Remarks by Senator Harry S. Truman Relating to Amendments to Renegotiation Law Contained in H.R. 3687

REMARKS BY SENATOR HARRY S. TRUMAN RELATING TO AMENDMENTS TO RENEGOTIATION LAW CONTAINED IN H. R. 3687, AS AMENDED BY THE SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE The compromise proposals recommended by the Finance Committee are a distinct improvement over the bill as originally reported. The changes made by the Committee show a real understanding of the need for this form of flexible price and profit control, and a realization that taxes alone, no matter how high, will not adequately solve the problem. The changes which have been made will, I believe, go a long way towards closing the door to profiteering of any scandalous proportions, particularly if industry continues to display in the future the same fine spirit of cooperation which has characterized the great majority of war contractors up to the present time I shall therefore confine my remarks today, and the few amendments, which I now urge, to certain serious administrative problems. There are, I am glad to say, not very many, but certain administrative difficulties of serious proportions will arise I believe unless amendments of the character I now propose are incorporated into the generally admirable Bill which has now come out of Committee. These administrative difficulties are: First, there is a crying need for an available, self-administering method of establishing reconversion reserves, in place of the requirement that the renegotiators make allowances for reconversion requirements. Such a solution of the reconversion problem is now pending in the form of a sub- stitute amendment to the tax provisions of the bill, offered by mei on Wednesday, January 19. Second, the Bill has omitted a requirement that the factors to be applied in renegotiation proceedings be published by regulations of the Board for the information of the contractors subject to renegotiation. (os TRUMAN NARA