Belington progressive. [volume] (Belington, W. Va.) 1912-1927, 1921-09-08
TAX LEGISLATION
BEFORE SENATE COMMITTEE
Practice Likely to Prove Forerunner
OF Similar Action by Other
Committees too.

Washington, Sept. THE Senate
Finance Committee has temporarily
laid aside the consideration of tariff
legislation and is devoting its entire
time to tax legislation. The commit
tee announces it will have the meas
ure ready for the Senate when it re-
convenes, September 81 The main
reason for this assurance is a change
in the manner of conducting hear
ings. Present plans of the commit
ce do not contemplate an open hear
ings upon the tax bill. Senator Pen
rose, chairman of the committee,
states, however, that this does not
mean no opportunity will be given
for interested parties to give to the
committee data during its executive
sessions Il. ~>e
The decision of the committee to
abandon long drawn out public hear
ings is forerunner of procedure
which is likely to be adopted by botn
House and Senate committees in tie
near future. Congressional commit
ees are getting tired of giving weeks
and sometimes months to public
hearings during the course of which
but very little information that is
either new or useful is furnished the
committee. A major portion of the
time devoted by the committee to the
public hearings is taken up by loo
byists pleading the interests of those
who employ them and by propogand
lists, advancing their pet theories,
which they thus get printed and dis
tributed at the governments expen-
sc.
This occurs usually twice in the
consideration of any measure, once
before the Senate committee and
once before the House committee
where, as a rule, these voluminous
dissertations are duplicated word
for word, and are printed in reports
of hearings of both committees, and
thus infiict terrific printing bill
on the Taxpayers of the country.
Last year the Congress spent ov-
err $4,000 employing extra stenog-
raphers to take down testimony of
such witnesses. The government
printing Office turned out 23,905,89
Cos pages of testimony taken at
these hearings. The printed copies
of the hearings are placed at the dis
posal of the special committee con-
Quoting the hearings and very fire.
quently almost the entire issue of
copies of hearings upon bill are
turned over to some person or organ
ization interested in pushing the
bill and mailed out by them under
the frank f some member of con-
gress. All this increases the expen-
ses of the government hundreds of
thousands of dollars each year.
Although the professional witness
es claim to represent the public, in
point of fact they represent only the
few who employ them to lobby. Mem
bers of congress, through personal
contact with their constituents, thru
the medium of their "home papers,"
and through the hundreds of letters
they receive are in much closer touch
with the people than the lobbyist
who insists upon being heard gin the
interest of the people"
Furthermore, members of congress
sional committees before whom these
garrolous witnesses appear, know
more about the subject under consider
alton than the witnesses, who add
absolutely nothing to the sum total
of human knowledge. Ninety per
cent of money expended in public
hearings is wasted.
The tendency is to cut these hear
ings to the minimum, confne the
witnesses to those who because Of ex
perience or training are able to quail
ify as experts upon the subject and
to present data that is reliable and
valuable.