Evening star., 1933-01-04
PARLEY TO DECIDE
PLANS
Four Major Legislative Prob
lens to Be Discussed in
New York Tomorrow.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.

President-elect Roosevelt will have
his first taste of legislative complexities
tomorrow when he meets with Demo-
cratic congressional leaders, including
the chairmen Of important committees.
Until now Mr. Roosevelt has had
individual consultations, but he has
never had presented to him the legis-
lative situation. rs a whole The con-
ference, which is to be held at his
home in New York, will mark the be-
ginning Of program or policy for the
Democrats at the short session which
ends on March 4.
Here are the essential points which
will be considered at the conferences
l. Shall an attempt be made at the
present session to balance the budget
by reducing expenditures and new
taxes?
2. Shall attempts be made to avoid
a special session with full realization
of the fact that, II this is not practi-
cable, time shall be fixed for the
extra session.
8. Shall reorganization proposals to
consolidate and transfer bureaus be
killed and new plan formulated for
the extra session?
4. Shall farm relief be pushed ahead
together with the beer bill irrespective
of probable vetoes by Mr.. Hoover?
Budget Most Difficult.
There are other collateral questions
which must necessarily become inter-
woven in any legislative discussion, but
the basic and fundamental elements are
contained in the foregoing outline.
The most perplexing item, of course,
is the balancing of the budget. The
Democrats to date have no constructive
plan to bring about the economies
needed to operate the Government with
out deficit. In fact, they have re-
vealed no plan at all. II. on the other
hand. 1t is their purpose to balance
the budget by increased revenues, they
have not agreed among themselves on
a form of taxation which will do the
trick
Much Of the indecision and uncer-
tainty is due TO unfandliarity with
what Mr.. Roosevelt may have In mind
In fact. tomorrow's conference is a
direct outgrowth of the apparent con-
fusion revealed last week when some
Democratic leaders intimated that they
would favor the sales tax, and the very
next day reports from President ELECT
Roosevelt office in Albany declared
he did not favor any such tax.
1t Will take Mr.. Roosevelt considerable
time to become fairly acquainted with
all the legislative problems with which
he is going to be confronted, but it is
believed he has definitely in mind now
some OF the principles upon which he
wishes MS administration TO begin.
Extra Session
The question OF an extra session. OF
course, depends on what cooperation
the Democrats can get from their oppo-
nents. To date Mr.. Hoover has failed
in getting Mr.. RooSeVelts cooperation
on the war debt problem and it will
not be surprising if the Democrat t.
sought help from the Republicans in
avoiding an extra session.
1t so happens that the conservative
interests Of the country are eager to
postpone for as long a time as possible
the convening OF new Congress and
therefore whatever pressure these con-
servatives can exert will be applied to
bring about Republican cooperation
This would, on the other hand, how
ever. not include such experimental
measures as the new domestic allotment
plan for farm relief which will be Bit
te.ly fought b. the Republicans and
will be vetoted by President Hoover in
the event that coalition Of D2mo "ra s
and inSurgent Republicans succeeds IN
putting 1t through.
The conference between Mfr. Roosevelt
and the congressional leaders VIII really
determine the fate of much legislation
for on the decisions reached will de-
pend the extent to which Republican
cooperation can be obtained. and also
the importance of the items that will
be left over to force an extra session
Mr.. Roosevelt to all intents and pur-
poses will begin to function this week
in his new role as leader of the Demo.
cratic party inside as well as outside OF
Congress. o