Word: 80th
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Abroad. In international affairs, the 81st's record-like the 80th's−was good. Under bipartisan leadership, the Senate approved the North Atlantic Treaty,, the first peacetime alliance with European nations in U.S. history, and a $1 billion program to help arm the alliance. After a seizure of quibbling, Congress authorized a generous $5.4 billion appropriation for EGA. The hobbling "peril-point" amendment was struck off the reciprocal-trade program, and the authority extended two years. The 81st also gave U.S. defense all that the President had asked-and decided that he had not asked enough...
...touchstone of the Taft-Hartley law, the 81st Congress was closer political kin to the 80th than it was to Harry Truman. By the touchstone of what his political opponents had said he could or could not achieve, Harry Truman had won quite a bit, though it was not nearly as much as he had asked or as he had promised to get. Said he, perhaps mindful of the do-nothing days of early summer: "You know, I'm happy about the record of Congress. It accomplished more than I expected...
...Republican-controlled 80th Congress continually harped on its "mandate" from the people to curb labor unions and "halt the trend to socialism." But the mandate of the 1948 elections seems to have been trampled underfoot along with most of Truman's proposals. The people, as the President said, have a right to expect Congress to carry out the program which they, the people, have endorsed. The next session will be the 81st's last chance...
Vermont's able, gentle George Aiken, who had helped write a sliding-scale program for the Republican 80th Congress, took up the defense of the Anderson bill. The whole idea, he said, was to get away from the increasing government controls which rigid supports would surely bring. Besides, by reducing the support level when farm production was high, farmers would not be tempted into overproducing at government expense. Said Aiken: "Let us not look for a check from the government as the first line of attack in the battle for farm prosperity. Let us work first...
...World's Shmoo." Taft and Malone were in a lonely minority. The only real debate came over an amendment which would retain the "peril-point" procedure added to the bill last year by the Republican 80th Congress. Under this provision, the Tariff Commission determines how far a tariff can be reduced without "threatening serious injury" to the U.S. industry concerned. The President can go below the peril point in negotiating reciprocal trade treaties, but if he does, he must publicly report his reasons to Congress...