House Votes to Extend 'Cyclical' Fund Program
sion package, had asked for extensioihaVC rGCeiVCu $522,000. Under the bill/ with a new ceiling of $2.25 billion fost remvoc nrithimr the current year and $2.25 billion a remve!l nuuM&'	'	)	ÐÊ</br></br>Two weeks ago it looked like his request would be ignored. But the Senate tacked an emergency one-year extension onto the big tax bill. The House yesterday approved a separate bill also calling for a one-year extension but with slightly different provisions. The House bill provides a total of $2.25 billion for the 15 months ending Sept. 30, 1978.</br></br>Both the House bill and the Senate tax bill provisions use the same formula for triggering the program and for distributing funds. Once national unemployment reaches 6 per cent, the program goes into effect, and the benefits can then be paid to any state or community whose local unemployment rate exceeds 4.5 per cent. The higher their unemployment in excess of 4.5 per cent, the more they get.</br></br>When it takes up the tqx bill conference report next week, the House will ask the Senate to insert in the billÛÓin place of the Senate ÛÏcountercyclicalÛªÛª language ÛÓ the slightly different House version approved yesterday. The Senate is expected to agree, thus extending the program as part of the tax bill.</br></br>The major dispute over the bill yesterday was over an attempt by Les As-pin (D-Wis.) to install a distribution formula worked out by a House Government Operations subcommittee headed by L. H. Fountain (D-N.C.), based on the proportion of income residents of local communities pay in local taxes rather than unemployment rates. It lost, 216 to 127.