Evening star., 1946-03-07
BY the As,ociofed Press

The House today refused to
send the administration housing
bill back to committee, an action
which would have been tanta-
mount to rejecting it.
The motion, by Representative
Jessie Sumner, Republican, of Illi-
nois, was defeated by a 304-to-76
roll call vote.
AS the much-whittled housing bill
llmped toward final vote, Housing
Administrator Wilson w. Wyatt
said it was in such shape it would
not achieve the goal of 2,700, 900
new homes.
Nobody Knows Contents"
Representative Keefe, Republican.
Of Wisconsin declared the legislation
had been amended up one side and
down the other. Nobody knows
what's in it."
Mr.. Keefe is the one who delayed
final action on the measure last
night by insisting on a reading
of the engrossed text-the official
printed copy in amended form.
Since this copy would take several
hours to prepare, Speaker Rayburn
set the vote for today.
Representative Wolcott, Republic
can, of Michigan, who failed in an
attempt to substitute a Republican
bill, predicted the whittled-down ad-
ministration measure would pass
Overwhelmingly.
He differed sharply with Mr..
Wyatt on the virtues of the reshaped
legislation, declaring Mr.. Wyatt is
given ample authority in this bill, as
the House has written it, to effectu-
ate his program"
Two Key Clauses Beaten.
Mr.. Wyatt has been championing
two key provisions which the House
struck from the bill-ceiling figures
for all existing housing and $780,
100000 subsidy fund to accelerate
production of building materials.
Before it completed the whiting
process on the legislation, the House
took a slap at OPA, voting 1o2 to IS
to strip OPA of final say over prices
Of building materials and vest this
authority in Mr.. Wyatt.
Mr. Keefe said that with this au-
thority Mr.. Wyatt could force price
adjustments on building materials
that would get production without
subsidies.
Bonus Plan Rejected.
The House also struck out, by a
209-to-174 count, what Mr.. Wolcott
termed shopping" provision. This
deleted language would have au-
thorized the expediter to require
real estate dealers and contractors
to submit information on sales and
costs.
In other decisions the House
shouted down a proposal to give
each home-buying veteran a $500
bonus as the down payment, turned
back, 249 to 1874, a new effort to put
price ceilings on all the $4,000, 900
existing homes and reaffirmed its
rejection of use of subsidies.
The badly-battered bill now pro-
vides:
l. An increase of 81 1000 000, 900 in
Government authority to insure
home-mortgage loans, meaning the
Government would take that big
risk in the construction of homes
for veterans. Thus, a veteran or
other person could purchase home
with small down payment and the
Government would protect the
mortgager for the remainder.
Priorities Are Continued.
2. Continuation for a year beyond
June 80 the war-granted priorities
and ALLEGATION authority for chan
neling scarce building materials into
construction of low and medium
priced homes.
3. Preference for veterans in the
purchase or rental of new houses,
4. Price ceilings on new houses.
5. Broad authority for the hous.
ing administrator to issue directives
to other Government agencies, in
cluding OPA, on prices relative to
building materials.
6. Authorization for the expediter
to stop or curb the export of lum-
Der as long as scarcities exist in
this country.