New Record, No Cheers

In 1,651 pages weighing 5 Ibs. 5 oz., President Kennedy detailed the cost of Government right down to a crumby $5,000 for feeding migratory birds. His budget's "modest" surplus depended on many ifs, ands and buts. Liberals might be miffed because it did not offer as much as they thought it should in the way of domestic panaceas. Conservatives could complain because it did not take the increased costs of defense out of welfare programming. It was a record-breaking budget calculated to elate no one and enrage no one.

The surplus in Kennedy's budget depends heavily on uncertain future events. As stressed later by the President's economic message, the slight surplus is based on predictions of continued economic progress and increasing tax revenues; the greater the income of individuals and corporations, the greater the Government tax take. The surplus is also predicated on expectations of increased postal rates and great good luck.

By far the biggest chunk of the budget is the $52.7 billion consigned for national defense, a peacetime high:

Unlike the Eisenhower Administration, Kennedy stressed conventional military action as "far more likely" than atomic warfare, all but abandoned the traditional service-by-service approach to appropriations by emphasizing overall national defense objectives. Within that context, the President asked for 2,684,000 men under arms (nearly 200,000 more than Eisenhower last requested), including two new Army divisions, and for a general beefing up of conventional forces through better training and modernization of weapons and equipment.

But Kennedy did not neglect strategic nuclear deterrents. He called for a step-up in ballistic missile production, particularly of Atlas and Titan ICBMs; for funds to build twelve more Polaris submarines to be started in '63 and '64, bringing the planned total to 41; for a 1,200-plane operational force of transcontinental bombers (one-eighth of them on continuous airborne alert), and for a step-up in the production of nuclear weapons. He also requested $700 million for civil defense, including a $460 million program for shelter construction in community buildings. His entire 1963 defense budget assumes "that the special measures associated with [the Berlin] crisis will terminate at the beginning of that fiscal year"--an optimistic estimate that, if it proves wrong, could throw the whole budget out of kilter.

A significant increase in the Kennedy budget came in funds for space research and technology, which has grown so fast in four years that it now ranks as the fifth largest Government expense:

Half of Kennedy's $2.4 billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will be devoted to "the mastery of space symbolized by an attempt to send a man to the moon and back safely to earth" by 1970, particularly the development of a complex Apollo spacecraft to bear a three-man team. But Kennedy also plans to spend $1.3 billion for space research and technology by the Defense Department, the Weather Bureau, the Atomic Energy Commission and other agencies.

President Kennedy proposed to spend more than $4 billion for economic and military foreign aid. But Kennedy noted "a significant change" in the mix. Direct military aid has decreased as European countries have taken over the cost of their own armament, while considerably heavier emphasis has been placed on development aid to emerging and underdeveloped nations, largely in the form of loans geared to "selfhelp measures and necessary reforms in these countries." Kennedy asked for $3 billion in aid for Latin America's Alliance for Progress over the next four years, recommended an initial U.S. contribution of $600 million for 1963.

On the home front, to cover the New Frontier's ambitious plans in the field of health, education, welfare and labor, Kennedy plans a substantial rise in expenditures over recent years:

The funds include more money for health research (the Government now supports three-fifths of the more than $1 billion spent annually for this purpose), for federal grants to assist in construction of new medical schools and public health schools, and for substantial increases in a wide range of labor, manpower and welfare programs. The budget also provides money for starting a program of medical care for the aged under Social Security --a proposal that threatens to raise a bitter congressional fight. He asked for $2.1 billion over three years for federal grants for teachers' salaries and educational facilities, $90 million of which would be spent in the first year. He urged aid to higher education through construction and equipment loans to the tune of $300 million each year, and $40 million to improve educational quality and teacher training. He brought up again, but did not push very hard, the highly controversial program for aid to public (but not private and parochial) schools as part of his $1.5 billion education budget, which, in all, would amount to $327 million more than fiscal 1962.

Kennedy proposed some small relief from a national scandal by promising to send to Congress a new farm program that, if it is enacted and if it works, would reduce 1963 agricultural expenditures by $434 million to $5.8 billion:

Four-fifths of all expenditures for agriculture, the third largest item in the budget (after defense and interest on the national debt), go for programs designed to handle the food surplus problem. By cutting agricultural expenditures, Kennedy hopes to help pay for other "important proposals to strengthen our national economy and society."

In other areas, Kennedy asked for more funds to help regions of chronic unemployment make a comeback, higher benefit rates for disabled veterans, salary raises for postal and other Government workers, and $2.3 billion for natural resources, including the development of water resources and land reclamation.

"The budget represents," said Kennedy, "a blending of many considerations which affect our national welfare. Choices among the conflicting claims on our resources have necessarily been heavily influenced by international developments that continue to threaten world peace."

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