Evening star., 1927-12-06
The Commissioners Report.

In their report to Congress yester-
day the District Commissioners sound
ed the keynote of Capital needs when
they pleaded for retention, in the Dis
trict appropriation bill for the next
fiscal year, Of the 60-40 ratio--a ratio
adopted by Congress in 1922 as sub
stitute for the $3.50 plan of appor-
tioning expenses for Capital building,
applied for two years and then aban'
doned in the supply bills of the last
four fiscal years in favor of the w.
O00, 900 lump sum from the Federal
Government. 1T is clearly evident,
said the Commissioners, that the
total budget of the District Of Colum-
bia has been annually increasing,
while the Federal contribution has re-
mained substantially stationary" and
to give this point more significant H.
lustration it is shown that while the
Federal contribution for the fiscal
year 1924-the last fiscal year in which
the 6O.40 ratio was applied--was thirty
nine and four-tenths per cent OF the
total carried in that bill. this proper
tion has consistently dwindled to the
fraction of over twenty-eight per cent
which represents the Federal contri-
button to Capital building in the cur
rent fiscal year. This decreasing pro-
portion, the Commissioners point out,
maintains in the face of growing mu-
nicipal expenditures in Washington
which are based on recognition OF
Washington as the Capital CITY anu
are therefore larger than would Or
dinarily govern the year-to-year outlay
of the average American municipahtS'
In plain words, responsibility for
maintaining and building the Federal
CITY is slowly being showed to the
shoulders of Capital residents.
The Commissioners propose no new
LEGISLATION to rectify this wrong. None
fs needed. In the appropriation ciiis
of the last four fiscal years the House
has taken advantage of its right TO
except certain District appropriations
from the fixed ratio by writing the
whole District bill as an exception.
This method of circumventing SUB
stantiye law must be renewed each
wear. with consequent wrangling ana
iii feeling, to make it effective. A SIM
ple failure to renew it and return
. to what a law of it's own making pro-
vides will enable Congress to answer
the pleas of the District Commission
ers, who have represented Adequately
the united and strong sentiment
which prevails in Washington TO-DAY.
Congress should heed this plea OF
the Commissioners in framing the
District appropriation bill for the Ms
cal year 1929. And in the meantime
the bill introduced by Chairman Zihl-
man of the House District committee
NAV receive the attention it deserves.
MIR. Zihlmans bill recognizes at the
outset the importance to Washington
which lies in the principle of flxed
ratfo-a principle long since establish
ed as the only equitable basis for rails
ing revenue from an unrepresented
community by an alien and exclusive
legislature. But it recognizes. at the
same. time, that this ratio may change
under varying conditions, and pro-
poses that the ratio for each succeed
ing fiscal year be fixed by a commit
tee at the beginning of each calendar
year-a committee on which the dis
franchised citizens of Washington as
we'll as the Congress will be repre-
sented. Time does not allow for
proper consideration of or action upon
the Zihlman bill in order to apply its
provisions to framing the appropria.
ton bill for the fiscal year 1929. But
the House, while considering this bill,
should give ear to the pleas of Wash
ington by making appropriations for
1929 in accordance with fair and
equitable existing law. 1t can do JUS
tice to the District without waiting
for legislative action by following the
course urged by the Commissioners
and merely changing the appropri.
ative clause of the budget to conform
to the substantive law.
T-bo v-ar correSnoudenf vivid in de.