FEDERAL DEFICIT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 12, 15 January 1932, Page 5

FEDERAL DEFICIT

PATERNALISM IN AMERICA WASHINGTON, Dec. 30. America, with a Treasury deficit of £400,000,000 for the current year, has been trying to analyse the situation. It has been found that the huge sum is mostly chargeable to Federal paternalism. There are Federal subventions to agriculture and social uplift, besides the regulation of business and public morals and private conduct. The machinery of the Federal Government to-day is stupendous. It takes 58 pages in the Congressional directory to list the Washington offices of the executive branch alone and 114 more pages to summarise their functions. For over a year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been investigating costs of operating the Government Navy yards and various kinds of factories, and has found that the difference between what it costs the Government and what it would cost private enterprise in these activities amounts easily to several hundreds of millions of larsIn the capitol area of Washington, there are 65,000 Government employees and the number that perform only one hour’s work a day is notoriously large. The cost of prohibition enforcemx’it runs into £13,000,000 while the postal service loses £30,000,000 yearly.