Snap & Snip

The unprecedented cut -that -budget clamor heard lately on Capitol Hill and across the nation is sweet music to Virginia's Harry Flood Byrd, the No. 1 applegrower in the U.S. and the Mr. Economy of the U.S. Senate. For a decade Democrat Byrd has faithfully worked out each year a picked-clean "Byrd budget," always a lot smaller than the one submitted by the President, whether Democrat or Republican. Last week bouncy, apple-cheeked Harry Byrd, 69, unwrapped his fiscal 1958 budget, proposed to pluck a total of $6.5 billion from the $71.8 billion proposed by President Eisenhower. The Byrd cuts: $1.5 billion out of Defense funds, $2 billion (close to 50%) out of foreign aid, $3 billion out of "domestic-civilian activities,"especially new programs such as federal aid for school construction. "This budget," said Byrd, "is the worst yet."

Star Witness. To support his claim that the fiscal 1958 budget is much too big, Byrd happily cited a top member of President Eisenhower's own team: Treasury Secretary George Magoffin Humphrey, who set the budget furor stirring last January with his now famous prediction that high taxes, continued for years on end, would bring on "a depression that will curl your hair."

Last week Humphrey stuck to his taxes-are-too-high theme when he appeared before Harry Byrd's Senate Finance Committee, although he was urging the Senators to extend corporation income taxes at their current rates (30% on the first $25,000 and 52% on the rest), instead of permitting them to drop as scheduled on April 1. Humphrey argued that holding the present rates is the only way to balance the budget; the committee, including Chairman Byrd, duly supported his view. Said Humphrey with genuine earnestness: "What we need, and what we need badly, in this country, as soon as we can get our house in order to do it, is a general reduction that will affect all taxpayers." Harry Byrd nodded approval.

Counterpoint. To other members of the Cabinet, Secretary Humphrey's repeated rumbles about the need for economy sound less tuneful than they sound to Senator Byrd. Most of them apparently believe that their departmental budgets are tight. Secretary Mitchell defends every dollar in the Labor Department's $418 million budget. Health. Education and Welfare Secretary Folsom is fighting hard for the endangered $451 million school-aid program. Last week Postmaster General Summerfield reported that his estimate of the 1958 Post Office deficit had swelled rather than shrunk since January. Secretary Benson gloomily announced that he saw "no alternative" but to spend the massive $5.3 billion requested by the Agriculture Department to keep the farmers happy. Secretary Wilson told a press conference that it would take "a lot of work" to hold Defense costs within the whopping $38 billion budgeted for 1958.

Even with Humphrey lending congressional cutters aid and comfort, the total cuts in the budget will certainly be a lot less than Byrd's $6.5 billion, proving again the old rule that the snap of Congress' scissors is sharper than the snip. Foreign aid seems sure to be slashed unless the President comes to its rescue. But on the domestic front, indiscriminate congressional pork-barreling, logrolling, and horse-trading are almost certain to add some unnecessary fat, partly making up for whatever fat--and lean--is trimmed off.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.