Deficit Deleted

Herbert Henry Lehman, banker, son and brother of bankers, announced last week that, as Governor of New York, he had at last, after five fiscal years, wiped out an accumulated deficit of $94,428,496.67 left behind for fiscal 1933 by Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Fiscal 1938, said Governor Lehman, had ended with New York State some $16,600,000 in the black for the year, some $6,500,000 in the black for all years (apart from funded debt).

Banker-Governor Lehman is now running for the U. S. Senate, and local adversaries took mild issue with his figures, saying that some of his indicated surplus funds were already pledged, that he had played a common little trick of year-end balance reading. Sharper issue, against a national sounding-board, was taken by the ex-Governor who created the deficit. In his speech at Covington, Ky. (see p. 7), Franklin Roosevelt digressed to say:

"As Governor of New York . . . because I could get no assistance from Washington, I was compelled to create State deficits--to put the State treasury into the 'red'--in order to feed the destitute and give work to the unemployed.

"In the six years that have intervened many of our States, because of that help back from the into the National 'black' again--my Government, own have got State of New York--and your own State of Kentucky. . . . Your Governor, my Governor and a good many other Governors are able to go before their people and announce proudly that they have balanced budgets.

"More power to their arms!"

Banker -Governor -Candidate Lehman did not reply to his President. But others looked up New York State's relief expenditures : included in the Roosevelt deficit of $94,428,496 was only $25,000,000 for Relief.

The New York Times drove home another point:

"There is no magic in the formula of 'Federally financed' public works. The National Government has not tapped some mysterious source of funds, or taken money from a box where it was stored for a rainy day. The National Government has no spending power whatever except that which it acquires by taxing its citizens, and every dollar in 'Federal funds' that has been received by 'Kentucky and other States' will be repaid by the people of Kentucky and the other States--with interest. There is no Santa Claus in Washington. . . ."

Political Notes

Slogan-of-the-Week

Author: Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League (Samuel Untermyer, president). Place: Manhattan. Medium: 175-ft. net banners to be towed behind airplanes over holiday crowds at beaches, mountain resorts. Wording: YOU PAY FOR NAZI SPIES IF YOU BUY NAZI GOODS.

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