Evening star., 1953-03-13
Reed Won't ReIent,
Strikes Back Daily al
Tax Cut Plan Critics
Ry Robert K. Welsh

NO1SIA n. VOISU
Instead Of marking time until
a showdown next month with the
House G. o. P. leadership on his
income tax reduction bill, Rep
resentative Reed intends to
strike harder while the criticism
is hottest.
House members noted today
that the New York Republican
almost daily is making the rec
ord-the Congressional Record,
that is while the fiscal fight
flares.
He took to the House floor
yesterday with a 35-minute
speech that challenged and eau
toned as well as counseled the
Eisenhower administration bud
get-makerS. The record in re-
cent weeks shows, moreover, that
he seldom has let the sun set on
q House session without inserting
remarks" of his own or some
body else urging tax cutback
along with a scheduled end to
the excess profits tax June 80.
ImpassiOned Speech.
His speech yesterday, while re-
peating main arguments for let
ting a 10 per cent income tax in
crease end June 80 instead of
December 81, was his most COM
prehensive and impassioned to
date.
He declared he was "keenly
disturbed and shocked" after
more than 80 years in the House,
to be subjected" to what he
denounced as unfair or unin-
formed criticism as well as un-
due pressure. All he wants to
do, he explained. is to get action
on a peoples bill" and to keep
a tax-cutting promise he and
other Republican members made
before the election last year.
The main part of his speech
stressed an angle somewhat diff
ferent from the tax relief argu-
ments or Endorsements he has
been putting into the record in
creasingly this month.
He said the Eisenhower ad-
ministration could balance the
budget and cut income taxes at
the start of the coming fiscal
year even if it spent Sill billion
more than the Truman Admin
istration Shelled out in it's most
expensive full fiscal year.
Truman "GueSStimates."
He did not suggest. of course.
that the new budget should outdo
what he called the Truman re-
gime's "guesstimates" for the
current and coming fiscal years.
He contended merely that there
was no sound, economic, public
or political reason why the tax
relief he advocates should be
stalled until Government expen-
ditures can be brought to a bal
ance with revenue estimated for
the fiscal year starting July /.
In talking about the Truman
budgets, Mr.. Reed did not mean
the one in which Mr.. Truman
last January recommended
spending $78.6 billion during the
coming fiscal year. Nor did Mr. |
Reed refer to the $74.5 billion
expenditures estimate covering !
the current fiscal year in which
the Truman regime held office
less than seven months.
Here is the way Mr.. Reed re-
lated the Truman budgets to
the present picture and prob
lem:
The most that the Truman
administration ever spent dur
ing a full fiscal year was $66.1
billion in 1852. If the Reed bill
became law it would cause
drop of about SIS billion in rev.
enue during the coming fiscal
year. On the basis of $68.7 bill
lion in estimated revenue for
the coming fiscal year, the Reed
bill would decrease it to $67.2
billion.
Cut Still Possible.
Thus, according to Mr.. Reed,
the Eisenhower administration
still could spend $1.1 billion more
than the Truman top total OF
$66.1 billion and have bal
anced budget and tax relief, too.
This assumes a slash of more
than $11 billion from the $786
billion total recommended by
former President Truman for the
fiscal year beginning July /. Mr..
Reed does not believe this is too
big an assumption.
II can hardly visualize, in the
absence of all-out war" he told
the House, that Congress will
permit expenditures for the fis-
cal year ending June 80, 1854, |
to rise above $67.2 billion. We
pledged to cut expenditures and
to cut them substantially i
and reduce them below the last
highest year of actual expendi-
lures by the Truman administra-
finY