Evening star., 1947-01-26
Finding q Final Solution

Budget Ofncer Waiter l.. FoWler
and Assessor Edward A. Dent have
painted a pretty gloomy future for
Washington If present trends con-
tinue. This is what they say:
This nontaxable land Gin the District)
has increased at an alarming rate. In
1885 it was only 43 per cent as against
81 per cent today. Unless the process
is arrested and reversed, the increasing
tax load on the remaining land will
drive our citizens out of the District.
Well-to-do persons will move across
the line, whereby we will lose their in
come taxes, personal property taxes and
inheritance taxes. Retail outlets will
follow them, causing a decay of the
large business districts which carry so
much of the city's finances. Land in
the District will still be occupied, in
deed; but more and more it will be
occupied by persons in low-income
brackets and the INDECENT =. The
District will someday be converted into
a suburb OF the Metropolitan Area
housing its poorest inhabitants, with
a core of magnificent public buildings
and national monuments in the midst
of it.
The final solution" of this prob
lem, as Messrs. Fowler and Dent
see it, is the "recapture of large
areas of land which are serving no
public purpose that justifies their
retention in the heart of great
metropolis; together with some
remedial action regarding some of
the privately owned, tax-exempt
land ="
A partial solution, perhaps, but
not necessarily final one. The
final solution is to persuade Con-
gress that the people of the District
and of the United States together
have begun to build a very beau
tiful Capital here and it is worth
finishing and preserving. AS a
Capital, it is primarily the seat OF
the National Government. The Ma
tional Government owns and uses
most of the tax-exempt land, which
is proper. It grants tax exemptions
to many institutions located here
because this is the American Capt.
tai, such as the foreign embassies
and the OAR buildings. That is
also proper. And it is proper for
Congress to have set aside, as
adornments of the American Capt.
tai, large areas of park lands.
REORGANIZATION of the uses of un-
taxable land and possibly the re-
capture of some of it would help.
But what we need even more than
these relatively superficial precau-
tions is some show of statesmanllke
recognition by Congress of its own
responsibility to the people OF the
United States in development of a
fine American Capital; recognition
of the fact that this city cannot be
treated like an ordinary, self-sus-
tanning and self-taxing municipality
and at the same time developed as
the Capital. There must be recog-
milton of the losses in revenue, re-
sulting from wholesale exemptions
of real property and personal in
comes-exemptions ordered by Con-
gress because this is the Capital.
And such losses must be offset by
national funds. Unless there is
such recognition by Congress
specifically by the House and Senate
District Committees soon to begin
their joint hearings on how to raise
additional revenue-the dismal fore
bodings of Messrs. Fowler and Dent
as to Washington's ultimate future
are amply justified. The Star be-
lieves that Congress is too intelli-
gent body of Americans to permit
them to be justified.