The Cordova daily times., 1920-11-20
NOVEMBER 20, 1920.
CONGRESS TO SOON MEET

The next session of congress, which meets December 6, and which will be the last and third session of the siXty-siXth congress, will last only until the inauguration of the new president, March 1, next, when the session will expire by limitation of law Including the Christmas holidays, which nearly always last ten days, the next session will have less than 70 working days. It will time that the December session will not be able to enact much legisla- tion. It will do well to pass the fourteen big annual appropriation bill. and adjourn in time for the presidential inauguration.
 There is another thing, besides lack of time. which will prevent much, ii any, new legislation in the December session. As a new con gress and a new president will take the helm after March f there will be a general desire on the part of all congressman to defer important legislation until the new president makes his desires known, and until the new members of congress, ot which there will be many, can par ticipate in national legislation.
 The first session of the siXty-seV' enth congress will be a special ses- sion called by the new president soon after his inauguration next March. This session will last long time, and may even run into the regular December session of con- gress, 1921. At this special session all the vast reconstruction problems of the new administration will have to be considered and solved, and it will take months to do that. The last session of congress did not really have time to grapple with re- construction problems and neither will the December session. Recon struction will be affected in the special session of the new congress. These problems are as gigantic and important as those which confronted the federal government at the begin ning of the world war.
 Though the December session will not have time to take up the proD- lems of government, nevertheless there are two matters of legislation besides the appropriation bills. which that session will endeavor to put through. One of them is revision Of the tax laws, and some sort of relief from the housing situation which has grown serious in nearly every urban community in the whole country.
 An effort will be made in Decem- Der to completely revise the income tax laws, but because of the lack Of time in that session, it is doubtful If any new tax Dlll Cdu De eHdCIeu into law. Both Democratic and Re- publican leaders are very anxious to have the tax laws, particularly the income tax, revised from top to bot tom. Needless to say every citizen concurs in this desire, for the in- come tax, it cannot be denied, presses heavily on rich and poor alike. In the December session Sec retary Houston will ask congress to make the new law simpler than the present cumbersome statute. One of the most important recommenda- tions of MT. Houston will be that the commissioner of internal revenue be authorized to make final deter minatfons in any tax assessment. Under the present law a tax case can be opened time and time again until the tax payer never knows when he is through with litigation with the treasury. But lowering of the whole income tax schedule is what is now desired by congressman and citizens alike. There are also many imperfections in the present income tax law, as happens usually