Word: payments
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Federal payment per se is nothing new. Congress has made one to the District for 85 years now. Government is much the largest industry in Washington. Much of the most valuable land is Federal property. As in other areas where the government has a major impact--Oak Ridge is an example--Congress has accepted its responsibility to pay its share for the services the local government provides...
What bothered people was making the payment automatic. Opponents said this would amount to taxation of the U.S. government. They said the District government would be able to milk the U.S. taxpayers. They suggested it might be unconstitutional for Congress to abandon its control of government expenditures...
...Justice Department assured Congress that basing the payment on a tax loss would not be taxation. The formula, said a Department memo, "merely represents a Congressional judgment that this is a practical, efficient, and just method of computing the federal payment...
Supporters of the automatic payment also pointed out that the Administrator of General Services, a Federal officer, would have to approve the city's assessment of Federal property. The President would have an absolute veto of city council measures. And since the Congress can review or revamp local operations at any time, it would not be abandoning control, merely delegating...
Under the existing system, Congress approves the payment each year. This year the payment is $43 million--12 per cent of the total District budget. But the Appropriations Committees review the entire budget. As a result some Congressmen have consistently blocked expenditures the District wanted to make. The classic example is the action of Rep. Andrew Natcher (D-Tenn.), chairman of the House District appropriations subcommittee, whose resistance has prevented replacement of the dilapidated Shaw Junior High School. Sen Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.), head of the corresponding Senate subcommittee, has made welfare payments--particularly to parents of illegitimate children...