Evening star., 1939-11-25
Vandenberg Favors
Pay s-You-Go'
Defense Spending
Sound Public Credit
Is Greatest Defense
He Tells Reporters
Dy the Associated Press.

Dy the Associated Press.
Senator Vandenberg, Republican,
OF Michigan. gave qualified indorse-
ment today to the idea broached by
President Roosevelt of levying spe-
cial taxes to pay for emergency de-
tense costs.
At his press conference at Warm
Springs, Ga, yesterday Mr.. Roose-
welt posed for public discussion the
question whether such outlays
should be placed on pay-as-you-go
basis with special taxes to pay for
them or met by further borrowing
with no new taxes.
The President did not come out
fatty for either plan, saying merely
that the special tax idea had been
given some consideration and that
the country ought to give some
thought to the issue.
Senator Vandenberg, a member of
the Senate Finance Committee
which handles tax legislation, told
reporters he agreed emphatically
that extraordinary defense eXpendi-
lures should be ION pay-as-you-go
basis
Such outlays, he added, should be
"paralleled by special taxes to pay
for them because of the obvious rea-
son that sound public credit is the
greatest national defense necessity
of all "
King Opposes Expenditures.
But Senator King of Utah, rank
ing Democratic member of the same
committee, said he opposed "enor-
nous expenditures for the Army and
Navy and any plan to "compart-
mentalize" the budget, lest it lead
to larger appropriations.
Chairman Harrison of the COM
mittee would not disclose his views
He did say, however, that if a tax
were levied for specific purpose the
purpose would probably have to be
omitted from the law to avoid pos
sible invalidation by the Supreme
Court.
The court, in holding the Agricul-
tural Adjustment Administration S
processing tax unconstitutional said
Congress could not levy taxes for a
specific purpose. In passing the
social security law, the legislature
got around this ruling by putting the
tax collections into the Treasury S
general fund for ALLEGATION as
needed to meet social security bene-
fits
Senator Harrison suggested after
White House visit early this week
that, if increased tax collections
were coupled with reduced spending
for purposes other than defense, a
tax bill might not be necessary at
the next session of Congress.
Vandenberg Suggests Plan.
Senator Vandenberg said he had
been giving some thought to the
very proposition the President dis
cussed in Georgia.
In the first place" he said, "I
think it's a fine thing that the
President has discovered some por-
ton of the deficit he'd like to pay
for and 1 hope that is what he
means by his statement"
Laying down two conditions or
"rules" to cover emergency defense
costs, the Michigan Republican
added:
First, it should be a sure thing
that they are defense expenditures
in fact and not needed to imple-
ment some such international ad-
venture as the President had in
mind when he made his famous
quarantine speech at Chicago.
On speech at Chicago in
1887, Mr. Roosevelt said an epi-
demic of world lawlessness was
spreading and added that, when
an epidemic of physical disease
started to spread, the community
Joined in quarantine of the pa
tients)
Secondly, we've got to be sure we
are getting our moneys worth
There has been entirely too much
speculation running around on that
subject and it ought to be explored
officially by Congress from stem tc
gudgeon.
within those rules, I agree that
this democracy must be made in
vulnerable"