"A Program for the Rich"

Only after an unusually high-pressure vote-gathering drive in June did the Johnson Administration's rent-subsidy bill pass the House -- and then only by a hairsbreadth 208-to-202 margin. When the bill, authorizing the Government to help lowincome, elderly and handi capped families pay their rent, cleared the Senate by a 54-to-30 vote July 15, it was a particularly prideful victory for Lyndon Johnson.

The President exulted too soon. Last week, thanks to an incredible blunder by Housing and Home Finance Agency Administrator Robert Weaver, the pro gram was dead. Its demise was hastened by the curiosity of Michigan Republican James Harvey, 43, who found HHFA experts suspiciously reluctant to circulate the regulations covering financial eligibility for rent aid. Harvey demanded a copy and, as a member of the House's housing subcommittee, got one immediately. To his astonishment, Harvey found that under Weaver's HHFA-approved rules relating to the elderly and the handicapped (who could collect up to 70% of their rent from the Government), applicants might qualify for federal subsidies even if they had personal net assets as high as $25,000.

Harvey was appalled. "I don't think 90% of the members of the House have $25,000 in net assets," he gasped. "The regulations were clearly contrary to the bill as passed by Congress." Since the House had yet to appropriate funds for the program, Harvey moved to cut off all $6,000,000 earmarked for rent subsidies. "The Congress of the United States has decided that this was going to be a program for low-income people of America," he declared. "They have made this program one for the rich people of America."

Though the Democratic leadership tried gamely to defend Weaver's gaffe, Harvey's motion to cancel rent funds passed by 185 votes to 162. Twenty-five House members who had backed the bill last summer now voted to kill it.

Weaver could easily have avoided the fiasco by discussing the bill's income provisions with Congressional leaders in advance--or simply by waiting to write them until after the funds were appropriated. At any rate, Robert Weaver, hitherto considered a leading candidate to become the U.S.'s first Negro Cabinet officer as Secretary of the new Department of Housing and Urban Development, could hardly have dealt the boss a more painful blow if he had tried.

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