For a New Year

BUDGET

President Coolidge submitted to Congress the Budget Bureau's estimates of receipts and expenditures for the fiscal year of 1925. There are reductions in the expenditures for all parts of the Government except four: the War Department (an increase of only $6,000), the Department of Commerce (an increase of $2,018,000, although the total includes an extra $3,500,000 which will be needed for the decennial Census of Agriculture), Department of Justice (an increase of $2,129,760). The appropriation of this Department is extended to cover the entire year whereas budget estimates in previous years were intentionally made too small with the purpose of later having deficiency appropriations.

The expenditures are in detail: Legislative establishments $ 13,595,448

Executive Office 415,667

War Department, including Panama Canal 314,190,650

Navy Department 311,020,050

Department of Agriculture 144,784,200

Department of Commerce 23,710,000

Interior Department 310,507,699

Department of Justice 21,451,960

Department of Labor 6,107,076

State Department 14,988,446

Treasury Department 228,811,090

District of Columbia 26,896,798

Post Office Department (deficit) 2,085,184

Veterans' Bureau 403,369,450

Emergency Fleet Corporation .... 25,852,817

Other independent offices 18,825,238

Total ordinary expenditures....$1,876,611,773

PUBLIC DEBT

Reduction of principal $ 482,277,975

Investment of trust funds 49,190,696

Interest on public debt 590,000,000

Grand total expenditures $3,298,080,444

Against this outlay the estimated receipts of the Government are:

Internal Revenue $2,727,585,000

Customs 493,000,000

Miscellaneous 473,177,078

Totals $3,693,762,078

As compared with previous years, the Government's estimated surplus shows a steady increase:

1923

Actual receipts $4,007,135,480

Actual expenditures 3,697,478,020

Excess of receipts $ 329,657,460

1924 (present fiscal year)

Estimated receipts $3,894,677,712

Estimated expenditures 3,565,038,088

1925

Excess of receipts $ 329,639,624

Estimated receipts $3,693,762,078

Estimated expenditures 3,298,080,444

Excess of receipts $ 395,681,634

In view of this increasing surplus, the President in a letter accompanying the budget urged reduction of taxes, and added: "I am not unmindful of the demand for adjusted compensation for soldiers of the World War, which would include among its beneficiaries the able-bodied of our veterans as well as the disabled. I question if there is any sound reason for such a measure. The country is prosperous and remunerative employment is available for the able-bodied veterans as well as for other citizens. . . . The Government has no money to distribute to any class of its citizens that it does not take from the pockets of the people."