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of depression when the need for income is greatest. Pilots and their employers must act together in order to provide an insurance basis which will afford adequate protection. There can be no substitute for a general overall retirement system, jointly supported, providing sure incomes for pilots fitted to their special needs. 

There has been worked out for the railroad industry a retirement system adapted to the special needs of railroad workers. That system has worked well. It is not suitable, as it stands, to the needs of pilots; but many of its principles, with appropriate modification, can be applied to pilots. 

A pilot's retirement system has been worked out by extending the principles of the railroad retirement system to meet the special needs of pilots. This has been done by rephrasing the disability provisions of the Railroad Retirement Act in language which fits the conditions of the air transport industry, taking into account the fact that the physical condition of air line pilots is now a matter of official concern of the Civil Aeronautics Board and the Civil Aeronautics Administration; by lifting the compensation limits applicable to railroads to limits suitable for the salary level of pilots; and by changing tax rates to those which are needed to provide benefits on scales appropriate to pilots. 

With respect to administration, procedures and conceptions, the pilots' retirement system has been modeled after the railroad system with substantially no change. 

It is important to understand the basic legal conception underlying the proposed pilots' retirement system. It is the basic principle of law of both the railroad retirement system and that part of the general social security system which deals with old age and survivors' insurance. This basic principle is that these systems shall be made up of two separate and distinct parts--a benefit part and a tax part--and that the two parts shall be separate and independent, legally and administratively. The Railroad Retirement Act is a statute of Congress which deals only with matters having to do with provisions for the payment of annuities and pensions and certain other subsidiary benefits. It raises no revenue. There is a Carrier's Taxing Act (now Subchapter B or Chapter 9 of the Internal Revenue Code)which raises revenue through taxes of railroad employees and railroad employers. The revenues are paid into the Treasury of the United States without earmarking. When the Railroad Retirement Act was before Congress, it was considered by the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce in the House and by the Committee on Interstate Commerce in the Senate. Those Committees made their study of the bill without reference to the question of revenue. The tax bill was studied in the House by the Committee on Ways and Means, and in the Senate by the Committee on Finance. The tax bill was considered as such and not as a part of a retirement system. The Railroad Retirement Act is considered by the Railroad Retirement Board; the Taxing Act (and Subchapter B, as cited) by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

Without going into detail, it may be said that this legal basis was very carefully formulated by members of Congress in order to assure the constitutionality of the social insurance measures which are of such great importance to so many millions of United States citizens. 

The consequences of this legal concept are numerous. Two of the most important are that (1) the system's revenues cannot be raised by any manner