made, you are starting in the wrong direction and making a wrong kind of improvement.

Senator CAIN. Are there improvements intended for the District which you would rather not see produced?

Mr. SHELTON. We are proposing a short subway, downtown, a few buildings over the west of the White House grounds as proposed in the subway bill. That would do as much good as the underground subway as we have here in the Capitol.

Mr. BATES. For 3 weeks, Mr. Shelton, we have been holding these hearings and giving people the opportunity to come here and express themselves against the program that has been suggested by the District Commissioners, and, as I have said on many occasions, we have to gear the revenue needs to the program that they have set forth and they have geared that program themselves by the suggested types of revenues that they need to meet the requirements, financial requirements, of that program.

If we did not have that program, we would not need these additional revenues.

That is why I have asked the Commissioners to give me a complete program over a number of years and financing it over a period of years from all available revenue of present sources and also revenues that will develop as a result of the new sources.

Mr. SHELTON. That seems right.

Mr. BATES. But we depend upon the citizens of this city, too, to advise us as to what is wrong about the program, and as to the necessity of it, the wisdom of it.

Mr. Lusk came here this afternoon and made the suggestion that we look into the advisability of the Dupont Circle project at an estimated cost of $3,800,000. That is a tremendous sum of money to provide an underpass for one circle in the District.

We have to multiply that a dozen times. That will run into $48,000,000 or $50,000,000.

Those are matters that the Commissioners and interested citizens of the District must grapple with and come to the determination as to the advisability of that in relation to the over-all needs of the District, not tomorrow but 5 or 20 years from tomorrow.

I am fully in accord with the desire of a planning board to project these programs over a series of years to reach ultimately the objective, whether the objective may be highway construction, school construction, public works of any kind, water system. It all ought to be projected over a period of years so we will know where we are headed. Mr. SHELTON. That is the point in my former testimony in regard to the highway problem.

I think we started wrong. What we need first is an overpass from the new bridges they are building on the Potomac across to Baltimore, and on the main road which has heavy traffic, and these large trucks which are coming through the city and killing people because trucks cannot stop so quickly.

Senator CAIN. You need a lot of capital improvements in Washington, D. C., which can only be secured from money from some source. Mr. SHELTON. You can build one of these and it would be worth 20 times as much now, and not for the future, and that is the reason you are going wrong with this highway problem.

Senator CAIN. Have you expressed yourself in regard to the highway board here?

Mr. SHELTON. In my testimony?
Senator CAIN. To them.

Mr. SHELTON. No; I have not.

Mr. BATES. The results represent many years of study and survey by the engineers of the traffic needs of the District, highway needs, and there are some disputes, I understand, among the experts as to what is the right thing to do.

Mr. SHELTON. We could overpass a hundred crossings in that system at the expense of the things we are talking about.

Regarding that improvement in Dupont Circle, we are proposing there to put rails down under that circle and continue them right on down through the city.

That means two tracks, north- and south-bound, two safety platforms all the way down, all the way where the two streets join, Mount Pleasant and Connecticut Avenue, and come down to the circle.

Then you have four lanes for streetcars in the center, and very little left on the edges to load and unload your traffic at the curb, local busses, and no room for through traffic, and there you can carry only half the traffic which you could if you left it open in the center and put on busses, loading and dicharging at the curb, and you would reduce the 72 deaths which we had from streetcars last year if you finally eliminated streetcars.

Mr. BATES. I think you had better sit down and write a memorandum to the Highway Department here expressing your viewpoint. Perhaps they will be glad to give it some study.

Will you proceed with your statement?

Mr. SHELTON. I am practically finished.

I merely made five fundamental basic points against the sales tax, and I have offered some suggestions. I have others as to the substitutes you might make.

Mr. BATES. Thank you.

That will finish the hearing for today.

We had around 30 witnesses today, Mr. Chairman, and they all had time to express themselves.

Senator CAIN. We also have 20,000 petitions.

The CHAIRMAN. I compliment you gentlemen for the work you are doing and your patience.

Senator ČAIN. Let me suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, the people of the District mostly are very busy. They cannot come, so they send to us their general thinking on this subject of the gasoline bill.

Mr. BATES. We expect that tomorrow morning, Senator, we might finish up our hearings.

I think we have about nine witnesses tomorrow morning and that will bring an end to all the testimony.

It was suggested that we might get together, the chairman of both the House and Senate committee and our own subcommittee, and have a conference together after we get this testimony in such shape that we can roll it out on the table and quickly understand the over-all situation.

I am asking that the Commissioners provide me with a complete schedule of estimated expenditures over a period of several years in

order that we might gear the estimated revenues to show the needs, and then from the standpoint of different sources come to a conclusion as to what is the best thing to do under the circumstances. I think Senator Cain has done a magnificent job here.

The CHAIRMAN. I think you both have.

We will meet tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.

You can bring those petitions home tonight if you wish and study each and every one of them.

Senator CAIN. If I have your concurrence, I would suggest that the stenographer make mention of the fact that approximately 20,000 petitions in opposition to the gasoline tax were received and are on file in the clerk's office of the District of Columbia Committee, so we will not have any physical representation of those documents in the record.

The hearing will be recessed until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. (Whereupon, at 4:45 p. m., an adjournment was taken, to reconvene at 10 a. m., Thursday, April 10, 1947.)

(The following letter was later received for the record.)

