Shapes Beneath the Wraps

Under a shroud as concealing as the wraps around an Atlas missile last week was the U.S. budget for the fiscal year 1959 (beginning next July 1). But like a big missile's cover, the shroud could scarcely conceal the gigantic bulk record peacetime $73.5 billion to $74 billion. Even a few of the budget's major components were becoming noticeable. Items:

DEFENSE. The Administration is already set to ask a supplemental appropriation of $1.3 billion under the present (1958) budget, beyond that will seek $40 billion for fiscal 1959. The Air Force will get about $19 billion, the Navy about $11 billion, the Army about $9 billion, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense about $1 billion. New this year is an additional request in the White House budget for a $500 million "contingency fund," for quick commitments whenever break-throughs are scored in weapons research and development.

FOREIGN AID. The Administration will ask just under $4 billion for continued foreign economic aid ($3.4 billion this fiscal year), is bracing for the usual anti-aid blasts. Last week came the first blast. Louisiana's Congressman Otto E. Passman, Democratic chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Aid, charged that a State Department report on how Russia is spending $1.9 billion worth of foreign aid in underdeveloped nations (see FOREIGN NEWS) was released to scare Congress into upping U.S. aid.

EDUCATION. To stimulate scientific education, the Department of Health, Education & Welfare will seek an initial $224 million for a federal scholarship program (see EDUCATION). In addition, the National Science Foundation's fund for non-defense pure research grants ($17 million this year) will be raised to about $50 million.

Despite major increases for defense and education, the Administration expects that the record budget can be kept in balance without tax increases. On the revenue side it will recommend continued excise taxes, will gamble that a business upswing by midyear will guarantee a higher level of tax revenue than in 1958. On the expense side, the Budget Bureau will scissor administrative non-defense spending; e.g., the Interior Department will start no new dam or reclamation projects (with the possible exception of the $400 million-plus Colorado River storage dam at Glen Canyon, Ariz.); nonessential defense spending for "chrome trimmed" military construction will be put off.

In addition, the President is expected to make a brave try to get Congress to face up to some of its budget-cutting responsibilities. Among the possibilities: cut down on certain veterans' pensions in line with the recommendations of a 1956 commission chaired by Five Star General Omar Bradley; let the $500 million-a-year acreage reserve portion of the farm soil bank program lapse without renewal; reduce the federal share of contributions to public assistance payments (e.g., medical care and old-age allotments); and end federal spending in the fields of vocational education and such minor federal programs as water pollution control.

Next week the budget's wraps come off and Congress gets to work. Facing the men of Capitol Hill are three conflicting impulses: the desire for pork-barrel spending in an election year, the desire to economize, the desire to keep up with Russia without going into debt or raising taxes. Already Americans for Democratic Action demand a $78 billion to $80 billion budget; contrariwise, penny-saving House Appropriations Committee Chairman Clarence Cannon has harrumphed that "a great many people are going to use national defense as a reason to bolster their requests for bigger appropriations." What will finally come out will be clear only when the countdown ends late this spring.

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