Evening star., 1935-01-16
The 1886 D. C. Bill.

lie 1890 DlSlTlCC appropriation Dill
reported to the House today repre-
sents application of a policy with
which local taxpayers are becoming
increasingly familiar.
The Bureau of the Budget had
previously reduced the Commission
ers' estimates by about s2,204 ,534. The
Appropriations Committee has now
reduced the budget estimates by ST.
O66,4lS. So the bill reported to the
House is s3,270,s52 below the budget
proposed by the Commissioners, which
they characterized at the time of
submission to the Budget Bureau as
representing "a most careful and
painstaking study of the amounts re-
quired by the District of Columbia for
the ensuing fiscal year for mainte-
nance and operating expenses and
necessary public Improvements"
The reduction has been accom-
pllshed by denying all but a minimum
amount for improvements and whit
ting away at the funds proposed for
maintenance. Some of the savings
accomplished in the bill are not savings
at all, but merely postponement of the
expenditure of funds which must be
spent within year or so. Almost half
the reduction below budget recon-
mendations has been accomplished by
refusing to appropriate gasoline and
water tax revenues which will never
theless be raised in taxation and which
cannot be appropriated for purposes
other than street and road improve
ment and water system extension. The
result is to increase unusable surpluses
in gasoline and water funds, with no
savings to anybody and with denial of
employment to those who might have
been given work had the recommended
expenditures been allowed. Other
savings, or reductions, have been &C
complished by refusing to appropriate
unexpended balances, by refusing to
make allotments, as in the case of the
Woodrow Wilson High School because
of a difference of opinion over priority
of improvements, and by withholding
funds for other recommended ex-
penditures.
The showing on paper is that the
District will be taken care of" in
1886 with sizable surplus of unex-
pended funds remaining and without
increasing the Federal lump sum. But
compared with existing and demon
strated needs of the District the
funds provided are totally inadequate.
The bill permits no increase in the
Police Department, although the need
for more patrolmen in the face of
increasing petty crime and greater de-
mands for police protection should be
a matter of grave concern to our leg
islators. The bill continues to ignore
the pressing demand for a new courts
building and a start on the long
dormant Municipal Center project. It
takes practically no cognizance of the
overcrowded public schools, the needs
for expanding the Public Library IA
cilties or the requirements for a more
enlightened program regarding public
health. Further examination of the
bill will undoubtedly disclose, for it
always does, other reductions that have
been made to the detriment of essen
tial municipal functions and services.
The prevailing system of appropriate
ing for the Capital is well illustrated
in this bill, which disposes of pressing
needs by ignoring them. 1t is a sys-
tenn which in the course of a few
years will inevitably result in tre-
mendously increased local expendi-
lures to finance accumulated needs,
or acceptance of the sole remaining
alternative, which is rundown,
shabby Capital, a reproach to the
Congress, solely responsible for its
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