Budget in Green

The Budget of the U. S. is a green-bound volume about the size of a telephone book for a city of two million and contains about as many figures. Prepared under the President's personal supervision, it details to Congress, which is under a moral but not legal obligation to follow it, the estimated sums of money required to operate the Government. U. S. officials appear before the House Appropriations Committee--in secret session--to explain and justify their cash allotments. Any such official who dares ask Congress for more money than the Budget allows him violates the Budget Law and is subject to instant dismissal by the President.

Last week to the House of Representatives, where all appropriations must originate, President Hoover sent his first Budget, providing for the fiscal year 1931.* Chief figure of the Hoover budget: $3,830,445,231, the Government's estimated expenditure for next year, exclusive of a postal deficit and additional outlay for the Federal Farm Board. Comparatively, this amount is $4,304,000 greater than current actual expenditures. Said President Hoover: "Our finances are in a sound condition." He envisaged surpluses of 225 million this year, 122 million next, reiterated his tax reduction recommendation. (see p. 13)

P:Most expensive U. S. agency: Veterans' Bureau ($589,755,000).

P:Most expensive department: War ($446,626,332).

P:White House cost: $442,320.

P:Congress cost: $28,345,066.

President Hoover recommended increased appropriations for the foreign service, Prohibition, law enforcement, river & harbor improvements, care of Indians, forest protection.

So complex are the Budget's figures that President Hoover prepared for his own use a simplified compilation, grouping expenditures under functional heads, rather than by departments and bureaus. This "personal budget," as the President called it, showed how each dollar of Government money will be divided:

P:For wars past and future--72-c- ($2,733,213,283, including $1,254,342,000 on the public debt, $759,799,895 on pensions and veterans' care, $719,089,388 on the Army & Navy).

P:For the routine operation of Government--8-c- ($300,307,860, including the cost of Congress, the U. S. courts, foreign relations, law enforcement, the postal deficit).

P:Aids and subsidies--13-c- ($511,193,070, covering expenditures made in behalf of public health, education, Indians, farm relief, commercial aviation, merchant marine, trade and industry, public buildings et al.).

P:For fiscal affairs--7-c- ($285,731,018, including tax refunds, veterans' insurance, administration of the District of Columbia).

*The Government's fiscal year, six months ahead of the calendar year, begins July 1.

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