Budget Blues

Sir:

I want to congratulate you on the chart by J. Donovan [Jan. 25], "National Debt."

I think it should be under the glass top on every man's desk from the President down to the lowest person responsible for our government spending, whether it be federal, state, county or city government.

It is unbelievable that an intelligent nation could get itself into such a dilemma.

WM. R. MARTIN Walla Walla, Wash.

Sir:

In 1950, Representative John F. Kennedy posed the question to the House: "How long can we continue deficit financing on such a large scale with a national debt of over $258 billions?"

The question now appears to be: How much longer at $300 billions ?

JAMES A. NEWTON Palo Alto, Calif.

Sir:

Just in case you wanted to know, if Mr. Kennedy were to have a $1,000-a-plate dinner every day, each as successful as the first one (net profit: $1,000,000), he could pay off the national debt in about 864 years.

KENNETH TREFILEK Barrington, Ill.

Sir:

"A deficit to build our future strength?" If our family pursued such a debt-ridden budgetary policy, it would soon be bankrupt and in disrepute. What is now a proud, self-supporting unit would sicken and die.

MRS. E. H. TEMPEST Norfolk, Va.

Sir:

Let's not cut the $6 billion for agriculture out of the budget. I plan to remodel the house this year with the money I get for not growing grain. Last yesx I got a new car. As long as the taxpayer is too lazy to write his representatives and complain, I will continue to take advantage of him.

FRANK WOODILL Vina, Calif.

Sir:

About the kindest thing to be said about the assorted hoots and catcalls that have appeared in your pages recently, concerned chiefly with disparaging the Administration's fiscal program is that they betray gross economic illiteracy. Unless rational economic understanding very quickly replaces the superstitions (largely politically inspired) about public spending and budgets which now seem prevalent, even Kennedy's moderate proposals seem doomed.

The American economy does indeed need substantially more spending at the same time as tax cuts. Unless this basic truth is recognized, the stagnation in which we have been mired for the past ten years will be prolonged and deepened.

JOHN KILPATRICK Westbrook, Conn.

Sir:

Once upon a time when governments needed money, they raised taxes and got it! Now, we are told that if the Government needs more money, we reduce taxes. All this in the face of the largest peacetime budget in our history, with no sincere attempt to reduce Government expenditures.

After reading this, as well as his other budgetary fallacies, I am convinced that the only thing President Kennedy knows about money is that it is something you get from your father!

WILLIAM FREEMAN Flushing, N.Y.

Sir:

I was surprised that so sophisticated a journal as TIME could have failed to be persuaded by a generation of education on modern fiscal theories--that is, in periods of underspending, larger contributions by government (tax cuts or more spending) are likely to be helpful.

1) What counts is not the number of dollars in the budget, but its size in relation to the economy that carries it. On that basis, the $98 billion in 1945 was 46%; the $99 billion in 1964 an estimated 17% or a burden 60% less.

2) TIME warns that the rise of expenditures accompanying the tax cut endangers the budget. But the tax cut is supposed to increase incentives and stimulate buying. Insofar as it is accompanied by a cut in spending, the stimulative effects of a tax cut are neutralized.

3) TIME claims this is anything but an economy budget. Actually to have reduced the nondefense and nonspace expenditures means a highly economical budget; for with the increase of prices, wages and population, an increase of expenditures of 3% a year (at least $3 billion) comes automatically without any new programs or improvements of old. (Even Ike did not avoid that from 1955 to 1961.) This means substantial cuts in real resources directed by government to nondefense areas.

SEYMOUR E. HARRIS Littauer Professor of Political Economy Harvard University Cambridge, Mass.

>> So sophisticated an economist as Professor Harris must be aware that the case for tax reduction does not rest upon the supposed tonic effect of budgetary red ink. Further, as TIME pointed out, except for some book-juggling, the Administration budget increased, rather than lowered, total non-defense and nonspace expenditures.--ED.

Britannia

Sir:

Your Jan. 25 cover by Cartoonist Illingworth is not the first depiction of Britannia in a troubled mood. Coins of Emperor Antoninus Pius (A.D. 86-161) during the Roman occupation show--in numismatic language--"Britannia seated in attitude of sadness."

She did not reappear on coins until 1672, in the reign of Charles II, and by then was no longer sad. According to Pepys, the model for this portrait was Frances Stewart, Duchess of Richmond, an intimate friend of the Merry Monarch. The hussy had one leg exposed clear up to the knee. Queen Anne put a stop to that (1714). Anne herself was the model, and both legs are covered.

HERBERT H. PENNY Franklin, Mich.

>> For a numismatic view of Britannia through the ages, see cuts.--ED.

