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Show balance by the amount voted by Congress. And his balanced budget is based on the amount he recommended recom-mended for these activities. Actually, there is considerable sentiment in Congress against providing pro-viding any Federal funds for these purposes ; on the ground that they are local activities which should be handled at the local level by people more familiar with the problems than Washington bureaucrats bureau-crats . NO COMMENT By: James W. Douthat Washington, D.C., May 6th-Economy 6th-Economy forces in Washington were heartened by the congressional congress-ional action sustaining President Eisenhower's veto of the Rural Electrification Administration bill. .They regarded it as a highly significant indication that Mr. Eisenhower will be able, by use of his veto power, to kill legislative legis-lative proposals for irresponsible spending which might be approved by the Senate and the House. A death by veto also was generally gen-erally believed to be in store for other types of drastic legislation legis-lation which might run the congressional con-gressional gauntlet over Administration Admin-istration objections. Thus far, Mr. Eisenhower has vetoed 138 bills passed by Congress Con-gress since he entered the White House, and not once has his veto been overridden by the required two-thirds vote of both the Senate I and the House. His RE A victory was by the I narrowest margin to date. The Senate voted, 64 to 29, to over s' ride. This was two more than the required two thirds. But the I House vote was 280 to 146 four short of two-thirds and Mr. 1 Eisenhower's action was sus- tained. The controversy over the REA measure, which would have de- prived Secretary of Agriculture Benson of his present authority to approve or disapprove loans j made by the REA Administrator, jj was considered relatively unim- portant in itself. It was generally recognized t as a political attack on Secretary , Benson and nothing more. I But the vote was looked upon as an all -important test between President Eisenhower and the New Dealers in Congress, and as a possible signal to the fate of leg- islation providing federal aid for S airport and housing construction and for economically depressed areas. What happens to these mea- i sures also could affect the future of a variety 'of other legislative j proposals. Knowledge that a bill would ! be vetoed by the President, and that the veto likely could not be overturned, might prove a powerful power-ful restraining influence on Con- gressional Leaders and on sup porters of drastic legislation. The voice of the people from the "grass roots" also is a strong deterrent to unwise legislation, and this is being given credit in Washington for House action cutting cut-ting some of the spending proposals pro-posals approved by the Senate. For airports, housing and depressed de-pressed areas the Senate voted for considerably larger amounts than proposed by the Administration. Administra-tion. But immediately the economy campaign pushed by the Administration, Admin-istration, by conservatives in Congress Con-gress and by industry began to take effect and many people back home strongly urged their Representatives Rep-resentatives and Senators to oppose op-pose unessential government spending. Then, in each case, the amount was considerably lowered by either the House or by a House Committee. Com-mittee. A veto threat definitely hovers over each of these measures, a threat which may be executed if Mr. Eisenhower's $77 billion budget would be thrown out of |