Evening star., 1932-11-18
Extending the Economy Act.

The Bureau Of the Budget follows the
general practice of applying to the es-
Inmates for the next fiscal year the
legislation directly affecting the ap-
preparations for the preceding fiscal
year. But the so-called economy act,
passed as rider on an appropriation
bill last Spring, applied some of its
provisions, notably the furlough, or
eight and one-third per cent salary cut
and the ban on promotions, for one
year only. The reported proposal of
the Bureaa Of the Budget to carry
forward the provisions of the economy
act in the estimates now being pre-
pared for Congress sayors of initiating
legislation, something that the Budget
Bureau is not supposed to do. It
certainly emphasizes the fact that the
drastic burdens imposed on low-paid
Federal employees by the economy act
are not Of the temporary" character
described by their proponents and that
they take on an uncomfortable degree
OF permanence. That is always the
danger of such backward steps as those
represented in the economy act.
But If the employees have been able
to adjust themselves in a degree to the
salary cut represented in the furlough
plan, they have not become adjusted,
nor will there ever be any smooth ad-
justment, to the many inequitable and
unworkabie features of the economy
act which became apparent even before
its enactment and which have become
increasingly apparent since through the
multitudinous interpretations OF the act
by the controller general. There is
no equity in q legislative instrument
that forces some of the Government
personnel to take salary cuts Of eight
and third per cent, while others are
taking salary cuts amounting to as
much as twenty per cent and over
There is no equity and there is little
reason in an act which denies the
employees the scanty advantages which
might lie In spreading their losses from
enforced furlough through the year,
rather than harshly requiring them
10 surrender pay as furlough is taken.
The act itself provides that no employe
shall be forced to accept q legisla-
tive furlough OF more than five days
during any one month. But there has
been the administrative furlough to con-
tend with as well. Employees have
found that it is sometimes dificult to
to take a furlough and being invited
to take furlough The chief inequity
arises from Mr.. McCarls decision that
pay must be deducted as furlough is
taken. There is no good reason why
furlough pay losses should not be de-
Quoted throughout the year in monthly
! installments, If the employe desires 1t,
| thus permitting the employe to use his
furlough as a substitute for the vaca-
ton -with-pay, which has been elimi-
mated.
The Congress, early in the game,
should concern itself with remov-
| ing QeHnDIlSu dule lhcquleAes AAoih LNAS
economy bill and making its provisions
uniform throughout the departments.
The adoption Of uniform system OF
granting sick leave-a matter which
Congress requested the President TO
study and upon which TO Feport--is
merely one OF 9 number of necessary
amendments to the hastily passed and
considerably botched economy bill,
The savings from the economy bill
are pitifully small to the Government
when compared with the hardships
worked on the employees through that
instrument or when compared with
the field for economy represented in
other expenditures. Those savings dc
not represent real or sound economy.