Another Nick

After six weeks' study, the House Appropriations Committee, headed by New York's economy-minded John Taber, last week reported out to the House floor an armed forces appropriations bill which would nick $1,337,422,500 off Defense Secretary Wilson's pared-down budget:

The downward course of the 1954 defense budget to date:

Truman budget $40.7 billion Wilson budget 35.7 " Appropriations Committee budget 34.4 The committee's proposed allocation of funds : Army $12.9 billion Navy 9.3 " Air Force 11 " Taber's committee applauded as "sound and reasonable" Wilson's plan to reduce the Air Force buildup goal from 143 to 120 wings. But where Wilson had concentrated primarily on cutting the Air Force, Taber's men divided their attentions among all three services. They proposed to take another $689 million away from the Army, $398 million from the Navy and Marine Corps and $240 million from the Air Force.

Among the economies proposed:

P:A $390 million cut in funds for Army maintenance and operations.

P:A reduction in the number of hours which Air Force and Navy men must spend in the air in order to qualify for flight pay. Men who have held aeronautical ratings for 15 years will go on getting flight pay without having to put in time in the air. Estimated saving in decreased cost of operating the planes in which they used to qualify: $95 million.

P:A $170 million cut in Army procurement funds. Reason: the Army is "unrealistic" in its estimate of when some new items will be ready for production.

P:A cut of $50 million off the $741 million which the Navy requested for construction and conversion of ships, the Navy to cut where it likes.

P:Elimination of the $12,000 spent by the Army Quartermaster every year on upkeep of "non-usable horses and mules."

This week debate on the committee's budget bill was slated to begin in the House. The prospects: a great deal of anguished oratory from air-minded Democrats, followed by House approval of most of the Wilson-Taber cuts.

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