OCR Text |
Show APPROPRIATIONS AND DEFICITS. j Arc deficits desirable? Should they be j provided for as a regular part of the State's financial administration? Ordinarily, Ordi-narily, and as a question of sound financiering, the answer must be, decidedly de-cidedly not. And yet, in practice, many legislative bodies answer Yes to both questions. Deficits seem to bo considered consid-ered desirable, and tho appropriations are so made, either by disproportionate amounts to tho work laid out or by excess In gross of all reasonable rpvenuo expectations, as to compel the deficits or stop tho public administration. It is to be hoped that the present Legislature Leg-islature of this State will not range-itself range-itself among those bodies which seem to prefer deficits, by its action In cither respect. And yet, If It listens to Importunities, Im-portunities, It will necessarily gravitate to tho deficit class of legislative bodies. We understand that there are projects afoot for appropriations which would easily run the State In debt half a million mil-lion dollars at the end of tho biennial period, If they were assented to. There are also projects for Increasing appropriations, appro-priations, already made; for adding to the official roster of the State; for expensive ex-pensive schemes that might or might not be to the public advantage, and In many forms these propositions come, all designed, whatever else they may do, to take money out of the public treasury. treas-ury. Now, it is obvious that the Stale cannot can-not afford many of these luxuries; a calm review of the situation may bring the Legislature to the conclusion that it cannot afford any of them; that when It provides for the actual necessities of the public service and the continuation continua-tion of good work already undertaken, the revenues will have been exhausted Wo are Just wrestling with a possible scandal, for Instance, in connection with the St. Louis Exposition, and a shortage which In some quarters Is denied de-nied to be a deficit, but yet some thousands thou-sands of dollars are asked for to make both ends meet, by whatever name the gap may be called. And yet some are urging that we undertake another job of the same sort by a large increase of the appropriation for the Portland fair. It may ns well be said first as last, that all such appropriations amount to nothing save to allow a few Individuals Indi-viduals to have an enjoyable time at the public cost, and to pose as representatives repre-sentatives of tho various interests of the State, whereas in fact they represent repre-sent nothing whatever, and the advertising adver-tising the State gets out of it Is as likely to conje In the form of a black eye as In any other. But that Is only a small Item In the demands that are constantly formulated formu-lated to get drain-pipes Into the treasury treas-ury vaults. They should all be scrutinized scrutin-ized with the utmost care. The Legislature Legis-lature should not only refuse absolutely absolute-ly to be a party to any deficit-making in the future, but it should rigorously refuse to recognize in any form of appropriation, ap-propriation, any deficits- of the past which have been' created contrary to law. In that course only Is safety. It Is only by refusing to pay deficits that deficits can be stopped. These are forbidden for-bidden by law, but as long as they aro constantly encouraged by Legislative appropriation to meet them, they will certainly be created. That is the experience ex-perience of the past, and it will be tho experience of the future, as long as the Legislature is weak enough to encourage encour-age deficits by paying them. The way. to stop deficits is to refuse to pay them. |