The people's voice., 1959-10-30

asked that this ceiling be removed
lin his State of the Union message
He asked for it's removal in a specia
message to Congress when he sem
up proposed legislation, he sent E
lsecond special message to Congress
asking for it when Congress refused
to act and he has repeatedly com
mented on it in his press conferences
and official statements.
This request was referred to the
Ways and Means Committee on which
now serve. l worked on this legis-
lation and know just what happened
both in committee and on the floor.
The Az % ceiling on government
bonds has been in effect since it was
requested by President Wilson in his
second term. Under this interest cell
ling we have sold government bonds
to finance the last years of World
War l, we have survived the infla-
tion that followed World War I and
the subsequent recession of the early
Juveniles, we have gone through the
boom days of the stock market in
1928 and 1929 and through the de-
preston years of the thirties, we in
creased the national debt from $45
billion to $27O in the few years in
World War ii and financed the Ko-
rean War and the subsequent period
of initiation that followed. From Will
son to Truman we have been able to
manage our public debt without in
creasing the interest rate. 1t is only
in these dying days of the Republican
that we have been
asked to remove this ceiling and let
the interest rate go where it will.
President Eisenhower talks about
spending, but there is one area
where he and his advisors will
spend and spend and spend and
that is on interest.
When Secretary Humphrey became
Secretary of the Treasury he imme-
diately raised the interest rate on
bonds by u of 1 per cent. When
asked if he did not think that this
would affect other interest rates he
that it would but said
that he could remember interest
rates of seven per cent and that it
1idn't hurt anyone as far as he could
see.
In six of the seven years / have
oeen in Congress during his Admin |
| have had to vote for an
Increase in the debt limit and the |
rational debt has now risen to more |
han $500 billion. In 1853 the inter-
,st charges to carry the national debt |
we're $5.8 billion, in 1859 the annual
interest charge is a record high of |
,9.1 billion and it has gone up al
most billion dollars this last year.
HAD TOOLS FOR
USE
But the House Ways and Means
held hearings on the
residents proposal and then sat in
xecutive session for days trying to
york out a bill. 1t was pointed out
hat i, the Treasury Department al
eady had all the tools it needed to
axe care of the alleged emergency
it would use them. When the Com
littee first tentatively voted on the
Increase in interest rate proposal
very one of the ten Republicans
oted for it, but only five of the fif-
cen Democrats voted for it. This
ave the proposal majority of the
ommittee but gave it scant chance
f passage in a House that is almost
vo to one Democratic, when the
members of the commit
se voted two to one against it. AS :
ne of those who opposed the interest
ate increase I was asked by the
peaker to meet with Secretary of
lie Treasury Robert Anderson to try
} work out some sort of compromise J
lat would give the Treasury the
that it alleged was needed S
I'd that at the same time could get h
e support of majority of the Dem p
rats on the committee. We reached C
| agreement that the interest rate p
iling would be removed but that A
amendment would be added ad- \
the Federal Reserve Sys- t.
m to cooperate with the Treasury g
apartment in the management of C