All Things Being Relative

THE BUDGET

In January 1962, presenting his budget for the fiscal year that would end June 30, 1963, President Kennedy exercised a politician's license for optimism in predicting a tidy little surplus of $500 million. The forecast was, of course, hitched to the prospect of a resurgent U.S. economy. But the economy did not show the strength expected, and the Government spent more than it collected. Thus, as fiscal 1963 last week came to an end and as Treasury accountants began totting up the figures, they found that instead of that original little surplus, a deficit of some $7.8 billion seems likely. But, all things being relative, it could be worse. Even the Administration, revising its own figures, last January officially predicted a deficit of $8.8 billion. Main reason for the improvement from that figure: the economy finally began to move.

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