portant to the State that transients be treated as it is that their own residents be treated; otherwise, the disease might spread from transient areas. Mr. THOMAS. In investigating and examining some of the various programs, the Committee has found that different agencies sometimes have somewhat similar laws. Now, your particular national act is, in some instances, not much different from the act of another agency. And yet, as we are finding in our discussions here this morning, despite the fact that there is no residence requirement in that other national agency act, still the agency feels that it has to tolerate a residence requirement in the State plans. Now, under your program it would seem in that case perhaps because of the different character of the particular program they are dealing with, that the States are very likely not to invoke the nonresidence clause. Dr. VONDERLEHR. I think there is one more factor, and that is that we get hundreds of letters each year from individuals in the States saying that they are infected with syphilis or gonorrhea and asking if treatment is available. Upon investigation, we learn in practically every case that the query has been directed to us because of the ignorance of the individual as to where suitable clinics are located, and not because of discrimination. Also, generally speaking, throughout the country there is a desire to see that everyone who has a venereal disease is treated for that disease, and that desire is based, I think, largely on the theory of self-protection. Mr. THOMAS. In other words, it is because of the particular problem that is presented that the State does not set up any residence requirement rather than that your act is different from the acts of other programs. Dr. VONDERLEHR. I do not believe that we could say, in the absence. of communicability of the disease, that nonresidents would be considered, unless it was required by Federal law. Mr. THOMAS. In other words, it is a sort of selfish motive that prompts the States not to require residence qualification in connection with your program. Dr. VONDERLEHR. That is correct, sir. Mr. THOMAS. What would your office do if the State did set up a residence qualification in either plan or law? ACT STIPULATES TREATMENT FOR NONRESIDENTS Dr. VONDERLEHR. We can withhold our contribution to that State under the regulation of Congress regarding venereal-disease control, and I would like to refer specifically to section 15, paragraph 5, which says: To receive funds under this Act, diagnostic and treatment services shall be as freely available to infected residents of other States and counties as to people who reside in the governmental unit providing the services. Mr. THOMAS. The reason we were asking that question is this: It seems that in your particular program you insist that no residence requirement be made, and that your office would not tolerate a residence requirement, whereas in some of the programs of other agencies they are more or less tolerant of residence restrictions. Dr. VONDERLEHR. We are not tolerant of it at all. If a person has syphilis or gonorrhea, it does not make any difference whether that person is a resident or not. He is just as capable of spreading disease as the person who has always lived in that district. Mr. THOMAS. We were asking the question from an administrative. standpoint. Given the fact that you have two laws which are somewhat similar. One law is administered with a certain toleration of residence requirement, whereas under the other you would not tolerate a residence program. Dr. VONDERLEHR. The law provides that the Surgeon General, after approval by the Administrator of the Federal Security Agency, shall draft rules and regulations governing allotments, or the payment of funds, so that they may be paid under proper administrative authority. And the law has been prepared with that in mind. The essential reason for this is the fact that we are dealing with communicable diseases. STATEMENT AND TESTIMONY OF PHILIP F. MAGUIRE, ACTING Mr. THOMAS. I believe our next witness will be Mr. Maguire, Acting Administrator of the Surplus Marketing Administration. STATEMENT IN REPLY TO COMMITTEE QUESTIONNAIRE 1. How are surplus commodities distributed, i. e., how do these commodities get into the hands of an individual? In many areas surplus commodities are purchased by needy families with blue food stamps and brown or white cotton stamps supplied by this Administration, through the Food and Cotton Stamp Programs. In areas in which the Food Stamp program has not yet been established, surplus foods purchased by the Surplus Marketing Administration from growers and handlers are distributed directly through warehouses and depots operated by State welfare agencies. On specified days each month families certified by the State welfare agencies as in need of this kind of assistance call at the commodity depots and receive allotments of whatever foodstuffs are on hand. Foods are also supplied through the State welfare agencies to schools operating free school and summer lunch programs for needy children of school age, and to inmates of institutions operated on a nonprofit basis. These are the major programs of the Surplus Marketing Administration in terms of the number of persons reached and funds spent. In addition, in some areas needy school children and public assistance families are permitted to purchase fresh milk at considerably less than the regular retail price through milk depots maintained by the local welfare agencies. The Surplus Marketing Administration makes possible these programs by subdizing the processing and delivery costs, while the local welfare agencies certify clients and in some cities pay all or part of the client's contribution. Finally, cotton mattresses manufactured by W. P. A. workers from cotton purchased by the Surplus Marketing Administration are distributed to families certified as eligible by State welfare agencies. Cotton also is supplied for the manufacture of mattresses by low-income farm families certified as eligible by the Farm Security Administration and by local Agricultural Adjustment Administration committees. 