Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1924-12-28
Substantive Law and Exceptions.

SubStHns2NS Ad" dAu cACC pIlOuo.
The act of Congress approved June
2s, 1922, making appropriations for
the District of Columbia for the fiscal
year ending June so. 1928, thus
states in substantive law the terms
of Federal contribution to the main
tenance of the District:
Be it enacted that, annually,
from and after July 1, 1922, so per
centum of such expenses of the District
of Columbia as Congress may appropri-
ate for shall be paid out of the revenues
of the District of Columbia derived
from taxation and privileges. and the
remaining 40 per cent per centum by
the United States. excepting such items
or expense as Congress may direct
shall be paid on another basis
That provision established definitely
and permanently until specifically re-
pealed the 60-40 ratio of District
Federal participation in Capital main
tenance, replacing as an organic act
the statute of June %, 1873, which
established the $3.50 ratio. 1t per-
mitted exceptions of such items of
expense from the 60-40 ratio as
Congress might direct to be paid on
another basis. Those exceptions We're
to be specifically stated in the current
and subsequent appropriation acts.
Two years later, by the acts ap-
proved June Z, 1924, making ap-
preparations for the present fiscal
year, Congress, by the following pro-
vision applicable to that fiscal year
only, made an exception from the
6040 ratio of all Of the District ex-
pense items in the following language
of the appropriative clause:
Be it enacted that in order
to defray the expenses of the District
of Columbia for the fiscal year ending
June 30, 1925, any revenue (not in
Guiding the proportionate share of the
United States arising as the result of
the expenditure of appropriations made
for the fiscal year 1924 and prior fiscal
years. now required by law to be
credited to the District of Columbia and
the United States in the same proper
ton that each contributed to the
activity or source from which such
revenue was derived shall be credited
wholly to the District of Columbia, and
In addition, $4,000, 900 is appropriated
out of any money in the Treasury not
otherwise appropriated, and all the re-
mainder out of the combined revenues
of the District of Columbia and such
advances from the Federal Treasury as
are authorized in the District of Col
umbia appropriation act for the fiscal
year 1928.
Notwithstanding this departure in
the current law from the 6O-40 ratio,
the substantive law which establishes
that ratio as the prevailing mode of
financing the District remains unre-
pealed and unamended. Congress has
in this current law simply placed
for the fiscal year ending in 1925, all
of the District appropriation items in
the excepted class and made special
provision for them.
No new enactment is required to
re-establish the definite proportion
principle. 1t is now the law. The
Commissioners have estimated for
District maintenance on the basis Of
that law. The Bureau of the Budget
has stated the District budget in
alternate terms, but with the definite
proportion law given precedence in
the appropriative clause. 1t must be
assumed that the law Of 1922 will be
followed, though it may be feared
that the House committee on ap-
preparations may proceed as a year
ago to underwrite the appropriation
act as a wholesale exception.
While the original act Of 1922 may
be repealed by indirection and evasion,
1t is not now repealed either in law
or in fact, and the District retains
the status in law of a defined-liability
partnership with the United States in
Capital maintenance and upbuilding.
That the Federal partner is disposed
TO evade this liability appears thus
far only in terms Of exceptions"
which though wholesale in the cur
rent act, are nevertheless still excep-
tons that must be re-stated annually
if Congress continues to be disposed
10 repudiate it's own arrangement
effected in June, 1922.
, In pressing for their estimates
before the House committee on ap-
propriations, whose work on the
District appropriation bill begins to.
morrow, the District Commissioners
are proceeding upon the assumption
that the fundamental law Of definite
proportions contribution will be fol.
lowed. They have made their esti.
mates on that basis. There is no war.
rant for assuming that the substan.
tive law will be temporarily suspended
through wholesale exceptions this
year as last. .r.