Harvard Scholars Give Views At Senate Committee Hearings

John Kenneth Galbraith, Warburg Professor of Economics, yesterday told a Senate subcommittee that Congress should raise taxes in order to reduce the $12 billion budget deficit projected by President Nixon for the year ahead.

Galbraith said last night that he advised the Senate subcommittee on government operations that a large deficit would cause increasing inflation.

"Congress reacts to a tax increase like a clergyman reacts to pornography," Galbraith said. "He wants it to go away. But a tax increase is the most sound fiscal policy at this time."

Galbraith appeared before the sub-committee to testify on behalf of a proposal which is designed to enable Congress to gain control of the budget from the President.

'Adolescent Error'

Galbraith told the panel that he had been guilty of "adolescent error" when he felt, during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, that power should be centered in the White House and that Congress was "a collection of nuisances responsive only to special interests and thus an impediment to progress."

He explained that he now feels that the executive branch responds chiefly to the nation's large corporations, and that members of Congress are better able to reflect the views of the people.

"The natural resort for large corporations is the executive and now the Pentagon," Galbraith said last night. "Congress is closer to the average citizen and small businesses, and will be more responsive since the people can more easily vote them out."

Galbraith said that both Democrats and Republicans on the subcommittee seemed "satisfied" with his testimony.