Sir:

Your cover is in poor taste. It is one thing to feature a serious analysis of Britain's problems. It is quite another to ridicule an old friend and ally by cartooning on your front cover an apparently befuddled and simple-minded Britannia.

L. G. DEL CASTILLO Los Angeles

Sir:

From the expression on the face of Britannia, it would appear that a Polaris submarine had just surfaced off Birmingham.

OBIE S. MUETING Huntsville, Ala.

Sir:

Although only 4% of young Britons go to a university, I would like to point out that our universities are for purely academic subjects; doctors and nurses go to medical school, engineers go to schools of technology, art and drama students go to their respective colleges, ami games students go to physical education colleges. In fact, a much larger percentage than 4% go on to a higher education.

JANE UTTLEY Menlo Park, Calif.

Sir:

Having just returned from a visit to my homeland after six years, I found your description of the situation excellent.

J. C. VALLELY San Diego

Sir:

In the excellent story about England, I read a remark that Britons bet and gamble the stupefying amount of $3 billion a year.

There must be estimates of the amounts gambled in the U.S. Would you be kind enough to inform me what that estimate is? KURT GINSBERG Quito, Ecuador

>> In the U.S., with more than three times the population, an estimated $3.5 billion is wagered parimutuelly, and $216 million in the Nevada spots annually. How much else is bet through bookies, or among friends, is something not even Tax Collector Caplin knows.--ED.

The Gall of De Gaulle

Sir:

France, and particularly General de Gaulle, is fond of the concept of French honor. Has it occurred to either of them, as General de Gaulle battles singlehanded to keep Great Britain out of the Common Market, that he owes a debt of honor to Great Britain? Without England's heroic stand in 1940, there would be no France today.

(MRS.) MARLYN LUKASHOK New York City

Sir:

I don't believe that De Gaulle hates America. But perhaps he remembers the Roman Peace.

The ancient Romans didn't exactly set out to conquer the world--only to get unfriendly neighbors off their backs, at first. But they grew so powerful that everybody wanted them for an ally. They were sucked into every quarrel, every power vacuum. Alliance became domination, then occupation, then sovereignty. The Roman Peace gave way to the Roman Empire.

I think De Gaulle is afraid of the American Peace.

RICHARD R. MOORE Rochester, N.Y.

Tax Time

Sir:

TIME'S article on taxes and on Tax Collector Caplin [Feb. 1] was excellent, but leaves a question.

Do you know Kennedy's explanation rationalization for trying to make mortgage interest payments nondeductible while leaving the oil depletion fiasco practically untouched?

It looks to me like another example of Kennedy the compleat politician. Would that he were as much of a President.

GEORGE H. BRUCE

Northfield, Vt.

Sir:

Public opinion and TIME to the contrary, the Internal Revenue Service does have an understanding nature and a feeling for the human element. A taxpayer is no mere number. However, in striving for fairness, the IRS must act within the law.

Thus, the approval for the deduction of the cost of a child's clarinet lessons recommended by an orthodontist as therapeutic treatment for severe malocclusion of the teeth was given, not by the Tax Court, as stated by TIME, but by the IRS itself.

Furthermore, I have witnessed fellow IRS employees digging down into their personal pockets to help taxpayers whose particular situation warranted such assistance.

BERTRAM J. ZOSLAW Abington, Pa.

Sir:

Mr. Caplin is certainly a well-read tax collector, who "shows frequent flashes of humor" right from Mark Twain. For it was Mark Twain indeed who asked: "What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin."

(MRS.) BARBARA P. SCHOFIELD New York City

Sears Art

Sir:

Your article on "something called the Vincent Price Collection" [Jan. 25] at Sears, Roebuck requires more honest reporting.

When the article questions the ability to keep up standards when buying "500 works a day," it should have been reported that the majority of those works did not come from individual artists sought out in galleries or presented to "the tall one with the familiar face," "the one in the short sports coat," or "the third man, in a dark suit," in "an ornate Paris hotel room." The great number of works acquired were by master graphic artists whose production alone could supply-such quantities of material. Purchased during the eight days in Paris were over 200 lithographs by Chagall, 80 first-state aqua tints by Goya, ten etchings by Rembrandt, and hundreds of others by Picasso, Miro, Daumier, and excellent young artists. There were oils, gouaches, watercolors by Leger, Vlaminck, Dufy, etc.

VINCENT PRICE

Rome

By Another Name

Sir:

The use of "Agronomy" as a heading for your story on stand-up feeding of hogs [Jan. 25] is grossly inaccurate. The work described is properly classified as animal husbandry or, if you prefer, swine management. Agronomy is the theory and practice of field-crop production and soil management.

An agronomist might study the methods of producing the grain used to feed hogs, but certainly would not concern himself with porcine etiquette!

M. B. RUSSELL President

American Society of Agronomy Madison, Wis.

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