No Planning

Why is the U.S. running a deficit of $5.5 billion a year? Last week, glib Leon Keyserling, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, gave his answer. The Administration's policy of spending more than it earns is no accident, said Keyserling. The Administration planned it that way in order to stave off a recession which "might have turned into something . . . serious."

Nobody, apparently, was more surprised by such talk than Treasury Secretary John W. Snyder, who has the worrisome job of managing the $257 billion national debt. After thinking about it for a day, he flatly contradicted Keyserling. Said Snyder: "The deficit financing part of the [Administration's] program is due to inadvertent circumstances [i.e., national defense, foreign aid, a 1948 tax reduction], and not to any planning."

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