Costly Cheer

New York City officials last week were thumbing a volume that had 3,276 pages, weighted 34 Ibs. and was 6 1/2in. thick. But New York City's 1961-62 budget, the granddaddy of all city spending plans, all boiled down to one big fact: the city is being asked by its mayor to spend $2,542,120,936 in the fiscal year beginning in July, exactly $189,062,426 more than this year. City Hall cynics dubbed it the "something-for-everybody budget."

Mayor Robert Wagner, with up-for-re-election-year cheer, had announced the neat trick of balancing this budget with no increase in tax rates and no new taxes.

Real estate will pay about $40 million more in higher assessments. The next largest source, with city sales tax, auto revenue, license fees and business tax all lumped under the "general fund"--will be boosted by $82 million (largely by drawing from a "rainy day" fund, fed by sale of tax-forfeited property). State and federal aid will supply the remaining new revenue. One big expense item: $400 million, just to service the city's debt.

Wagner's New York City budget has still another distinction: it is larger than that of any state except New York and California and bigger than the annual budgets of about 90% of the United Nations members, including the United Arab Republic, Norway and Brazil.

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