$78,000,000,000

A White House clerk trudged into the Capitol last week with two bulky burdens, dropped one off at the Senate and the other at the House. Each 4-lb.-11-oz. package was a copy of Harry Truman's 1,155-page budget for fiscal 1954 (beginning next July 1).

It was quite a burden, indeed. Truman estimated the year's expenditures at $78.6 billion, which is more than he has spent in any of his years in the White House. He anticipated a deficit of $9.9 billion at the end of the year, higher than any since the $20 billion World War II deficit of 1946. At the end of fiscal 1954, Truman foresaw a national debt of $273.8 billion, nudging the statutory limit of $275 billion. Other notable figures:

P:The expenditures proposed would equal 26% of the national income, and amount to $448 for every man, woman & child in the U.S. Back in 1939, the U.S. Government was spending only 13% of the national income, $69 per capita.

P:Although fiscal 1953-54 will be the peak year of spending in the nation's defense buildup, the budget asks Congress for substantially less new spending authority ($72.9 billion) than was requested in any of the last three years. Reason for this reduction: the tremendous carryover of spending authority for military equipment, granted by Congress in earlier years but not used because of the great gap between orders and delivery.

P:National security--the military services, foreign aid, atomic energy, etc.--would take 73% of the budget. But the spending proposed for other departments is far from inconsequential and far above its level in postwar 1947, e.g., the Department of Commerce, which spent $164 million in 1947, would get $1 billion under this budget.

His $78-billion package, said Harry Truman, is a tight budget, just what the country needs. His deficit figure assumed that the Republicans will let taxes come down, but if he were doing it they would stay where they are or go up. Did he think the G.O.P. could cut the budget and balance it? That, Truman jauntily told the press, is not his problem.

Republicans in Congress saw things in an entirely different way. Senate Majority Leader Bob Taft said he will stand by his pledge to cut spending to $70 billion. New Hampshire's Senator Styles Bridges, who will be chairman of the Appropriations Committee, found the budget "so confused that it will have to be almost entirely rewritten." The chairman of the tax-writing Ways & Means Committee, New York's Representative Daniel A. Reed, called it "fantastic." Said he: "There's going to be a tax cut and there's going to be a balanced budget."

A considerably more cautious stand was taken by Budget Director-Designate Joseph Dodge, who had been an observer at the final budget-drafting process. Dodge pointed out that attempting to change the course of this budget in midstream is a problem of monstrous proportions. A great many of the proposed expenditures have already been authorized by Congress, nearly all are for programs that are roaring full speed ahead.

After careful, detailed study by his advisers, Dwight Eisenhower will begin sending a series of budget-change messages to Congress by April 1. The aim is still to balance the budget, but Joe Dodge had a word of caution: "You can't perform 60-day miracles."

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