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Show NO COMMENT by James W. Douthat Ass't. Vice President, Government Gov-ernment Relations Division of the National Association of Manufacturers. Washington, D. C, March 17, : Economy advocates in Congress Con-gress hope that a drive by S2 Senators to block off the "back door" approach to the U. S. Treasury will have a restraining restrain-ing effect on proposals for profligate government spending. Spearheaded by Senator Byrd (D-Va.), chairman of the Senate Sen-ate Finance Committee, the campaign is intended to prevent government spending not approved ap-proved by the Senate and House Appropriation Committees. By by-passing these committees, commit-tees, Senator Byrd estimates that upwards of $200 billion in spending has been provided since the procedure was first used for the Reconstruction Finance Fi-nance Corporation. Two major bills passed by the Senate thus far this year, he adds, would provide for ''back door" expenditures of $33 billin. "The housing bill, as passed by the Senate., he explains, "would completely by-pass the appropriation approp-riation process by authorizing $575 million in expenditures from public debt receipts, and circumvent effective appropriation appropria-tion control over $2,250 million in contrace authorizations. Likewise, Like-wise, the airport bill, passed by the Senate, would provide $465 million in contract authorizations." authoriza-tions." There are other provisions in the Byrd resolution which would be expected to produce a big saving for taxpayers. These would: 1. Require Congress to act on all new spending authority in one bill, to be known as the " general expenditure authorization authoriza-tion bill with provision for necessary supplemental and deficiency de-ficiency bills; 2. Require annual expenditure expendi-ture limitation on each item in the bills: would provide both the Congress Con-gress and the people with full and accessible knowledge of the amount involved in spending legislation and its effect on the nation's fiscal situation. "With such intelligence, I would rely on the judgment of the people and those who represent repre-sent them in Congress." der old authorizations are estimated esti-mated at $73 billion. Senator Byrd describes the need for reform as "urgent and immediate" and says the "need i to recapture expenditure con- I trol is critical." 3. Provide that the Committee Commit-tee reports, including conference confer-ence reports on general expenditure expendi-ture authorization bills carry tabular presentations with totals to-tals of both expenditures and expenditure authorizations allowed al-lowed under the bills; and, 4. Require the latest revenue estimate by the Secretary of the Treasury to be inserted in the general expenditure authorization authoriza-tion bills at each stage of the legislative procedure on them. This would require Congress to consider appropriations in the light of the total picture instead of acting separately on a dozen or more bills. It also would focus attention on prospective revenue, so that Congress would have the best available estimates on whether spending proposals would require re-quire deficit financing. A limitation would be placed on the amount of actual spending spend-ing permitted each year, instead in-stead of following the present method of, in general permitting permit-ting spending at any time from money appropriated. For example, if the $76.8 billion bil-lion of new spending authority sought by the Eisenhower Administration Ad-ministration for next year is approved, the Federal spending agencies will have at their disposal dis-posal nearly $150 billion. For unexpended balances un- |