Evening star., 1936-01-12
The New Bonus Bill.

Running true to form, the House has
passed the soldiers bonus bill. It made
no provision for additional revenue or
for bond issues to care for the payment.
Presumably, that is a matter the Senate
must worry about, and if not the Senate,
then the President. Even if the ma
jority of the Ways and Means Commit
tee of the House is correct and only
81 600, 100000 additional outlay of money
will be required, above other expenditures
for the veterans, it remains that billion
dollars must be found. 1t cannot be taken
out of the air
For one thing the Nation may be
thankful. The bill now passed by the
House gets away from the old plan of
currency imitation, the issue of green
backs from the printing presses of the
Government. There still remains the
fact that the Government is hard pressed
for money, with deficit of more than
billion dollars estimated by the Presi-
dent for the fiscal year 1887, without any
new appropriations for relief. Under
the law providing for the bonus the pay
ments are not due until 1945. These
facts were pointed out vigorously by
President Roosevelt in his strong veto
message of the bonus bill at the last
session of Congress.
With national political campaign
already under way, however, there is a
scramble to get aboard the cash payment
bonus wagon. 1t is inevitable, it is said,
that bonus bill will become law within
a short period of time. Only pitifully
few members of the House remained
SteadfaSt in their opposition to this i'm
mediate drain on the Treasury-ffty-
the public debt of the United States
Government is even now thirty billions
of dollars.
=, The country already is providing hun
dredS of millions of dollars year for the
support and care of veterans who were
disabled because of the service to their
country during time of war 1t is the
duty and it should be the pride of the
country so to provide. The bonus pay
ment goes, however, to the vast majority
of the veterans, who had the privilege
as we'll as the duty of fighting for their
country during the World War. Many of
these veterans themselves are content
to wait the due date of their bonus pay
ments under the law.
The House has passed the buck" to
the Senate once more The Upper
House is called upon to provide method
of financing the bonus payments. If the
Senate writes into the bill provision for
bond issue, and provides for an ex-
change of the veterans adjusted service
certificates for negotiable Government
bonds, there is likely to be strong protest
from those who demand that the Gov
ernment provide the cash Immediately.
1t may be that the House would in the
end accept such a proposal If it does
not and the Senate is forced finally to
accept the kind of bill that the House
has passed, authorizing straight appro-
priation out of the Treasury for bonus
payments, President Roosevelt must de-
eide whether to ask Congress for new
taxes or finance the payments through
Government loans.
Even should the President ask the
Congress for new taxes, that body is in
position to ignore the request. Taxes are
not popular on the eve of an election.
Should that be the position taken by the
House, where tax legislation must orig
mate, there would be nothing left for the
Executive to do except to borrow the
money. If and when the bonus bill be-
comes law, however, the issue will be
taken out of the political campaign so
far as the veterans demanding payment
are concerned, except perhaps in the case
of the members of Congress who had the
temerity to vote against it.