Developments in Washington indicate that the President will not
be able to carry his $4,880,000,000 work-relief bill through
Congress without amendment. The Senate Appropriations Committee
provided, by a vote of 12 to 8, that the wages paid in the
public works program should be "not less than the prevailing
wage" of private industry in the locality. This provision goes
directly contrary to the President's wishes, and removes an
essential safeguard to prevent the huge expenditures of public
money from interfering in the recovery of private business. At
the same time the House Ways and Means committee reported that
unless the old-age pension bill was amended so that the federal
government should pay the whole amount of such pensions, instead
of half with the states, it would put an intolerable strain on
state finances. The assumption is that no expenditures would
strain the national treasury, or at least, that the political
repercussions to such expenditures are not so great as they
would be in individual state