Monday, Aug. 20, 1928

Budget

$3,700,000,000.00

A newsgatherer good enough to be trusted with a moderately important story, a country doctor, a law clerk, an assistant branch manager of a plumbing concern, a young salesman get about $3,700. Anyone who gets $3,700 per year can easily remember the figure $3,700,000,000.00 because that is just one million times his salary. To remember that figure became last week a patriotic duty, because that is the figure which Brig. Gen. Herbert Mayhew Lord, funny-story-telling Director of the Budget, put down as the cost of U. S. (federal) government for the fiscal year July 1, 1929--June 30, 1930. All the columns and columns of additions and subtractions which totalled 3,700 million were placed by General Lord before President Coolidge at Brule, Wis.

Principally to be remembered by patriots among all the vast details within such a total are:

1) The 1929-30 budget is a really considerable increase over the 1928-29, in fact, half a billion dollars, or roughly equivalent to the sum of all the fortunes which the John D. Rockefellers Sr. & Jr., have given away. And the 1928-29 budget was already a considerable increase over the 1927-28. And, further, these increases occur, in spite of the fact that the War caused public debt has decreased, thereby reducing interest, which is the biggest single annual expense. The conclusion seen in all this by financially minded Republican Senator Reed Smoot is that the U. S. must hereafter expect the cost of government to increase. The "low" of 1925-26 ($3,105,517,645) may be a "low" for all time hereafter.

2) The biggest group of items have to do with the national debt, a total exceeding a billion dollars, or nearly one-third of all expenses, being for reduction of the debt and payment of interest on the unpaid balance. The second biggest group is for national defense, $659,000,000.

3) The budget does not balance. That is, the calculable revenues were 100 million dollars less than the 3,700 million dollars of certain expenditure. But both President and General refused to be worried by what they called a "paper" deficit.

4) Some sure items of expense and some probable ones are not included in the 3,700 million. Most notable: an almost certain Post Office deficit of 50 to 100 millions; a likely appropriation of some 40 millions for cruisers which Congress failed to pass at its last session, although President Coolidge asked for it.