A BLONDIN BUDGET.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 308, 29 December 1937, Page 13

A BLONDIN BUDGET.

U.S.A. EXPENDITURES.

NEW YEAR GLOOM MERCHANTS £80,000,000 CHICAGO SUBWAY PLAN. (By H. R. BAUKHAGE.) WASHINGTON*. There is a little group of long-jowled. long-time planners in Washington who are predicting that, unless a certain old man who, they say, is not lurking around the corner, actually shows up. there'll be no Budget-balancing act on the New Deal's programme next year.

He is the fellow Hoover said was there and wasn't.

Taking an upside-down view of the financial situation as well as a longtime one these prophets philosophise: —

"You can have prosperity without a balanced Budget, but you can't have a balanced Budget without prosperity."

This is the picture as they paint it:— The President had hardly admitted that this year's Budget was 700,000,000 dollars out of balance when up bobbed tlie Corn Loan talk. This loan, added t» other expenditures that the next Congress may well authorise, might run the red figures up to a billion. This wouldn't be so bad if the stock market hadn't kicked up and scared off "old man prosperity."' But it dfll, and that spoiled everything: the rosy prospects of increased revenues, the hope that recovery would cut down expenditures, lessen the burden of relief.

The crash, with 25.000.000.000 dollars loss in stock values in two months, will mean that income taxes will go down proportionately. Of course, there's a big farm income, but price drops have cut into that; steel is off about 50 per cent capacity —but why go on ? The long-time thinkers are not all gloom, of course, but they insist that Budget-balancing will be just talk for a long time—wishful thinking on the part of the New Dealers, political material for the Republicans. Meanwhile, the country will creakalong, and when it gets ready—perhaps if Brussels smooths the peace-ways of the world and starts the flow of trade— garages and chicken-pots will fill up again and old man prosperity will balance the Budget. Subway Promoters. Ex-Comptroller General John McCarl. when he was head of the General Accounting Office, could spot the improper expenditure of a bent nickel at half a mile on a dark day. Now, as a practising attorney in Washington, he has been asked for advice on spending 400.000,000 dollars for a subway in Chicago.

Chicago is sceptical of subways in general. Its transportation system is having a hard time paying its way now, and the city fathers might not have paid any attention to the plan broached bv an eastern syndicate to lay 79 milw. of new subway under the congested pavements of the windy city, especially since it would require amortisation at the rate of 10,000,000 dollars a year for 40 years. Then suddenly Mr. McCarl appeared in the picture. A few days ago this slight, grayhaired gentleman, with the famous Windsor tie and the clear blue eyes that for 15 years never missed an illegal item in a Government expense account, appeared in Chicago. He went there on behalf of the syndicate and appeared before a sub-committee of the City Council.

Chicagoans wondered what waa baek of Mr. McCarl's appearance.

Mr. MeCarl is silent on that subject. Perhaps, if he cared to, he could explain that the backers of the otherwise somewhat Utopian plan believe that Uncle Sam will eventually lend & helping hand—but not right now. Held Pnrse-stringa Tight. When and if Mr. McCarl is persuaded to approve spending any money for "this project—or any other, for that matter — the folks who knew him as ComptrollerGeneral in Washington will consider it quite an achievement in persuasion. These include clerks who tried to send collect telegrams asking for extension of leave when they were on vacations; gentlemen who thought they could get back taxi-fare when they rode less than six blocks; Federal servants, including one, General Pershing, who lost their vouchers, and officials who spent money for items that Mr. McCarl eouldnt find specified in the law of the land. Among the latter was a Department of Agriculture chief who would hare had to refund 25,000 dollars to the Treasury if a kind-hearted Congress had not appropriated the amount to eover the expenditure.

"A misappropriated dollar may be the wedge for a misappropriated million," was Mr. MeCarl's motto, and he knew nobody could gainsay him.

When the New Deal came along with its lavish expenditures, an irresistible force promptly met an immovable body. What the final result would have been if Mr. McCarPs term hadnt expired in 1936 is hard to predict. The post he left is still vacant. Portent or Prejudice? "It is, of course, especially important," said the president in his letter to the agriculture committee chairman, "that any new legislation should not unbalance the expected balancing of the Budget." Was it solemn portent or subconscious prejudice that caused the compositor on a Pennsylvania paper to make the sentence read: "The unexpected balancing of the Budget?"— N.A.N. A.