Evening star., 1950-01-15

1000 as four times as great as IL
is today. These gains, he told
business, cannot be achieved un-
less our businessmen maintain
their spirit of initiative and enter
prise and operate in competitive
economic system" He added that
Government has its responsibility
to help create the conditions nee
essary to permit growth. Fore
most among these conditions, he
said, is the need for a fair dis
tribution of increasing prosperity
among all the great groups OF our
population who help to bring it
about. He mentioned business
first in the prepared text of his
message, but in delivering it. he
shifted to labor, with business
second and agriculture third.
The President went on: "Busi-
nessmen must continue to have
the incentives necessary for in
vestment and for the development
of new lines of enterprise" In
ferentially, he promised business
men all of that-and incentives
mean profits.
But in promising great things to
business, Mr.. Truman did not for
get to renew and increase his
pledges to labor, to farmers, to the
racial groups-and, indeed, to every
one in the country. Included in his
legislative program, as revealed in
this message to Congress, are re-
peal of the Taft-Hartley labor
law, enactment of the Brannan
farm plan with its production
payments" to keep the prices of
all agricultural products at high
points, a Federal fair employment
practices law, anti-1ynching law
and anti-poll tax law and other
civil rights measures, and COM
pulsory health insurance through
which free medicine" is to be
handed out to every one.
Extremely Heavy Program
Mr.. Truman's program-as it
relates to the domestic picture
alone-is extremely heavy, so
heavy that it is doubtful the Dem
ocratic 81st Congress will even
scratch it's surface-although in
1948 Mr.. Truman complained Bit
terly because the Republican 80th
Congress wouldn't put 1t through
in a two weeks special session he
called.
In the first place, the Presidents
own leaders on Capitol Hill say
they see no prospect Of the pas
sage. or even the consideration al
this session, of labor legislation. the
Brannan farm plan or compulsory
national health insurance. Here
are three major measures-the
very foundation stones of Mr.. Tru-
mans program-which have nc
chance of enactment. They will,
| it is now predicted by administra-
ton leaders, go into the congress
sional campaign as major issues
in the hope that the 82d Congress
will look with more favor upon
them than does the present Con-
gress. The Truman Fair Dealers
and their allies, the labor union
leaders, will do their utmost to put
across candidates for the House
and Senate pledged to Taft-Hart-
ley Act repeal. A tremendous
amount of propaganda work for
the Brannan plan is now being
done by both proponents and op-
ponents, and that is the case, too,
with the Truman proposal for
compulsory health insurance
called socialized medicine by its
opponents.
What can Mr.. Truman expect
from the 81st Congress? It is gen.
orally agreed that legislative &C
ton will be completed on the bill
which passed the House during
the last session extending the
coverage of the Social Security
Act and increasing benefits. The
Senate Finance Committee is
soon going to work on this meas
ure. It may be the most impor-
tant of the presidential recon-
mendations enacted into law be-
fore the session ends.
The Presidents huge budget
recommendations, covering pro-
posed expenditures for all Govern
ment activities during the fiscal
year 1851, totaling $42, ,439 900 900,
will be enacted, though probably
with notifications. The House APP
preparations Committee, under the
leadership of Chairman Cannon
of Missouri, is already working to
draft single, omnibus appropri-
alton bill, to take the place of the
nine regular annual appropriation
bills which have been the practice
in the past. Mr.. Cannon and
Senator Byrd of Virginia. cham
pion of governmental economy,
insist that it will be far easier to
approach a balanced budget with
a single appropriation bill.
Log-Rolling Possible
The administration is inclined
to look with suspicion on anything
approved by Senator Byrd (the
President has said there are too
many Byrds in CongressD. Fur
ther, Mr.. Truman's new budget
is a big-spending budget and a big
spending budget can be cared for
more readily in a series of appro-
priation bills, passed independ-
emily of each other. So you now
find some of the administration
leaders on Capitol Hill throwing
cold water on the single appropri-
alton bill idea-among them
Speaker Rayburn. They talk of
the possibilities of ''log-rolling"
when the measure reaches the
Senate although why the House
should be innocent of such tactics
is not explained. BY log-rolling is
meant a practice-reprehensibl