The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-07-01
BEGINNING THE
FISCAL YEAR
sY FREDERIC ]. HAsKIN.

1 now much he has spent how much he has
| on hand and begins to figure on getting
4 rld Of that billion dollars congress gave
/ him for pin money at its last session. He
has found out that during the past year
/ he has spent more than he has made
| many millions more But as he had rather
| a large pile which he was able TO save
I from his income the past years he has
not felt the pinch Of poverty. During the
/ coming fiscal year he will have more
money to spend than ever before. And
l If the sudden impulse for economy does
/ not die, the sum spent in the coming fis-
/ cal year VIII represent the maximum
/ governmental expenditure in a single
| tWelVe-mOnth, and from this time on high
water mark viii not soon be reached
/ again.
! Uncle Sam opened new set of bOb5s
/ today. Wherever there is a dollar of his
/ money spent or received there is new
| account opened. The old set will be
/ closed and balanced just as soon as the
/ reports from the ends of the earth get
/ in. 1t viii be after the first of August
l when the last account is closed and the
final loss and gain account is made out
In the meantime every government OIL
cial from sOutnernmost Florida to north
ernmOst Alaska will be gathering together
all the data which viii disclose the OPP
eratiOns for the year in his jurisdiction.
| Every postmaster. every rural carrier,
every court official viii add 10 the vol
ume of reports that come in All OF
which means lots of work for the book
keepers Each one of Gems of thousands
of reports must be received. digested.
tabulated and properly placed in the gen
/ eTal reckoning.
The number of accounts that appear in
the governments ledgers is almost beyond
belief The Statistical Abstract a volume
of nearly SEQ pages, is d collection OF the
/ fOOtings of all these general accounts Tor
each fiscal year of governmental history.
To cover them all it has to be filled with
figures from title page to fms. Each
entry represents a separate general &C
q cal
resent many thousand special accounts. If
one wants to know how many farms were
irrigated and how many acres were IN
them. together with the cost of cOnstruc-
ton and operation. there is an account
which tells him all about that. If he
wants to know how many children or
school age, how many enrolled, now many
daily attending school. how many are
boys and how many are girls, together
with the salaries of teachers there is
general account that will give him all this
information. If he wants to know q great
many things about the wages and OCCu-
pations of the people there are accounts
which satisfy his curiosity. Accounts are
kept showing railroad accidents, the num-
Der of kilograms sent, the number OF fali-
ures in business. and thousands of others
Of like nature. During the present month
these viii be made up and closed TO
cover the year that ended at midnight
last night.
vision and department of the government
has closed its accounts for the year, Mr.
o. p Austin, a former newspaper cores
DOOdeut and his staff of clerks. come
along and gather together the footings
When the whole task is done they have
material for 272 tables, each one of which
shows from one TO dozen different
things. The abstract makes its appear
ance many months after the fiscal year
closes but if there is anything the gov
eminent has done that may be expressed
in figures and is overlooked, that item
has not been discovered. And not only
does il show what the government has
done but what the people here and
throughout the world are dong the prices
they are paying for the things they eat
wear. and use, how much money theE
possess. and thousands of other things
about which figures are supposed not 10
lie.
The present fiscal year promises to be
one of more than ordinary interest. 1t
will be a record Of the first full year OF
the Taft administration. When the books
are closed at its end the country VIII nave
a set of figures which. correctly inter-
preted, will tell whether Mr.. Iaft mas
made good. The past year has closed with
a deficit. will the present one END with a
surplus2 Upon this question the pend
ing tariff measure perhaps VIII nave
deciding effect. 1t is twelve years since
a fiscal wear had a new tariff law with
which to reckon. 1t always has been a
difficult thing to approximate the reVe-
tariff law II the country takes II well
and keeps uD its demand for imports the
law will be a success, but II the people
get nervous and stop impOrtatiOns TO any
important degree the law VIII De I aH-
IRE Students of fiscal matters generally
agree that the apparent effect OF a tarlII
law depends more on the mental ATTITUDE
of the people than on the law itself II
is just like a man heavily IN s. 9eDI, a.
long as his creditors have confluence IN
him there is no trouble; but let them
SUSPECT him and there are bankruptcy
proceedings If the people assume tnat
the new tariff is wise the next tscal year
viii show healthy conditions; II they 40
not so regard il, the result certainly VIII
Every branch of the government will
have more money to eXpend during TINS
fiscal year than it had during the past
one. and some of them very much more. /
The department of agriculture Will nave I
more than million dollars to spend TINS I
year above what il spent during the year 1
now closed. the army VIII nave nearly /
S. 100000 more, fortificauons VIII get "A |
million dollars above what was spent on /
them last year, and the navy VIII nave
expenditures will jump from Sill. 100000 to /
SlS7 100000. There is one thing certain /
and that Is that expenditures Will stay /
more closely within the range of appro- /
priations than was the custom for many
years Formerly. when the executive
branches of the government asked Tor a
certain appropriation and failed to get as
much as they though they ought to have.
the officials would go ahead and spend
as much as they thought proper. The re-
suit was that each year there was a huge
deficiency appropriation TO be made. be
cause someone thought he knew more
than congress knew concerning what was
needed At last this practice got on the
nerves Of congress, and il passed law
providing a penitentiary term for the Of
.icial who committed the government TO
arger expenditures than those for which
appropriations had been made No one
since has been found who shows will
ngness to risk a change from mahOg-
any desk and a fine office to prison
stripes and a cell.
Every year congress gets out state
nent showing the estimated revenues Tor
he fiscal year following. Last spring
congress estimated that the revenues for
he fiscal year which begins with today
would amount to SS25. 600. The total ap-
for the year amount TO 81
"A 00Q.0O0 OF course some of this is 20 I
De spent I'm succeeding years, but If the
'evenues do not reach a higher point
han that estimated there probably will
De d deficit in the yea now begun There
are go government officials who will re-
,eive an increase in salary this year, and
lnly five who viii be reduced. The total
Increase viii amount to over 100000.
There are more than 1900 new offices
which were established by congress at