THE budget deficit for fiscal 1953, ending this month, will be about $7.9 billion, instead of the $5.9 billion estimated by Harry Truman. Chief reason: income from corporate taxes was less than Fair Deal estimates.

INTERIOR Secretary McKay, worried over charges that he opposes the development of natural resources, will soon announce support for two gigantic power and irrigation projects for the West. One is the Frying Pan-Arkansas project to transport water eastward from Frying Pan Creek, a tributary of the Colorado, through a tunnel under the Continental Divide to the Arkansas River, south of Denver. The other is the Upper Colorado project, calling for the building of ten dams, which could rival lower Colorado's Hoover (Boulder) Dam project, distribute water and power to Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and New Mexico. McKay hopes Congress will authorize construction of the two projects for 1954 to 1955, as a hedge against a business downturn. Total cost: $2.5 billion.

LIFE insurance should cost less next year as a result of the Government's higher-interest policies. Mutual companies (e.g., Phoenix, Massachusetts, Prudential) which have been increasing dividends to policyholders on the basis of lower mortality rates have a new reason to continue the trend: they are earning more on investments.

BECAUSE of a widening trade gap with the rest of the world, Turks fear the lira may be devalued. The government had hoped the gap would be filled by bigger wheat exports, but price-supported Turkish wheat is too expensive for the world market. In Istanbul's black market, the lira, officially pegged at 2.82 to the dollar, was down to 5.50 last week.

RFC's new boss, Kenton R. Cravens, whose agency will probably be replaced next year by a bureau making loans to small businesses only, is running things as if RFC were already going out of business. He has fired 477 staffers, laid down a rigid stipulation that a defense contractor can get an RFC loan only with a certificate that the Government has first tried--and failed--to buy from a firm that does not need a loan. Result: loans have dwindled from ten or 15 a week to one or two.

SOAPMAKERS are working themselves into a new competitive lather. Their latest product: all-detergent soap bars. Procter & Gamble's "Zest" is already being test-marketed, as is Colgate's "Charmis"; Lever Bros, is reported to be rushing a detergent bar of its own into production. The big ad froth will come next year.

CI.O. executives, feeling that they are being ignored by the Administration, largely because the White House has failed to approve the Textile Workers' John Edelman as an Assistant Secretary of Labor, have appropriated $1,000,000 for a radio & TV program to attack President Eisenhower. Said one C.I.O. leader: "I move we tell [the Administration] to go to hell."

COMMERCE Secretary Weeks will take a long look at shipbuilding subsidies in hopes of getting the Government out of the shipping business. He cut $118,500,000 in subsidies to build new ships from his 1954 budget, and Congress approved. First result: Moore-McCormack and Grace lines, which between them planned to build four ships this year, have canceled their plans.

GOVERNMENT housing men hope to give the housing industry a new fillip by 1) cutting down-payment requirements on FHA loans (now 10% to 20%), and 2) raising the mortgage limit from $16,000 to about $20,000. With time running out on this session of Congress, the proposals face a race against the clock.

CARRIER Corp.'s President Cloud Wampler expects an 82 % gain in room air-conditioner sales this year (to 750,000), and estimates that 60,000 new houses will be equipped with year-round air conditioning.

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