The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-12-25
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
GNFORMATION BUREAU
By FREDERIC }. HAsKIN. Director,
sShington. D. G.
HOW THE GOVERNMENT SPENDS.
The Presidents Demand for Econom-
ical Budget System Has Brought
This Question to the Front.

i
! icaI Budget System Has Brought
This Question to the Front.
Washington, d. c., Dec. 25.-The
president said in his recent message to
congress that he thought it advisable
for the house to return to its former
method Of making appropriations thru
single committee.
If the house acts upon this sugges-
/ ton, it will have taken long step to-
ward the adoption of a budget system
| for reg ulating government eXpendi-
lures.
What is a budget system, and what
| would it do for the tax payer VINO sup
plies the money that congress spends
! In the first place, let's lind out now
much money the tax payer Is now pc
| ing called upon to put up. Wheh we
entered the war we had a public DEBT
of about a billion dollars, SO that .eV-
| erv man, woman and child in the
! country was responsible for ten dol
! lars If the war lasts until 1921, TINS
debt will be increased to fifty billion
dollars, so that every man, woman ana
| child will be five hundred dollars IN
debt This means that five hundred
I dollars per capita must be raised, anu
the interest on that amouHt pare un St
| the principal can be refunded. VI
! course this national debt is only
| mart of what we will have to pay IN
taxes during the war. We nave also
TO support state and municipal gov
| ernments, and to meet cost OF hVlng
| when conditions brought about by the
| war have increased enormously.
! But the federal government gets
and deserves, the biggest share. How
does congress spend it?
The spending of the money is in
the hands of twenty-odd d1fferent
committees of the house ana senate.
The heads of the various departments
appear before these committees ana
tell what they need or want. The com
rnittees frame bills, allowing Whatever
they please; and these bills are de-
| bated and passed, first by-the mouse
and then by the senate Any member
can propose any increase or reduction
| of The amounts asked by the executive
| departments.
| Each of these committee members
represents some section OF the couh-
try with its particular interests. Near
Iy every appropriation asked by an
| executive department is a boon to
some such interest. The 1neVltaple
| result is that each congressman and
senator with 81 few conscientious eX-
ceptions) strives for the passage OF
the appropria lions that will benefit his
particula:. section. In order to get
these appropriations passed he agrees
to support the appropriations desired
by other members
This is how bills are passed appro-
. DTldG1nE
| provement of creeks that could be
made highways of commerce, as one
congressman put it, only by paving
them. That is the way a bill is passed
appropriating $4,000 for postoffice
buildifn; which the postoffice depart
/ mert does not want, in town where
a suitable building can be rented for
$3.50 a year, while the salary of the
janitor for the new building alone is
$500 Z year. That is how clause
he -1NTNr- hill
appropriating eighteen million dol
lars for the construction of dam,
which would benefit primarily one
Large corporation This clause was
shown on the floor of the house to be
waSteful, and was stricken out. 1t
then reappeared IN the appropriation
bill approved by the military commit
tee, and was again killed on the
floor This phoenix measure made a
third appearance in an agricultural
appropriation bill under cover of the
tclaim tina it was necessary to war
industry" 1t still lives.
How much money is wasted by this
system is a matter of estimate. When
the annual expense of running the
government was only $3.50, 100000 a
year, a senator asserted that If these
expenditures were made on business
principles 100000, 600 year could be
saved. Now our annual expenditures
goes merrily on. You can compute
for yourself what it is costing you,
and your heirs and assigns.
These abuses have often been de-
scribed on the floor of the house and
in public prints. But the only posi-
bic remedy has not been sufficiently
| emphasized. You cannot blame the
congressman and senators. Like all
the rest of US, they play the game as
they find it. They have to. Under
| MT a representative
valued by his constituency largely in
proportion to the amount he can ex-
tract for it from the treasury. His
place. therefore, depends upon his
blame. Most of the legislators
Know 81
whenever I think of the horrible
mess that 1 shall be called upon to
present to the country said the
chairman of the appropriation COM
mittee not long ago, Il am tempted to
quit my place"
: The present system has been suffi-
GENTLY condemned. Likewise. the
? need for a budget system has long
Both the Democratic and Republican
: parties have endorsed the principle in
their platforms. President Taft adj
vocated it in his messages. 1t is used
by every other first class government
: in the world. Now President Wilson
has urged it upon congress.
All of this being the case, why has
it not been passed before? In the
first place, because so many of the
, legislators who ought to initiate and
support the change have places on the
committees which are 'doling out the
wastefut appropria tons. and derive
, much of their political prestige there
from. In the second place, because
l heretofore the country has had much
wealth, and could afford waste. A
hundred million wasted made little
, difference in the past, altho it repre-
: scented nearly 20 per cent of our total
government expense.
S This is a rich country. some sena-
q tor shouted when a colleag que spoke
his grateSt-