Mr. COWAN. I am hoping we can reduce this amount, however, for 1966.

Mr. STEED. After you absorb the shock of the extra losses from the new facility going in and then it builds up to the volume, you think that will have a further effect of reducing the amount of this deficit on an annual basis.

Mr. COWAN. Yes, sir.
Mr. STEED. Mr. Kirwan.

Mr. KIRWAN. I want to ask a question. Can you get three or four different unsweetened fruit juices and put them in a separate section with a card saying "Unsweetened"? Walter Horan told me you are making an effort to do that. Two members of this committee-and I happen to be one of them are diabetic. Many members are. Can you, when you are buying your liquids, get orange juice that is unsweetened?

Mr. COWAN. Yes, sir. Right now we are serving fresh orange juice almost exclusively in the House restaurant itself.

Mr. KIRWAN. But you have it all mixed up, and no one can tell which is which, instead, of taking a corner of that place and marking them for us.

Mr. COWAN. We are talking about the Longworth cafeteria now? Mr. KIRWAN. Yes.

Mr. COWAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. KIRWAN. Put "diabetic" there. The morning is the hardest part of the day for a man with diabetes. I went to the hospital and they served me apple juice. That was the first time I had apple juice since I was a kid. You can get it unsweetened.

Mr. COWAN. Yes, sir; we can get that.

Mr. KIRWAN. Get about four different flavors, if you will-pineapple, orange, grapefruit, and apple-and put them in a corner to themselves so we can see what they are and pick them up.

Mr. COWAN. Surely. We certainly can do that, Mr. Kirwan.

Mr. KIRWAN. I wish you would do that. Make sure that you have something such as string beans, one of the vegetables, so you can balance your food properly.

Mr. COWAN. We have made a small beginning, and I am contemplating putting a dietary section on the menu. I might have already indicated that to you.

Mr. HORAN. I appreciate your being here to give us these answers, gentlemen. Do you contemplate raising the price of your sirloin steaks? That will have to go up?

Mr. COWAN. Yes. That is a fire sale every time I put one on the table.

Mr. HORAN. They are excellent.

Mr. COWAN. They cost us $1.45 apiece before we add the potatoes. Mr. HORAN. How about your seafood platter and that sort of thing?

Mr. COWAN. They will be increased.

Mr. HORAN. I am quite partial to hard rolls. When I first came to Congress, we used to have them. I do not know whether they were brought in from the outside or not. Then, of course, we had the experience when Mr. Brockwell was here and the pages came down and were making a meal out of hard rolls and bought nothing else, so we cut out bread.

Do you have the kind I am

Mr. COWAN. We have hard rolls available. Mr. HORAN. But not the small ones. talking about available in the cafeteria? Mr. CowAN. I shall see about getting some of those for the Capitol. (Off the record.)

Mr. HORAN. I have no other questions. I wish to commend Mr. Cowan for the work he is doing. It is work to run these restaurants. I think there has been a vast improvement in the new restaurant which came with the east front. I think it is very nice. We hope we will have even more room, because it becomes awfully crowded in there. However, people are so happy to eat in there, they do not complain. Mr. CowAN. Not too much. We operate 30 or 35 over seating capacity every day by using these side chairs. It is not conducive to decorum, but we have to try to get them in there somehow.

Mr. HORAN. If we could get some small helicopters for the waiters to get in there to some of those tables, that would help. But we make out. It is a one-shot thing, although this summer the capacity crowd has spilled over from 1 to 1:30 to as late as 3:30 now.

Mr. COWAN. Right now it is beginning at 11:30 and going to 2:30 or 3 o'clock, instead of a 12-hour period.

Mr. HORAN. I do want to commend you. I think we could wisely move in the direction of making the dietetic and caloric menu rather complete. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. STEED. Mr. Langen?

Mr. LANGEN. Let me pick up where Mr. Horan left off. I would certainly want to agree with the compliments that have been extended, because the service is good. I probably have made as many demands as anyone, and have had real good response to all of them. By the same token, there are a few questions that come to my mind, probably for clarification purposes as much as anything else.

It is not very often that you see an enterprise in which business is going up and getting better, and the better it gets, the bigger the detriment, because it creates bigger deficits. Ordinarily when business is improving and picking up, you expect the entire operation is going to be better and more profitable.

A couple of items puzzle me. I noted the reference to expenses. There are the salary increases, and quite obviously the cost of moving into the new Rayburn Building.

In allocating expenses, are charges made for lights, heat, and airconditioning?

Mr. COWAN. No, sir.

Mr. LANGEN. None of that is chargeable to the operation of the restaurant?

Mr. COWAN. No, sir.

Mr. STEED. If the gentleman will yield, I think we deal here only with the actual costs of income.

Mr. LANGEN. Moving on from there and in light of the continuous increases in deficits, I am really happy to see some move has been made to adjust the prices somehow or other to be more commensurate with the costs. Remembering that while the House restaurant as well as the cafeteria serve House Members, staff people, and a good percentage of the public as well——

Mr. COWAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LANGEN (continuing). It is also obvious there are a few criticisms floating around regarding the whole operation of the Capitol. With all of these salary increases coming along to everybody, whether they are House Members or clerks or whatever they are, maybe we ought to get to the point where we paid for at least the cost of these items. I fail to see that we should not be able to pay for the cost. In fact, these costs should be cheap where we are operating in a building without the cost of light, heat, taxes or anything that is applicable to an ordinary business.

It would seem to me in considering the proposed increases, they might well be such that it would come a little closer to paying the bill. Mr. COWAN. That is what we are trying to do, Mr. Langen, to get a more realistic price structure on these menu items, prices that are comparable to an outside restaurant. We think we can make a whole lot better showing after we put this program into effect. We will have these price increases starting January 1, 1965, which will come much closer, we think, to paying the expenses.

Mr. LANGEN. I do not say that critically. I say it more in light of the fact that the entire Congress is getting criticism for its expenditures, and this does not improve it any.

As I say, with these salary increases which are going into effect for all of us, I am sure some of the public are wondering if maybe we could not pay somewhere near the cost of operation. I say that, too, in full recognition, which I think should be a part of the record, of the difficulty of operating a House restaurant because of the time problem, the rush hour at noon, and the need for full-time employment.

The same is true now in opening up a new building, which obviously will disturb and interrupt the routine of business somewhat, which I would hope would settle down and the cafeteria over in the Rayburn Building may eventually turn out to pay its own way as the rest of the cafeterias have. I am sure it will in time. When it does, that will improve the picture that we are talking about here now.

(Off the record.)

Mr. STEED. Gentlemen, thank you very much. We appreciate your presentation. We feel you are doing a very good job under some very difficult circumstances. The committee will be glad to give your problems sympathetic consideration.