2. How are commodities distributed through the stamp plans, i. e., how do these commodities get into the honds of an individual? In an increasing number of areas embracing 54 percent of the total population of the United States, surplus foods are purchased by needy families in retail food stores at prevailing retail prices, with blue food stamps issued by the Surplus Marketing Administration through local welfare agencies. In order to participate families must be certified as in need by the local welfare agencies, and they must make regular purchases of orange food stamps in amounts which approximate their normal food expenditures before their participation in the program. The orange stamps can be used to buy any food in any retail store; the blue stamps can be used only to purchase foods designated by the Secretary of Agriculture. Foods purchased with both orange and blue stamps are foods which have moved from farm to retail store through the normal channels of trade, and which are available to blue stamp users on exactly the same terms as to other consumers. In about 30 areas goods manufactured wholly from domestic cotton may be purchased by needy families with brown cotton stamps issued through the cotton stamp program. Under a supplementary cotton program also, white cotton stamps, to be used in the same way, can be secured by cotton farmers in return for additional cotton acreage reduction. Rules governing the issuance and expenditure of these cotton stamps are quite similar to those in effect under the food stamp program. 3. What basis is used in the distribution of the benefits of your program, i. e., equitably among the States, or number of relief clients, or on a basis of need, or population, etc.? The primary considerations in the allocation of stamp program funds and commodities distributed directly are: (1) The distribution of the relief population, including families which need but do not receive public assistance in certain areas which make no or a very inadequate provision for relief. (2) The ability and willingness of States and communities to provide and maintain public assistance so that the distribution of commodities will be a supplement to and not a substitute for public assistance, and (3) The ability and willingness of States and communities to provide proper facilities for operating the programs, such as adequate certification of need, stamp issuing offices, and warehousing and other facilities for the distribution of commodities in kind. The second and third of these considerations mean that the amount of the blue stamp subsidy to needy families is frequently limited by the inadequacies of local relief. 4. Does the operation of your program require participation by any State or local agency? As indicated above, States, and local agencies play an important part in all our programs. They, (1) certify families and school children as in need of food and clothing, (2) provide offices and adequate personnel for issuing stamps and maintaining records on stamp transactions, (3) provide revolving funds for the purchase of orange food stamps and green cotton stamps, (4) provide warehouses, transportation facilities and personnel to carry on direct distribution operations, and (5) provide space, equipment and, in some cases, assisting personnel for school lunch programs. 5. Do you require that a State or local agency meet any conditions before it is able to participate in your program? As the answers to the two previous questions suggest, State and local agencies are required to meet certain minimum conditions respecting the adequacy of their certification procedures, warehouse and distribution facilities, revolving funds established, stamp issuing offices, and school lunch facilities. They also must give assurances that they will not diminish their own allowances for public assistance because of the availability of commodities under any of the Administration's programs: 6. How are prospective beneficiaries selected for participation in your program? The Surplus Marketing Administration enters into a written agreement with State or local public welfare agencies of each area in which one or more of its programs operates, respecting the categories of public assistance and nonassistance cases which will be allowed to participate, and the conditions of certification. For example, nonhouseholders are generally excluded from certification, on the obvious ground that they have no means of preparing the uncooked foods. Ordinarily all categories of public assistance, including direct relief, Social Security, and Farm Security Administration cases and families of workers employed on Work Projects Administration projects, are permitted to participate, but in a few areas one or more of these may, for special reasons, be excluded. In the food-stamp program in many areas two-person families, and families with relatively high incomes, are excluded, and we are extending the areas in which this is the case as rapidly as possible simply because the need of these families for assistance is relatively not so great as that of other, larger-sized families with smaller incomes. The agreement may and often does provide for the eligibility of needy families receiving no public assistance, particularly in areas which make no or a very inadequate provision for direct relief; and in one area, Shawnee, Okla., we have experimented with a low-income program under which all families with incomes of less than $1,040 are eligible to participate. Once these general conditions are agreed upon, the State and local welfare agencies assume responsibility for the certification of the eligibility of individual families in each category. 7. Does the question of residence enter into such selections, i. e., must a prospective beneficiary meet any residence requirements in order to become eligible for receipt of benefits under your program? This administration has no residence requirements for participation in any of its programs. However, since State and local welfare agencies determine the need of individual families to participate, and certify them to us, the residence requirements established by law or administrative ruling in each State and county in fact operate to exclude many families locally defined as nonresident, from the programs. In such cases nonresident families, because they do not meet all the local resuirements for public assistance, are not automatically certified to participate in the program, as are the eligible categories. Furthermore, there is usually no machinery for their certification as a special category. In fact, State and local laws restricting eligibility for public assistance to residencts, have in many areas been construed to prevent the expenditure of funds appropriated for