The Senator & the Monster

The $85.4 billion budget that President Truman requested in January could hardly be more difficult to comprehend if it were written in Roman numerals. Piled up in silver dollars, it would rise 152,935 miles; it totals nearly three times all the U.S. currency in circulation. Congress took one look at the monster and began screaming for cuts. The Administration replied, as usual: fine, but where? The legislators, as usual busy with many things (including their own pork barrels), have neither the time nor the technical manpower to work out a convincing answer.

But one Senator at least is having a go at the challenge. For the past three years, Virginia's Harry F. Byrd has submitted an annual budget of his own, prepared by a four-man staff which works on it the year round. Last week Byrd put his plan for 1952-53 into the Congressional Record. It would chop the President's budget by $8.6 billion "without impairing a single essential function." Main suggestions: For all the labors of his little staff, able Harry Byrd had to cover vast areas with vague--though sensible--generalizations. Sample: "It is doubtful whether anyone outside the military establishment will contend seriously that the armed services are not 10% inefficient in their utilization of civilian manpower." Nevertheless, the Byrd budget will be useful, as it has been in the past, when Congress begins tilting with Truman's $85.4 billion monster. Its understandable shortcomings demonstrate once again that it is high time for Congress to create a technical staff of its own to meet the creature in equal battle.

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