The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-12-03
THE FICTITIOUS DEFICIT.

[From the Evening Post" of Yesterday. ]
The revenue last month as the Trea-
sury bulletin of this morning points
out, ran short of expenditures by $S,092-
4S3. But the sales of the governments $
claim in the Union Pacific property
brought first payment from the syndi-
cate, week or TWO ago, of s13,645,25O,
and this amount is cheerfully Jumped in
with miscellaneous revenue. Next month
the Union Pacific money will be paid out
again in redemption of the bonds of the
government originally issued to aid the
company but the thirteen million dol
lars, so the Treasury officers inform u.s.
will not be reported under January ex-
penditures. Not at all. They will go on
TO the "bond redemption" account, leav-
ing the thirteen. millions to figure for all
time as a sudden windfall in the gov
ernments income. Now this, we sub
nit is extremely vicious bookkeeping.
There is "reminiscences in it of the old
fashioned income accounts of the Balti-
more and Ohio and of the Atchison,
Topeka and Santa Fe Railroads; and,
indeed, the effect in the government s
finances is likely to be as mischievous
as it was in their case. fictitious sur
plus in corporation accounts is fol-
lowed invariably by payment of real but
unearned dividends, and eventually, if
continued long enough, by insolvency. A
fictitious Treasury surplus is equally GER
tain to be followed by a real increase in
government expenditure. We are quite
aware that the Treasury is following a
general rule in making his disposition of
,v,t
exception, the present exigency has never
before arisen, If the sale of bonds from
the sinking fund, as in the present in
stance, is to be regularly entered on the
governments books as revenue, then
surely the sale of other government bonds
ought 50 to be entered. But we doubt
if the fifty-eight million dollars received
from the bond sale of February. 1894
could have been entered under miscel-
laneous revenue for the month without
exciting criticism. Had this principle
been applied during the three or four last
years, the Treasury's accounts would
lave returned an annual surplus rev.
ehue'' running as high as seventy or
eighty millions.
If this fictitious item is eliminated
from the November revenue account, it
will be seen that the story of the Ding
ley deficit is much the same as usual
In September, government expenditures
exceeded receipts by $3.435,000; in Oc-
tober, by IS, O00 last month the ex-
cess was $S,092000 With the same omis-
sion of the Union Pacific redemption
money, the revenue deficit for the fiscal
year to date is SAC, 1O1, ,4S4. This deficit,
moreover, would be very greatly in
creased but for the fact that the internal
revenue, with which the Dingley law had
no concern, has automatically in
creased The customs receipts, from
which, according to Mr.. Dingley, it was
"our problem to provide adequate re-
venue to carry on the government" are
still absurdly small. A year ago, owing
to the long-prevalent doubt of business
men over the political outlook imports
of foreign goods fell to an extraordinarily
low level Yet even in November, 1896,
the customs revenue was larger than in
this fourth month of the Dingley law.
Indeed. if further comparisons are sought
with the despised Wilson tariff act, it
will be found that the customs revenue
of November, 1894 and 1895, averaged
something like million dollars over last
months receipts. 1.-THE past four years, .
observed the thoughtful Dingley on the
24th of last March, ''have- been enlighten-
ing especially to candid investigators of
economic problems But has the s'en-
lightment'' been carried up to date? We
await the discovery with interest.