Touchy credit-control bill is backed on House panel

A House committee voted to give the President emergency credit control powers and the Federal Reserve Board new authority to stop financing of corporate acquisitions and mergers.

On a 24-to-19 vote, the House Banking Committee approved a Democratic-backed measure that would resurrect the recently defunct 1969 Credit Control Act. Many private economists believe former President Carter's use of the law, which gave him broad powers to allocate and limit credit, was responsible for hurling the US economy into a steep recession in the spring of 1980.