relief even for the certification of nonresidents. Attempts by this administration to have such constructions relaxed so as to permit certification have met with relatively little success. There is one exception to the rule of certification by State and local agencies, which makes possible participation by migrant families in some areas. The Farm Security Administration certifies needy farm families which are ineligible for State or local relief for participation in the food-stamp program at its camps for migratory workers in California, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Texas, and Florida. Farm Security Administration offices located near the camps issue free orange and blue stamps to the certified families. The orange stamps are purchased by the Farm Security Administration from the Surplus Marketing Administration, which issues free blue stamps in amounts equal to 50 percent of the orange stamps. In May about 30,000 persons received food stamps through these camps. 8. Are there any other conditions which must be met which would, in effect, preclude a nonresident from participation in the program? In the food-stamp program eligible participants are required, in most areas as a condition of participation, to purchase orange food stamps in minimum amounts approximating their normal expenditures for food. These purchases must, obviously, be made out of income received either in the form of public assistance grants or income from casual private employment. Nonresident families who receive no public assistance cannot meet the minimum purchase requirements unless they have sufficient income from private employment, or about as much income as they would receive in assistance grants if they met the residence requirements. This condition probably operates to exclude even certified nonresident families from participation in the stamp programs except in those areas (particularly in the South) where they receive Farm Security Administration funds for the purchase of orange stamps or where blue stamps are issued without any purchase requirements to needy families receiving no public assistance. 9. Are any prospective beneficiaries precluded from your program because of nonresidence? The answer to this question is contained in the answers to questions 7 and 8. 10. Does your office have any effective means of determining whether or not nonresidents are covered by your program? We know that, because of the conditions described above, many nonresidents are excluded from participation in the programs of this Administration in areas which have residence restrictions on the receipt of public assistance. Largely because the administration of this agency is decentralized, we do not have in the Washington office a compendium of the pertinent State statutes and ad ministrative rulings, or a record of our experience in attempting to obtain the certification of nonresidents, but this information can be obtained from the field offices if the committee wishes. Finally, we have no means of determining the number of nonresident families in need of our assistance in any areas be cause we have no facilities for or funds to spend on certification under present circumstances. We must depend on State and local agencies to establish need for the commodities we distribute. 11. If, in fact, nonresidents are precluded from the benefits of your program, what is the cause of such preclusion, e. g., administrative practices, either Federal or local, etc.? This question has been fully answered in the answers to questions 7 to 10 above. As those answers clearly show, no Federal law or administrative ruling of this agency is responsible for the exclusion of nonresidents from participation in our programs. Their exclusion, wherever it occurs, is the effect of the operation of State restrictions on the expenditure of public-assistance funds on nonresidents, and of our own inability, because of a lack of funds, to establish our own machinery for certifying such cases. 12. As your program is presently set up and administered, is it your opinion that the scope thereof is adequate to cover nonresidents? Answers to preceding questions make it clear that we do not consider that our program, as it is presently set up and administered, is adequate to cover nonresidents. But it seems unlikely that any considerable progress can be made in the elimination of the legal and administrative obstacles which now stand in the way of nonresident participation. In the circumstances, if nonresidents are to be brought within our programs, funds must be made available for investigation, by this Administration or by some other Federal agency, of their need for assistance. With certification of need on this basis, we shall be able to adjust the orange stamp purchase requirements for such families to their ability to buy. TESTIMONY OF PHILIP F. MAGUIRE Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Maguire, in connection with your plan, are nonresidents included in determining the number of needy population, which needy population is one of the determinants of your stampplan fund? By that, I mean, are needy people included in this population group which you use as a determinant in allocating your stamp-plan funds? Mr. MAGUIRE. That is a little difficult to answer categorically, because we have had to take a number of factors into consideration in the allocation of funds, and besides that, we have other programs in operation in addition to the stamp program. In other words, the stamp program is replacing the direct distribution program in areas where it is going into effect; and as a matter of fact, in one instance there has been little equity observed in the sanction of the stamp program; and in another sense, it has been quite equitable. SCOPE OF STAMP PLAN However, there are a number of States reaching all certified needy people with the stamp program; in other States they are reaching a small percentage, perhaps 15 percent; there is one State in which the stamp program is not operating at all. That, however, is not our fault. The allocation of funds for various programs to States is made on the basis of the needs shown by available figures, and I think that probably it is essential to point out that we have to use the Social Security Board figures as to what the needs in any given area might be. In the operation of the program we are dependent upon the States to give us certifications of individual families for participation |