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H.R.'s 1927, 33, and 2332, 88th Cong., if enacted, estimate of additional first-year cost

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you have to sit down and study it.

Any further questions?

Mr. LIBONATI. We saw the formal nature.

How do you reconcile the question of benefits and the number receiving those benefits with the appropriations? The administration approved appropriations in order to determine what laws you will approve and will not approve in accordance to their minimizing the number of persons that would seek this benefit?

Mr. GLEASON. Well, Congressman, you have known me personally for a long time.

Mr. LIBONATI. I didn't say you personally. I am talking about the method.

Mr. GLEASON. I don't look on it from a viewpoint of appropriations whatsoever, Congressman. And you made mention a little bit earlier, sir, about service to veterans, and I take no second place in my service to veterans or to the American Legion which we have both served, and I as National Commander

Mr. LIBONATI. But is it true

Mr. GLEASON. A situation I am quite proud of.

Mr. LIBONATI. Is it true that any enabling act which would not be in conformity with the limitations on appropriations as such would not receive the administration's approval?

Mr. GLEASON. No, sir; I would say, Congressman-and this is just off the top of my head-that it is made on a basis of need and principle.

Mr. LIBONATI. Well, if the criticisms that come here emanating from the administration are that some of these bills give more money to those who have not that need, and that all these bills in conformity don't only give $10 to the individual with the most need, why does not the administration recommend increasing the spending dollar inuring to the benefit of the veteran, and thus give him more money determined on the question of need?

Mr. GLEASON. Well, I would like to cite some figures for the median income of families in the United States. Bureau of the Census Current Population Reports, Consumer Income, Series P-60, No. 37 shows that for 1960, the median money income for all families in the United States with a family head aged 65 or older was $2,897 per year. And we always pay a pension at that point, Congressman. Because here is a family head-that means that he has to have at least a dependent, and if a veteran with a dependent, he can go all the way to $3,000. And here the median throughout the entire United States is only $2,897 per year, with a man aged 65 years of age or older, and the head of a family.

Mr. LIBONATI. By median is meant the average?

Mr. GLEASON. Well, sir, it means there are as many with incomes above this amount as there are below it.

Mr. LIBONATI. It would not be in the middle class of recipients, though, would it?

Mr. GLEASON. No; the current population report shows that the median income of the male population in that same year of 1960 was $4,081.

Now, that takes in all ages, but those 65 and older-which I think is what you had reference to earlier

Mr. LIBONATI. Yes; that is right.

Mr. GLEASON. Was only $2,897, and we are paying a pension at t point if the veteran is married.

Mr. LIBONATI. And do you find that there is a variance between locality in which these families live, whether they live in rural as or urban areas? Isn't there some difference there?

Mr. GLEASON. Would you repeat that, sir? I am sorry, I just got message that I wanted to check.

Mr. LIBONATI. Do you find that in certain localities, geographical , or a question of urban or rural persons, that there is some differe in the question involving the earnings?

Mr. GLEASON. Well, this would be, I think, only natural in certain graphic areas, Congressman, the same as living costs would be erent in different parts of the country.

Mr. LIBONATI. I mean the fact that the average farmer in accorde with the statistics given us has earnings of a thousand dollars ning a farm, as the income from that farm, certainly with the food I everything being raised there and all the real necessities of life ich represent maybe two-fifths of the expenditures of the city fellow o works for a living and must buy his food.

Mr. GLEASON. Well, Congressman, I don't believe that the Federal tutes permit us to differentiate, and I would not think that it uld be a good thing to differentiate amongst the citizens of our own ntry who have served in time of war, whether they were a farmer whether they happen to work in a bank or in an industrial organiza

1.

Mr. LIBONATI. Yes, but the cost of living figures would indicate t need in one place would be of a lower figure than need in another ce where the cost of living is relatively high.

Mr. GLEASON. Well, I would say, Congressman, that if the Congress ts judgment feels that way, that I believe, then, that it is up to the ngress to amend it, because I don't believe that the Federal statutes v permit it.

Mr. LIBONATI. Well, when most of our populations are drifting to cities, and there were once 10 million families living on farms, and v there is wholsesale abandonment of small farms because of the petition of syndicates that makes it impossible for individual ilies to follow active farming unless they have $50,000 to put up investment in machinery and large acreage. I would say that need

uld be relative.

The purpose of need is to place the person in a position where he get the necessities of life at normal costs where he lives.

Mr. GLEASON. Well, Congressman, I think that in Public Law 211 is taken into consideration, insofar as it's humanly possible for us do so, in the sliding scale.

Mr. LIBONATI. Thank you.

Mr. TEAGUE of Texas. Any other questions on pensions?

Mr. GLEASON. Mr. Chairman, might I interrupt for a moment to d a statement.

Mr. TEAGUE of Texas. Yes, sir.

Mr. GLEASON. Mr. Chairman, in response to your earlier inquiry ould like to take this opportunity to discuss a matter which I feel rants favorable consideration by this committee. I am referring bills H.R. 177 and H.R. 221 to extend the war orphans' educational

manently and totally disabled as a result of service during a period of war or during the induction period.

War orphans' educational assistance has proved to be a most worthwhile benefit. However, at present, this assistance only becomes available when the veteran dies. In many cases we must recognize that a permanently and totally disabled veteran has problems in providing for the education of his children which are comparable to those his widow would face if he died. We recommend that this situation be corrected and that the educational assistance be made available to him by the enactment of this legislation.

Mr. TEAGUE of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Administrator.

For the benefit of the committee and the people here, this represents a major accomplishment. He has been interested in this personally and has been helping on this since January.

Mr. GLEASON. And I just got the word.

Mr. TEAGUE of Texas. So I thank you, Mr. Administrator. Mr. LIBONATI. I want to compliment the Administrator. We have known one another since his boyhood, and his career has been bejeweled with accomplishment. His sacrifice for the serviceman is well known. I know he serves in an uncomfortable position, knowing practically everybody in the services, at all levels, and I want to say this: Although we disagree on questions involving the basic formula upon which these laws should be based, necessarily our disagreement is primarily one of the ability to pay, and the appropriation as approved by the administration to carry the responsibility of recommending these bills sort of handicap him from doing as a person what he can't do as an administrator.

Thank you very much, sir.

Mr. GLEASON. Thank you, sir.

Mr. TEAGUE of Texas. I would like to suggest that I wish the gentleman from Illinois could go down and live on a Texas farm a little while. I think he might change his mind about the farmer's life.

Mr. LIBONATI. I was in Texas in the First World War, San Antonio, and when I entered the portals of San Antonio, they were hanging 11 men.

Mr. TEAGUE of Texas. I would also like to suggest that if it was so nice on the farms, farmers would not all be moving to the cities.

Mr. LIBONATI. I don't think the servicemen are a selfish lot, either, but when they say they can't get along with what they receive, we ought to give some credence to their plea in the hearings before this committee, and I maintain that I will always be one who will champion their cause when it's right.

Mr. TEAGUE of Texas. Mr. Saylor.

Mr. SAYLOR. Mr. Administrator, I am delighted to find that you had a bill that you were for. Most of these proposals that you have had since you have come up here

Mr. TEAGUE of Texas. Let me say the Administrator is, too.

Mr. GLEASON. Mr. Saylor, let me say, really, I had nothing to do with your being called to the White House this morning.

Mr. SAYLOR. I am concerned with some statements which you had in your statement that you gave to this committee on the 3d of April, and some others which you have here in your report today, and Í would like to ask you about some of them.

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