Touchdown & Extra Point

Last January President Eisenhower announced that his Administration planned to reduce the deficit for the 1954 fiscal year from the whopping Truman estimate of $9,900,000,000 to $3,274,000,000. Last week the President happily revealed that the deficit had been cut $245,000,000 below his own estimate, to $3,029,000,000.

Since January, the executive branch had spent $3.3 billion less than Congress had appropriated. The biggest savings were in outlays for defense and mutual security. The Defense Department alone reduced military spending by $1.4 billion; mutual-aid spending was down $680 million. All told, to offset tax and revenue cuts and still surpass the President's goal, the Administration had to stay $10 billion below the Truman estimates.

Since Dwight Eisenhower became President, his Administration had come two-thirds of the way toward a balanced budget, and he was proud. Said he: "These fiscal achievements mean a great deal to the American people . . . We have made possible a program of tax cuts totaling $7.5 billion . . . We have halted inflation. The purchasing power of the dollar has varied only one-half of one percent in the past 18 months . . . Our people have new confidence. We are laying a firm base for a healthy and expanding economy, for better national security, and for more jobs for more people."

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