Hon. C. DOUGLASS BUCK,

INDIANAPOLIS 5, IND., April 8, 1947.

Chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia,

Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C.

DEAR MR. BUCK: The Homer J. Williamson, Inc., candy manufacturers of which the writer is founder and secretary-treasurer, has just completed 39 years of continuous operations. We are writing to protest Senate bill 843, introduced by Senator Cain of Washington.

As manufacturers of food we are not objecting to a special tax on food, but we do strenuously object to the phrase in this bill which reads "other than candy and confectionery." It has been well established in the courts and was especially acknowledged by the Government and the Army and Navy in World War II that candy is a most desirable and necessary food. We think it is a very dangerous precedent to discriminate against one food as against others. The bakery industry manufactures cakes which are in direct competition with candy and very similar in their ingredients.

We appeal to your fairness as an American citizen whether or not you want to discriminate against one group over another. We distribute our candies in the District of Columbia, as well as 36 other States, and we feel this bill, if made into a law, would be unfair to the candy industry and a hardship on those manufacturers who distribute their candies in the District of Columbia.

Yours very truly,

HOMER J. WILLIAMSON, INC.,
HOMER J. WILLIAMSON,

Secretary-Treasurer.

BUDGET REQUIREMENTS OF THE DISTRICT OF

COLUMBIA

THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 1947

JOINT SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISCAL AFFAIRS OF THE
COMMITTEES ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
UNITED STATES SENATE,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

Washington, D. C.

The joint subcommittee met at 10: 15 a. m., pursuant to adjournment, in the Senate District Committee room, Capitol, Washington, D. C., Representative George J. Bates (cochairman of the joint subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senator Cain (chairman of the joint subcommittee); Representative Bates (cochairman of the joint subcommittee).

Mr. BATES. The committee will kindly come to order.

We will continue the hearings on the several tax bills that have been filed by the District Commissioners seeking to raise more revenue for the operation of the District government.

May I ask you, Mr. Keller, how long do you think you will take? Mr. KELLER. I think about 5 minutes or so.

Senator CAIN. Mr. Keller, we are delighted to have you, and we will listen most attentively to any remarks you would like to make.'

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH E. KELLER, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PETROLEUM INDUSTRIES COMMITTEE, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. KELLER. My name is Joseph E. Keller, and I am secretary of the District of Columbia Petroleum Industries Committee.

The District of Columbia Petroleum Industries Committee includes all of the petroleum companies marketing within the District of Columbia.

I understand that the purpose of the general hearings which are being held this morning, is not to discuss any specific legislation. Senator CAIN. Right.

Mr. KELLER. And we have lined up a few witnesses, for the information of the committee, which we would like to reserve time for at the particular time when you take up the gasoline bill.

Senator CAIN. Granted.

Mr. KELLER. When we take up the gasoline tax. I have reserved time. I filled out cards for the people who are going to appear, and I think that there will be no difficulty about that.

I did want to make a few general statements today, and I have conscientiously tried to frame my remarks this morning to stay within the bounds that have been set by you gentlemen, and I am sure that you will accept them in that spirit.

There are three principal things which I would like to say. I have attended most all of the hearings, and I have been impressed with the fair-mindedness and objectiveness of this committee, and I feel that they are going to look at the specific matter which we are to present to you at a later time with the same spirit of impartiality as you have heard the District witnesses.

I did want to say that of all the testimony that has been given so far, the District witnesses have stressed the fact that Washington has grown to twice the size that it was and, therefore, it needs twice the revenues, or more, than it did, and I think it is pertinent, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Bates, to point out at this stage in the hearing, that the highway fund which has been outlined already by the Director of the Highway Department, has for the next 3 fiscal years, fiscal '47, '48, and '49, more than twice the amount of funds in hand that it ever had in any three prewar years.

Now, I think that is important because we have been talking over all about the need for increased revenue, and I think the committee ought to know that the highway fund already has that increased revenue, and it has it because the gasoline tax, and the other automotive taxes, are automatic things, which increase correspondingly with the number of people who come to the District, so that you do not have the same position that you had in welfare, for instance, or the same thing that you had in schools. People do not pay to go to school; there is an appropriation for schools which is set. If more people come in more children go to school, and the bills go up. That is not true, however, with the highway department, because when more people come in they buy gasoline, and they pay automotive taxes, and so the revenues are up.

The figures which I am giving you I have studiously tried to take from the highway department's own figures, and I do not want it to appear that we have in any sense tried to give the wrong figures, as was indicated somewhat the other day, because we have been conscientious about that and tried to take the exact figures.

Now, the $34,000,000 which I said is in the hands of the Department in the next 3 fiscal years is made up in this way: They are estimated revenues for 1947-49 of $21,442,000.

The highway fund balance as of June 30, 1946, is included of $1,893,830, a set-aside by the highway department in 1946 for Federalaid matching of $1,600.000, and a 3-year Federal-aid allotment of $8,922,000.

Now, that gives a total available fund for the District highway fund for '46-49 of $33,857,830, or in round numbers, $34,000,000.

The facts will show, and I will have specific exhibits on this laterI do not want to burden you with those today, but I will have specific exhibits on that-that that constitutes a fund which is more than twice the sum of money that the highway department had in any three prewar years, taken from the highway department's own statistics, and own report.

Now, with reference to the construction fund that the highway department has, the highway department has talked about the need,