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Show ippf ; t '- '. . " c '-L ' !.' yr,A- ' ': ' - . , Simple Appropriation tttIIEN TALKING to a represen- ' tative in congress, I asked if he could tell me how much money conr;ress had appropriated during 1949. He said he had no real idea of the total, and if he attempted to guess, he probably would be off at least half a billion dollars. He dountod very much if any member of the senate or house, including the members of the house appropriations appro-priations committee, In which all appropriations must originate, could , give me an offhand and accurately ac-curately definite answer. I asked if he could assign a reason rea-son for such lack of information. "All too many appropriations, and such stupendous amour.ts that no one attempts to keep track of the totals," he replied. Before the close of the 80th congress, which Mr. Truman characterized as the nation's worst, the senate passed a resolution res-olution providing for but one appropriation bill to cover all departments and bureaus of the government. If that resolution reso-lution had become law it would have resulted In returning to a method followed during the first half century of the nation's na-tion's history and undoubtedly undoubted-ly would have avoided much of the present confusion. That resolution never reached a vote, or even a committee report. Now the Democratic chairman of the house appropriation committee has stated his committee will consider con-sider only one appropriation bill covering all departments and bureaus. bu-reaus. All budgets must be included in-cluded in that one bill. The director of the budget has been notified. The people may earnestly hope the chairman sticks to that policy, and by so doing, forces the administrative branch of the government back to the more simple methods of the first 50 years of government govern-ment history. It would mean, if nothing more, a knowledge on the part of the people of the cost of government administration administra-tion how much and for what the tax money is being spent. It would probably result in a not inconsiderable saving. Bat the Idea is not satisfactory to the department and bureau heads. They are fearful that It may result in lopping off some of the funds for which they are asking. During the first 50 years of our national . government, the people knew to a dime the cost of operating opera-ting the administrative branch of the national government. Congress received the cost figures all, at one time, and at the same time, they knew what the anticipated revenue rev-enue would be for the year with which to meet the appropriations. It could mean' the end of blind deficit de-ficit financing and might leave something to apply on the payment of our tremendous government debt. I know of no one who has been able to offer a logical or legitimate reason for discontinuing that one appropriation bill method, or any reasonable reason for not returning return-ing to such a method, that offers numerous advantages and seemingly seem-ingly no disadvantages, unless it be those departments and bureaus of the executive department that indulge in wild spending. It would put a crimp in the over indulgence of such habits. It certainly should be to our advantage if those we send to Washington to represent as in the spending of our money might know how much they can spend without putting us farther farth-er In the red, and what the total spending of the administrative adminis-trative department and bureaus of the government departments amount to each year. It could be that maintaining that one appropriation rule might stop, or at least serve to decrease radically radi-cally such expenditures as those millions being poured into the California Cali-fornia Central valley project, the irrigation of privately owned lands in Arizona, and the numerous new TVA projects for the development of vast power, irrigation and flood control promotions that are a part of the Fair Deal program. Let us hope that the Democratic house appropriations chairman stands by his guns and that he succeeds in stopping at least some of the wild spending. That ton of coal that costs you $13 carries $7 in hidden taxes levied by congress or J5hn L. Lewis. Representatives and senators will not willingly disturb any patronage job that enables them to reward their partisan workers. unless there is a general demand for such action on the part of the voters. To secure congressional action needed - to effectuate the recommendatiors of the Hoover commission, saving better than three billion dollars, calls for a demand for both senate sen-ate and house action. Letters and more letters, there cannot be too many, to senators and representatives representa-tives demanding action. |