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Show Washington Up and up it goes and where it will stop nobody knows. That, in essence, is the present story on government spending. The situation is so acute that members of the Congressional Con-gressional economy blic are warning that the campaign against governmental waste and extravagance must be intensified in-tensified now tomorrow may be too late. Their S. (). S. for immediate action is based on a highly high-ly unsatisfactory fiscal outlook' highlighted by: 1. An official forecast (by Maurice Mau-rice H. Stans, the budget director) that "a large deficit in the general gen-eral range of 8 to 10 Billion dollars, dol-lars, according to present tentative tenta-tive estimates is in prospect for next year instead of the $500 million surplus we had planned." 2. Indications that (unless the trend is reversed) Congress may approve larger appropriations than requested by Tresidpnt Eisenhower. Eis-enhower. Cuts have been made by Congress every year for the past 13 years. 3. The likelihood that the Treasury Treas-ury will ask Congress for a permanent per-manent Increase In the national debt ceiling to at least $290 bil- linn in norm It the Inn-eased deficit defi-cit spending now in prospect. The permanent ceiling now is $275 billion, but Congress recently raised It temporarily until June 30, 1959 to $280 billions. The all-time peak during the Korean War was $300 billion. bil-lion. 4. An avalanche of legislative proposals by New-Fair Dealers for spending untold billions of dollars to combat the present recession. These have been estimated esti-mated to aggregate as high as $100 billion considerably more lhan the total of the regular budget. bud-get. Mr. Elsenhower has express ed opposition to make-work activities acti-vities which could turn a temporary tem-porary recession into a long-time depression. 5. Fears of further inflation brought on by continued deficit spending and resulting in additional addi-tional erosion of the purchasing power of the dollar. These are among the reasons advanced by the economy bloc resisting demands for unnecessary unne-cessary spending. They believe that the nation's future prosperity prosperi-ty would be jeopardized by adoption adop-tion at the present time of irresponsible ir-responsible fiscal policies. A year ago a real "grass roots" campaign developed against a proposed budget calling for the expenditure of $71.8 billion during dur-ing the present fiscal year. As a result, the budget was cut substantially sub-stantially and Mr. Eisenhower Initiated efforts to hold spending below $70 billion for the following follow-ing fiscal year (beginning next July 1). But last fall, while the new budget was being prepared, Russia Rus-sia launched its first Sputnik. Immediately there was a substantial sub-stantial step-up In government spending. At about the same time the first signs of the current recession reces-sion began to appear. Thus, while spending Increased, revenue began be-gan to fall off. The budget submitted to Congress Con-gress last January called for spending $73.9 billion during the fiscal year starting Next July 1. The prospect now, however, is (unless the economy campaign succeeds) that spending is more than likely to be in the neighborhood neigh-borhood of $78 billion and to reach $80 billion the following year. This assumes of course, that the administration will succeed in defeating the many radical proposals for profligrate spending spend-ing advanced by some members of Congress which would make the total much higher. If necessary, neces-sary, the President can use his veto power over legislation approved ap-proved by Congress. In connection with government spending, Budget Director Stans gives the following advice: "We must keep a sense of perspective per-spective about our national problems prob-lems and the budget. The current cur-rent recession should not be al lowed to stampede us into hasty, ill-considered actions which will add unnecessarily to our future burdens. "Let's not forget that the course of our type of economy depends in the last analysis on millions of economic decisions by individuals individ-uals and businesses, made freelv every day. The role of government govern-ment In this economic system should be to stimulate rather than to try to dominate private activity." |