Evening star., 1937-01-11
Member of the Associated Press
"POint One.o

relations issue Is not new. Ihe tne0ry
has been proposed before, only to be
abandoned as impossible of pratical
application Now it is advanced again
as a panacea for fiscal troubles. Its
inherent weaknesses stand revealed in
the report which presents 1t.
Point One applies a system of reim-
bursements for "intergovernmental"
services. A service for the Federal Gov
ernment by the District government is
to be measured and the District reim-
bursed to the estimated value OF such
service. The District government or the
local community, likewise, are to be
charged for special services alleged to be
rendered by the National Government.
Such services, In the words Of the report,
are those mot available as practical
matter to any other State or local gov
ernment but which are considered special
services to the District"
Tangible nature OF few services per-
mits exact measurement. District
patients in st. Elizabeth's, boys COM
mitted to the National Training School,
children attending Columbia Institution
for the Deaf, are paid for on per capita
basis and have been for years. But
when the effort is made to include in
tangibles in the exchange of services
and to separate the National Govern
want froy,, ite a orIy,,i,icfro ro+jua auepov Tho
District government; to distinguish be-
tween services rendered the local COM
munity and those established or per-
formed because this is the National
Capital or to decide when to treat the
National Government as a resident tax
payer and when to declare that the
National Government cannot tax itself
the difficulties begin. Estimating bene-
fits in many cases led into the realm Of
imponderables," the report complains,
somewhat wistfully. And that is where
Point One found itself
The report does not develop its own
premises to logical conclusion. To
have done SO would have been to reduce
the whole theory of Point One to an
absurdity. It does charge the District
for the services of the Budget Bureau
0nsult added to injury! 1t does charge
the District with the salaries of the
Engineer Commissioners, assigned here
by the Corps of Engineers. But it does
not charge the District with the services
of the Congress in exercising its exclu-
sive powers of legislation over the
District. 1t does not charge the District
with portion of the salary of the
President Of the United States for his
special services to the District of Colum-
bia, such as signing bills and appointing
officials, lighting the community Christ
mas tree, etc. Absurd? Certainly. But
If one set Of charges Is logical or justi-
fled, so is the other.
On the other hand, the report charges
the United States as heavy user (and
on-contributor) Of water, exactly on the
basis of water-using property owner.
It proposes charges for certain street
costs against the United States as the
owner Of abutting property. But it
leNes no charge against the United
States as beneficiary Of general police
and fire protection and utterly ignores
as the basis of any charge-the Fed
eral Governments vast ownership Of
untaxed real estate, or for many of the
utilitarian and decorative embellish-
ments Of such property designed by the
Federal Government for q National
Capital, such as the street system itself.
Many Of the charges are estimates and
can never be anything but estimates. "It
was apparent that in many cases the
value and cost of services rendered were
not always Identical" says the report.
In such cases the report submits esti-
mates but does not 90 to the extreme of
assessing the cost. To have done so
would have revealed the theory's COM
plete fallacy and its curious inequity.
The report finds an estimated cost" OF
$55,000 for supplying to District residents
the services of the Library of Congress,
which is maintained in part by their
national taxes. 1t does not charge for
the services, however-not because of
the grotesque unfairness involved, but
because it would be difficult and expen-
sive" to compute the cost on reader
basis.
The report shows how widely varying
the estimates for other services may be.
For use by the people of the District of
museum facilities" for maintenance Of
the National Arboretum, for mainte-
nance Of that private congressional lux
ury-the Botanic Garden-the report
finds the "lower" estimates of possible
charges against the District totaling
$4,000, while the higher" estimates total
$145.0o0. On the other side, hospitaliza-
ton Of non-residents and letting the
tourists look at the animals in the Zoo
could be estimated as charges against
the United States, running from $27 900
to $685. 900. Who would make the esti-
mates? The Budget Bureau!
The fundamental weakness Of the
theory is that IT presents an unrealistic