Any More Notches in Your Belt?

Keep a sharp eye on that sixty-five bucks, Mac. Unless the President shows an unusual amount of political courage, there's going to be a sudden shortage in your purchasing power. The OPA extension bill is now before a joint House-Senate conference committee, and the only real issue lies between hiking the whole ceiling out of sight or shooting it full of holes.

Two months ago, the House chose the first course. Its bill would wipe out all food subsidies, guarantee every producer and distributor a "reasonable" (and undefined) profit margin, and end price controls whenever production of an article reached the 1941 level. That combination of pressure-group policies would raise the indexes a good 25 percent at once, with further sharp boosts to follow as output really begins to flow. Establishing 1941 supply s the norm looks good at first sight, but on closer examination resembles an attempt to measure the avalanche with a rain-gauge. For five years the consumer has been starved for goods, and has amassed an unprecedented total of liquid wherewithal. Pre-war production is not enough to fill the need; lifting the ceiling when it is attained will cause a mad spree of competitive bidding for scarce items.

The Senate, with its usual unhurried intent to assert itself as the "senior" body, took a different approach. OPA was to die a lingering death, with subsidies continued until May, 1947, and with no automatic abolishment of controls until a special three-man board had reviewed the problem for each specific item. But then the upper chamber lent an ear to the lobbies. New England's dairy groups, the Midwest meat-producers, and the Senators from the oil states put in a specific ban against price ceilings on any of their products. There was still a ceiling, but the most important items in a family's budget were not protected from the economic storms.

However the conference committee may reconcile these two versions of Congressional determination to "get the bureaucrats," the result will be a one way ticket on the inflationary joy-ride. If President Truman signs the final bill, he faces cost of living, strikes that will make him wonder if he ever knew what labor troubles really were. He will earn the embittered contempt of those who, like veterans in college, must live within a frozen income. And, more important than the hatred of the more seriously injured citizens, he will have endangered the social structure of the nation.

A veto will force the Congress to act quickly. With only ten working days left before the agency expires on June 30, Presidential courage will force the boys on the Hill to pass a simple resolution extending OPA without crippling change. The Solons obviously do not dare let OPA die completely; rent controls, for example, are not so much as touched in either House or Senate bill. The time for haggling is growing short, and a ringing Presidential veto message will throw the blame and the responsibility exactly where they belong-in the spacious laps of a captious Congress.