Prouty's Pride

"What we are supposed to be doing today," protested Senate Finance Committee Chairman Russell Long, "is raising revenue, not spending it." Attacking Republican Senator Winston Prouty's proposal to extend social security benefits to all Americans aged 70 or more, Louisiana's Long cried that "it would be just as well to scatter $100 bills in a high wind." For all his protestations, the Senate, in mutinous mood, approved a variation of Prouty's amendment to the Administration's tax-boosting bill that would cost $120 million in its first year.

"Dim & Desperate." Prouty, 59, a flinty, former small-town mayor from upstate Vermont, has been trying for years to get his pet project passed into law. Last week, armed with an impressive array of statistics and endorsements for his amendment, he argued that many retired citizens--notably schoolteachers, farmers and policemen--are in desperate financial straits because they never qualified for social security. "The poverty program," he said, "benefits 50,000 young people in the prime of life. The Prouty amendment benefits 1.5 million older Americans in their dim and often desperate years."

Critics of Prouty's proposal denounced it as fiscal profligacy. Florida Democrat George Smathers warned that it would "feed the fires of inflation." Asked Rhode Island Democrat John Pastore: "How can we have our cake and eat it too?" Long, who acted as floor manager for the Administration tax bill, objected that the amendment could benefit millionaires as well as paupers. Nonetheless, in an election year, many Senators saw the justice of Prouty's proposal. Watched by lobbyists from the National Council of Senior Citizens in the gallery, they passed the amendment, 45 to 40, with the support of such normally conservative Republicans as Nebraska's Carl Curtis, South Dakota's Karl Mundt, and Texas' John Tower--all of whom face re-election campaigns this fall. Next day the Senate approved, 46 to 42, an amendment by Indiana Democrat Vance Hartke, barring the Administration's proposal to hike the tax on local telephone service from 3% to 10%.

Wrenched Compromise. The two amendments, according to White House estimates, would have lopped $1 billion in revenue from the House-passed bill to raise an additional $6 billion. After powerful arm wrenching, Administration forces persuaded a House-Senate conference committee to knock out Hartke's amendment. But Prouty's pet, though watered down, remained. As finally approved by the conference, it would 1) provide $35 monthly for individuals, $52.50 for couples; 2) benefit only persons who are 72 or older or who reach that age by Jan. 1, 1968, and are not receiving a specified amount of Government assistance from other sources; and 3) finance the plan by borrowing from social security trust funds, so as not to cut into the tax bill's estimated revenue. Thus patched up, the bill went back to both houses for expected passage this week.

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