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Show ECONOMIC HIGHLIGHTS Happening's That Affect the Dinner Din-ner rails, Dividcn Checks nd Tux Rills of Kvcry Individual. Nationiil mid Inlernational I'roblciiis Inseparable from Local Lo-cal Welfare. Many of the Washington correspondents, cor-respondents, of late, have been commenting on a strange phenomena pheno-mena which is furrowing the brows of senators and representatives. represen-tatives. There is a growing volume of public criticism of Administration legislation unaccompanied unac-companied by criticism of the man who is responsible for it, Franklin D. Roosevelt.- All the Congressmen heve been finding their mails flooded with letters reading, in effect:- "You should vote and work against the stock exchange bill (or some i other White House backed bill which holds the limelight at the time), because it will delay recovery. re-covery. .. Support the President!" That isn't at all far-fetched. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands thous-ands of such letters have reached the capital, and the more prominent prom-inent the legislator the more he gets. In spite of their' obvious inconsistencies, such letters are important. They show something that is of vital interest, and will be a vital influence in coming political campaigns: That the voting vot-ing public is beginning to fear that the New Deal is more revolutionary, revol-utionary, both in principle and practice, than it had bargained for but that its faith, its trust, and its affection for the President Presi-dent is as strong, perhaps stronger, strong-er, than ever. Mr. Roosevelt, in its view, can make mistakes, but he can do no wrong. The Wirt inquiry brought the criticism to a head. Mr. Wirt's startling charge that members of the brain trust were conspired to overthrow the government, and regarded Mr. Roosevelt as the Kerensky of the American revolution, eventually to be replaced re-placed by its Lenin wasn't taken very serously. Again, there was nothing thrilling in his statement that men such as Dr. Tugwell want changes made in the American Amer-ican government Mr. Tugwell has written many books, made many speeches, given many interviews, in-terviews, and his ideas are hardly hard-ly a secret. But in the wake of Mr. Wirt came other, more moderate mod-erate and better known critics who offered the opinion that we 'were drifting toward facism, that the public hadn't much idea of what was going on, that the shoals weren't far ahead. They were backed up by a substantial volume vol-ume of newspaper comment. And every one of these critics, as well as Dr. Wirt, was careful to avoid anything that might be construed a:s a. knock at the President. All of this indicates that Mr. Roosevelt is liable to find it tough getting some of his more unusual legislation through future sessions of Congress but that his personal per-sonal hold on the American electorate elec-torate will continue to be firm. There are plenty of potentialities for political excitement in that unique situation. The federal government is spending money in a big way but not in so big a way as was anticipated three months ago. On January 15. the President estimated that the government would spend $10,500,000,000 in fiscal 1934 $7,500,000,00 of that was classed as emergency expense. Nine months of the fiscal year are gone now, and expenditures have only come to $4,800,000,000 well under half. This is only about one-third more than the Hoover administration spent in the same period of its last fiscal year. Principal reason for the drop is found in the fact that emergency emer-gency payments have totaled only $2,800,000,000. And that, in turn, is largely due to the happy experience of the RFC. The budget included almost $4,000,-000,000 $4,000,-000,000 for that bureau however, since January 1, a quarter of a billion dollars has been paid back on loans made. Head man Jesse Jones believes that repayments will take care of all loans to be made until July. Next to RFC in "economy" is the public Works Administration. It was alloted $3,300,000,000 has spent but $803,000,000. The budget message likewise included estimates for forthcoming forthcom-ing revenue and in this the President was much nearer right than in his guess at expenses. Collections were forecast at $3,-200,000,000 $3,-200,000,000 and actual nine months collections came to $2,-300,000,000 $2,-300,000,000 which makes the estimate look quite accurate. Tax collections for March were $420,-000,000 $420,-000,000 higher than in any month since June, 1931; income tax revenue was running a third ahead of last year and Treasury offclals smiled happily. There is still a wide gulley between revenue and expense but the problem !oo.-:'ng easier than it was expected t-. be a few months hack. And the o!her liny the Treasury ; mp'ed c: f .pcrlment It effert-' -uO ex- ' change 3 V( per cent twelve-year bonds for 4th Liberty and Treasury Treas-ury notes falling due May 2. Investors jumped at the offer and trading was brisk. Treasury prestige is thus potent. Not quite so happy was another phase of the Income tax . collections, collec-tions, when analyzed. There was a substantial rise in collections from individuals in the ''over 5,000" class, a substantial drop in the "under 5,000," a fact which primes, the guns of people who ' believe the NRA is benefitting bene-fitting those-who-have at the expense ex-pense of those-who-haven't. |