Evening star., 1934-05-25
The Loan Bill COMPROMISE.

The House District Committee is
justified in making concessions and
agreeing to some amendment of the
legislation authorizing the District to
borrow from the Public Works Ad-
ministration. if these changes win for
the legislation a privileged status in
the House increasing opportunities for
its favorable consideration. The obvi-
Gus method of reconciling differences
OF opinion is through compromise
and the House District Committee
has agreed to certain compromises in
order to obtain the special rule limit
ing debate on the P. W. A. bill and
preventing its death by ~dilatory
maneuvers of opponents.
The danger to the local community
does not lie in the elimination of
specific items from the measure, such
as the school and municipal center
items, but in the elimination of Ger
tain protective features Of the bill
designed to prevent the infliction of
hardship on the local taxpayers.
AS agreed to by the legislative
committees on the District in House
and Senate, and as passed by the
Senate, the bill specified a program
Of minimum annual sinking fund
payments of 81 5000 and $4,000
on a loan of about s2o,o0o,Ooo. the
amount of annual payments depend
ing upon the grant of money for
park purchases. 1t was further pro-
vided that the Commissioners could
recommend in the annual estimates
larger repayment if the finances of
the District permitted it.
This fair provision has, in effect,
been eliminated by the reduction in
the amount of the proposed loan from
about s20,OO0,o0o to s10,75o,o00, and
by the provision that ten cents Of the
tax rate will be, "earmarked" for re-
payment of the loan. Ten cents of
the tax rate produces about s1,173,oo
The rate of repayment for sl0,750,-
900 loan Is thus made as high as the
originally proposed rate for a $20,-
100000 loan, while all United States
participation in repayment of a loan
to carry out semi-national undertak-
ings Is denied by the requirement
that sinking fund payments are to
come from local taxes, instead Of
local revenues. The United States
contributes to local revenues, but, OF
course, contributes nothing to local
taxes.
Friends of the District in Congress
will seek to prevent this legislation
from being turned into a hurttul,
rather than helpful device for
Capital development. 1t will be re-
called that the original gasoline tax
legislation was agreed to generally as
a substitute form of taxation, but
before it was enacted it became an
additional form of taxation, without
the compensating factors taken into
consideration in the beginning. The
park development legislation was pro-
posed and written in a spirit of fair
play to the District, but before it was
enacted it included features plainly
discriminatory against the District,
as compared, for instance, with its
treatment of the sovereign States Of
Maryland and Virginia. And while
the park legislation established a rate
of repayment of a million dollars a
year on a s16,OOO,OOO loan, the terms
of repayment remained unaltered
while the amount of the loan actually
extended was cut to a fourth.
In making concessions on the loan
legislation to speed its enactment as
a helpful measure in Capital develop
ment friends of the District will be
forced to remain alert lest the con-
cessions be all on one side and the
bill become a hindrance rather than
O help.