BIG GOVERNMENT

In addition to Harry Truman's record peacetime budget of $41.9 billion, there is a shadow budget of at least $11 billion more which Congress will be asked to approve, mostly as authorizations for Fair Deal measures. The eleven extra billion are really only a starter: some of the spending plans call for a small beginning but would commit the Government to huge new annual expenditures.

Against this $40 or $50 billion program stands the 1929 budget: in that prosperous year it took only $3.8 billion to run the U.S. Government. It took $7.3 billion in free-spending 1938.

Chief items on the administration's expense list for fiscal 1950 within the $41.9 billion budget:

$6.7 billion for foreign aid (the bulk of it for ECA).

$14.3 billion for national defense.

$6.2 billion for regular government agencies (State, Labor,

Commerce, etc.).

$5.5 billion for veterans (pensions, hospitals, G.I. Bill of Rights, etc.).

$5.4 billion interest on the $251 billion national debt. $2.4 billion for social welfare (old age assistance, education, public health).

So far the House has passed eleven regular appropriation bills totaling $32.8 billion, has snipped $1.8 billion out of the President's budget. But this does not include some $4 billion more of House-approved contract authorizations ($500 million more than the President requested), which permits obligations to be incurred against appropriations to be made later. The Senate has passed six of the House bills, has already restored $408 million of the House cuts.

Beyond the budget (except for some token down payments) are items to get Harry Truman's welfare-state program under way and also for the full cost of such projects as the St. Lawrence Seaway ($600 million to $1 billion). Items:

$1.2 to $4 billion a year for the Brannon farm program (a hazy estimate by supporters; opponents think it would probably cost a great deal more).

$1.13 billion as a start on arms to Europe.

$1 billion & up a year for expansion of social security (to be paid for out of increased payroll deductions).

$4 billion a year for the Truman socialized health program (to be paid, at least in part, by a tax on payrolls). $1.5 billion for the Columbia and Missouri Valley Authorities.

$936 million the first year for public housing (of which some $750 million would presumably be repayable in long-term loans).

$25 million for a national science foundation.

$35 million for school health.

$150 million for the rehabilitation of Korea.

$85 million for a radar screen; $361 million for military wind tunnels and experiments in supersonic flight; $75 million for a guided missile range; $306 million in military pay raises.

$45 million as a starter on the President's "Point IV" Plan to help undeveloped areas abroad.

So far, only the military's requests for a radar screen and a guided missile range have passed both Houses of Congress.

Also beyond the budget are uncounted hundreds of other expenditure bills--everything from a crossroads postoffice on up. Biggest of the independent bills is the veterans' pension plan which Mississippi's John Rankin rammed through the House; the VA estimates it would cost an average of $1.4 billion a year by 1960.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.