Evening star., 1952-09-28
A Capital RebuiIdjno Proornn,

~'>~' NSNUHUWS TTO9IOW
An excellent report from the Citizens Ad-
VlSory committee on Public Works has been
placed in the hands of the Commissioners. It is
printed in today's Star. 1t should be read and
understood by residents of Washington and the
metropolitan Area of which Washington is the
huo For 1t presents choice between alterna-
tlves that must be clear if the choice is to be a
wise one
One choice is to disregard the report and it's
recommendations and to put it on shelf with
other discarded reports accept as inevitable and
therefore unpreventable an intensification of
current trends. These trends are already evident.
Ihey are illustrated by steadily increasing bur-
den OF local taxation, without the compensating
public improvements for which taxes are levied
They are found in streets, highways and bridges
already partially inadequate for the load they
must carry today; wholly inadequate for the
future They are in lack of parking facilities
and snarled traffic. They are indicated by a
water and sewerage system that cannot meet all
OF current demands and will deteriorate unless
expanded They are reflected in crowded
schools, in diSgraceful welfare institutions. And
they are accompanied by an exodus of a tax
paying, self-supporting population from the city
into the suburbs; an exodus that carries its
warning of future blighted areas within the
city, marked by unproductive and fostering
slums that will reduce this city to mockery as
National Capital
The other choice is to correct what is wrong
by realistic method of doing what needs to be
done in public workS-the provision of an ade-
quate highway and street system, the provision
OF adequate off-Street parking facilities the
construction of more bridges the expansion and
modernization of the water and sewerage systems
in short the adoption of public pro-
gram that can be financed without imposition of a
tax burden so heavy that it will upset the
economic stability Of the city. That is the chief
proposition to which the report of the Citizens
Advisory Committee on Public Works addresses
ITSELF If followed its recommendations would do
much to reverse dangerous trends.
But the implications of this report and
recommendations are even broader than the
specific proposals outlined in the report. For if
the spirit Of this report is accepted by Washing
ton and by Congress, if the money required to
finance it is made available by combination of
higher water and sewerage taxes, non-interest
bearing Federal loans or advances, and outright
grants by the Federal Government, it will signal
the beginning of a long-delayed renaScence in
the development of the most beautiful capital
city in the world. It will mean rededcation
OF the principle of partnership and joint RESPONSE
bity between the Washington community and
the National Government in the recreation of the
Capital It will make possible and facilitate other
steps in the redevelopment of rundown areas Of
the city, and arrest the spread of their blighting
effects on the city as whole.
The nub of the public-works program itself
Is the financing What needs to be done can
never be done from current revenue. It cannot
be done by local taxation alone. For the re-
Quired amount of local taxation, if the public
works program were to be financed from that
source alone, would in itself produce an economic
blight that would defeat the purpose of the
public-works program. The financing must be
made possible by loans and grants that recognize
the National Governments own stake in the
development of its Capital City.
It has been the failure, by Congress- to
recognize that obligation in the past 80 years
that makes necessary the financing plan recon-
mended by the citizens committee. Had Con-
gress retained, after 1925, the principle of
approprating for the Capital on 60-40 basis,
there would have been available, over the past
q years, total additional revenue of $408
million. But instead of 40 per cent the Federal
payment has sunk, in the current year, to 81
per cent The unmet needs represented in the
public works program are roughly estimated to
cost something in excess of 1919 million. Part
of this amount if it is to be supplied, must come
from Treasury advances, to be repaid in install
ments without interest, and from outright
grants The taxable area in Washington is now
per cent of that area is now tax exempt.
But it is within the District of Columbia, the
central core of the Metropolitan Area, that
tremendously expensive facilities must be pro-
vided to meet the needs, not merely of local
residents but of the more than 100000 people
living beyond the Districts non-extensible
boundaries Highway Improvements and more
bridges are not required merely for the people
who live in Washington and pay local taxes
They are needed for those who work in Washing
ton and reside in the outlying area. There are
more automobiles registered in this outlying part
of the Metropolitan Area than there are in
Washington itself.
The recommended public-workS program
will, of ITSELF mean higher local taxes. Higher
water taxes and new sewer tax are recon-
mended in the report. These, plus the already
heavy existing local taxes, would pay large
share of the public works program. And these
higher taxes will place Washington among the
most highly taxed communities of the United
States. But the expenditures represented in the
public-works program would have the additional
effect of maintaining local sources Of taxation,
while arresting the creation of blighted areas
that reduce such sources. Under the haphazard
and unimaginative system of annual appropria-
tions for the District followed for the past 80
years, the effect has been to add tax on tax while
accumulating the unmet needs represented in the
public works program.
The Star congratulates Chairman Francis q.
Addison and his hne committee of representative