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Show j Comment If , President Eisenhower's budget for the fiscal year 1958 proposes record peacetime expenditures to be financed by record peacetime revenues. There have been only four other budgets higher than the 1958 budget in the history of the nation. Three of them occurred in World War II and the fourth during the Korean conflict. Budget expenditures for the year ending June 30, 1958, will total $71.8 billion and receipts are estimated at $73.6 billion, resulting in a surplus of $1.8 billion. The surplus would be used for debt reduction and minimum tax relief for small business. Expenditures are up $2 billion over 1957 and receipts are up by $3 billion. The budget will now be reviewed by the legislative branch of the government. Opposition has arisen to the noticeable expansion 'of federal grants and aids to the states. State officials and business organizations have voiced their disapproval of encroachment by the federal government in the affairs of state and local communities, especially in the field of labor whore federal funds are used to finance the administrative cost of providing employment services and unemployemnt compensation and for employment security work. Economy-minded members think these and many other grant programs pro-grams should be carefully scrutinized by Congress and wherever possible poss-ible functions and activities be returned to the states. Federal grants have risen from $3.7 billion in fiscal 1956 to a new hi-h of $5.5 billion in 1958. , Budget primers suggest many of the welfare programs present a fertile field for possible economies. It is also contended that many civilian activities carried on by the military can be cut back without affecting the military program. Some members of Congress insist that a good portion of foreign economic aid could be eliminated without impairing the over-all international inter-national program. Private industry argues that it is not necessary to spend high sums oY the taxpayers' money to develop atomic electrical energy. Given proper legislative backing, industry will invest the necessary capital without federal aid, other than research, to develop the necessary neces-sary power facilities. LABOR WANTS MUCH Legislative demands of big labor unions appal even some self-styled liberal members of Congress. Apparently unconcerned over inflation apparently hoping to bend the Eisenhower administration and Congress to their will they propose as complete a legislative program as the administration or any political party. These proposals include scuttling of the Taft-Hartley Act, expansion ex-pansion of minimum wage coverage, injection of government into economic affairs of areas with temporary unemployment, huge expenditures ex-penditures for schools, raising social security benefits and taxes, government gov-ernment operation of atomic energy plants, and other government extension ex-tension in the field of private business. SOCIAL SECURITY COSTS Labor groups are suggesting that the wage base on which employers and employees pay the social security pay-roll tax be raised from $1,200 to $7,800 a year. This proposal, which would place a heavy burden of taxation on business, would be accompanied by an increase in old-age benefits and other payments from the social security fund. The labor proposal for a more costly old-age , annuity system comes on the heels of expansion of the law by Congress last year, and an increase in the pay-roll tax, totalling $850 million annually, which became effective Jan. 1 . |