Masonry Magazine October 1969 Page. 26
Washington Wire
Some forecasters believe that you will see a decline in the prime rate charged the biggest companies for bank loans from 82% to 72%-by year-end. (All other business loans are scaled upward from this basic lending rate.) But a number of others feel it may be late winter before a cut appears.
Preliminary forecasts of Christmas retail sales project only modest increases this year-on the assumption that recent surveys are correct and that rising personal income won't trigger a burst of buying. The estimates are for gains of 5% over a year ago and most of this will be higher prices. Even the big chain retailers are expected to experience more moderate sales.
Durable-goods volume large and small appliances, furniture, and other homefurnishings-is expected to remain fairly flat. Brisk sales of clothes -men's as well as women's are seen as likely to bring some pluses for the soft-goods sector.
Prospects for passage of a tax-reform bill this year are dimming. Opponents of specific proposals and there are many want to be fully heard. What's more, the Administration wants time to sell its proposals for changes in the version already voted by the House. Officials see no need to hurry. Delay and extended debate could lead to weakening or deleting key sections. Scores of amendments on the floor can fill the remaining time till year-end.
The Treasury proposal to cut corporate tax rates won't pass at all, in 1969 or 1970, say key Congressmen on the House and Senate tax committees. Members of both parties feel that enacting it would be a political blunder. Cutting the corporate load by 2% over the two years starting in 1971 is tied to reducing the relief the House has granted to low and middle-income voters.
"Corporations don't vote individual taxpayers do," notes one lawmaker. Though businessmen and economists appreciate the importance of maintaining a balance between investment and consumption, this won't please the voters. Corporate relief will fail at one of the hurdles ahead-the Senate Committee, the Senate floor, or a conference with the House.
New members of U.S. regulatory agencies will be more sympathetic to problems of the industries they oversee that's clear from appointments the President has already disclosed. Significant shifts in the complexion of five major agencies have been engineered by the Administration to date. Nixon has been able to fill spots opened by resignations or term endings.
Today, there are Republican Chairmen running such agencies as the Civil Aeronautics Board.. Federal Power Commission Federal Communications. and Securities and Exchange. And the Maritime Commission has a chief friendly to shipping.
U.S. policy calls for removing nearly all combat troops from Viet Nam by the end of 1970. That's the basic pattern to keep in mind while reading about the starts and stops the apparent hesitations in White House policy. These are deliberately designed to show Hanoi we are not wedded to leaving, willy-nilly, regardless of how irresponsibly the North behaves in the field.
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masonry • October, 1969
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