Giving & Taking

THE BUDGET

Next things first: President Johnson spent most of Christmas week at his Texas ranch, working over the budget for fiscal 1966, which begins next July 1. His constant companion was Budget Director Kermit Gordon, whom Johnson considers one of the two ablest nonCabinet members of his Administration (the other: Foreign Relations Adviser McGeorge Bundy).

The budget, of course, was a headache. Departmental spending requests amounted to some $108.5 billion; new legislation planned by the President, such as medicare, mass-transit improvements and anti-poverty measures, could add a couple of billion more.

Making a Stab. All that would send U.S. spending to alltime highs-a record that Johnson is not anxious to break. The biggest previous budget was Kennedy's $98.4 billion in fiscal 1964; Johnson carefully kept his own first budget just below that figure, at $97.9 billion.

Still, only a month ago Johnson seemed almost despairing about the prospects. He then told a news conference that he somehow hoped to keep the next budget below $100 billion, but "I would rather doubt it at the moment."

But Johnson certainly appeared to be making a stab at it. All last week department and agency heads winged in and out of the L.B.J. Ranch. Without exception, they emerged glassy-eyed over the President's cost-cutting efforts. Labor Secretary Willard Wirtz told reporters: "There has been consideration given in the last few hours to the fact that we have been spending $12,500 (out of $511 million) on newspapers in the Department of Labor. We are going to cut that to $11,000." Outgoing Commerce Secretary Luther Hodges recalled that the President had inquired if he might not produce "a saving of five people" in his department, which has 33,538 employees. After sitting in on one session, Hodges' designated successor, John T. Connor, remarked: "It seemed to me that it was a very favorable give-and-take session. Of course, in these sessions with the President, the Cabinet members seem to do most of the giving, and he does most of the taking."

Economies & Strength. And then there was Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who proudly announced that his budget might actually be lower than the current $49.8 billion. "We have been able to achieve further economies while continuing to increase our military strength," McNamara said, "and I now believe that the total expenditures in the next fiscal year will be closer to $49 billion than to $50 billion." To emphasize his point that lower spending did not mean less preparedness, McNamara announced that Johnson had approved an extra $157 million to begin development of a mammoth new military cargo transport plane, the CX. About as long as a hockey rink and double the width of a moving van, the C-X would carry up to 600 troops and their equipment-a total payload of 250,000 Ibs. It should be operational by 1969, said McNamara, and plans call for ordering 58 of them at an eventual cost of $1 billion. Concluded he: "This will greatly increase our mobility, greatly reduce our reaction time and thereby greatly strengthen our capability to meet crises wherever and whenever they may occur."

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