Good Intentions

"I regard it as extremely important that we should achieve a balance of actual income and outgo for the fiscal year 1938, and I appeal to you to join me in a determined effort to bring about that result. . . .

"And while I recognize many opportunities to improve social and economic conditions through Federal action, I am convinced that the success of our whole program and the permanent security of our people demand that we adjust all expenditures within the limits of my Budget estimate." All last week Congressmen pondered these words, the first they had heard in such a vein from Franklin Roosevelt in nearly four years. Most were pleased that the President's good intentions towards the Budget corresponded with their own--pleased and a little uneasy as they wondered just how much action such good intentions required.

Relief. Chief topic of anxiety was Relief--how much and how little. After pondering that question for three month; the only information that the President gave was one sentence, a request of $1,500,000,000 for work relief in fiscal 1938. This figure, biggest in the Budget was the most debatable, since anybody's guess of the number of unemployed is as good as anyone's else. No sooner had the figure been announced than the President's friend Senator James F. Byrnes of South Carolina proclaimed that $1,000,000,000 would be plenty. But a $1,500,000,000 relief appropriation will provide jobs fo some 1,800,000 individuals, about 240,000 less than are on WPA payrolls at present The U. S. conference of Mayors has urged a Relief appropriation of at least $2,200,000,000. Last week liberals in the House meeting in Texas' Maury Maverick's office declared they would support a bill of Representative H. Jerry Voorhis of San Dimas, Calif, to appropriate $2,520,000,000 for Relief.

Deficit. The punch behind the President's economy drive was his revealing an estimated deficit of $2,557,000,000 for the fiscal year ending two months hence ($309,000,000 bigger than anticipated) of a $418,000,000 deficit for fiscal 1938 when the Budget was supposed to balance. Primary cause of these deficits is the failure of actual revenue to come up to the expectations of last January. This meant that instead of the public debt reaching a peak of $35,026,000,000 on July 1 and then receding, it would kee on going up and reach $35,750,000,000 by a year from July. It meant that a Budge balance was still around the corner.

This news put Congressmen in an economizing mood. Senator Byrnes made another proposal, to knock a flat 10% off the Budget estimates for all expenses except payments on the public debt. In the House Republican John Taber of Aubun N. Y., moved to send the Department of Agriculture $925,000,000 appropriation bill back to the Committee to have 10% lopped off. The House did not want to economize on the farmers and New Dealers did not want to adopt a Republican's motion. Only 32 members voted for the cut.

Economy? Would history be paved with good intentions of the 75th Congress? Congressmen felt twinges of fiscal uncertainty in their joints. They could see that the President's example was not so strong as his precept. Although urging them to economize and promising "to use every means at my command to eliminate this deficit during the coming fiscal year," he did not reduce his own net aggregate of Budget requests. The expected $418,000,000 deficit of fiscal 1938 was accounted for by a reduction of $387,000,000 in revenues and an increase of $31,000,000 in expenditures over those he calculated in January. Nor did he recommend any new taxes to help balance the Budget at present. Instead he promised merely that the Treasury would make tax recommendations before the next session of Congress.

The prospect of economy rested chiefly on Franklin Roosevelt's intention of keeping Congressmen from voting funds for new schemes, on the unanimous feeling of such legislative leaders as Vice President Garner, Senators Byrnes and Harrison, Representatives Doughton, Rayburn and Speaker Bankhead, that the Budget must be balanced and new taxes not imposed. But the prospect of economy was not for any material reduction in expenses. It was for holding expenses at about present levels.

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