moving world. This report re-port was submitted during the early weeks of the present ses sion of Congress, and It is the basis of the Administration's bill on highways. The Democratic Democra-tic majority in Congress also came up with a bill of their own on highway construction, and it has been this bill, the so-called Gore Bill, that has been heard by committees. The basic difference between the bills is in the financing of the road program. The President favors a vast highway building program to be paid for by the is suance of bonds. The Gore bill calls for a more limited highway program to be financed by Increasing In-creasing the tax on gasoline, die sel fuel oil, truck tires and other "user" taxes. Currently the bill is booked down in the House Public Works Committee, where the committee cannot agree on how to finance the program. The bill was referred refer-red back to the sub-committee this week, with instructions to bring it out next week with some plan for paying for the proposed roads. Rep. Dondern (R-Mich.), the ranking member of the committee, commit-tee, has been quoted as saying that if the bill comes out without a bond financing plan, or without with-out specific methods of paying for the plan contained in the bill ... it will be vetoed. DIRECT VETERANS LOANS EXTENDED: The Veterans Administration direct loan program for World War II and Korean conflict veterans vet-erans who live in areas where private G.I. loan financing is not available, have been extended for two years and broadened under un-der a law signed by the President on June 22. The new law will permit a veteran to get a VA direct loan to buy a farm with farmhouse which he intends to occuply as his home or to alter, improve or repair a home. Previously, a VA direct loan could be used only to purchase or construct a home or to construct or Improve a farmhouse. farm-house. The new law also permits eligible eli-gible veterans who have used a portion of VA guaranteed loan benefits to use their remaining entitlement to obtain a VA direct di-rect loan. |