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Show EDITORIAL: 3.7 Billion Government Forms What possible constructive reason any Federal agency might have for requesting an appropriation appropria-tion of $7,900,000 to pay the cost of printing 3,674,000,000 blank forms is beyond all understanding. understand-ing. Nevertheless this is the amount the Veterans Adminis-I tration attempted to wheedle out of Congress for the current fiscal year, and the need for 3.7 billion blank forms was advanced ad-vanced by the VA to justify its appeal for this lavish donation. Now 3.7 billion of anything, even American dollars, is a lot, but the same number of blank forms is a superabundance under which veteran arid businessman alike would sweat out many an otherwise useful hour. The 3,-764,000,000 3,-764,000,000 printed blank forms requested by the Veterans Administration Ad-ministration would furnish each veteran with 200 such forms or 30 forms for every person in the United States. This doesn't sound any more ridiculous than it actually ac-tually is. From a reasonably good start, based on the thanks of a grateful people, the G.I. Bill of Rights and particularly the In-Service-Training program has degenerated degener-ated into a ritualistic system of form preparation and form filing. fil-ing. This practice, which has become be-come one of the most important functions of the Veterans Administration, Admin-istration, is non-sensical from start to finish. Yet the VA sought to add another 3.7 billion forms to an already oversupplied pile of nonsense. Right now tha preparation of .innumerable forms required by the VA of businessmen who employ em-ploy a veteran under an In-Ser-, vice-Training schedule is a wasting wast-ing of time which could normally be applied to production. Every businessman will agree that certain cer-tain report forms arc necessary to a smooth operation of an enterprise. enter-prise. But they will also agree that the thing can be overdone, as it has been in the case of the Veterans Administration and its fetish for blank forms. |