The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1917-12-08
OvEREsTIMATED COST OF WAR

Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo assured the investment
bankers assembled at Baltimore THAT the federal government
will not call for more than ten billion dollars in bond issues,
treasury certificates of indebtedness and Understanding
stamps and certificates, in addition to those already issued,
during the current fiscal year. He admits that the estimates
have exceeded requirements and the total ordinary expendl-
ture for war purposes Turing the fiscal year will not exceed a
billion dollars a month. Loans to our allies will call for half
a billion dollars a month, which will be repaid with interest,
so the net additions to the national debt during the fiscal year
which the American people must bear will apparently not ex-
coed six billion dollars.
This is something different from the estimates OF nineteen
to twenty billion dollars banded about in congressional debates.
The pacifists, pro-Germans and stock market bears made the
most of them and they gave rise to much uneasiness in business
and financial circles.
If Mr.. McAdoo had spoken in advocacy of a budget system
he could not have given better proof of its desirability. State
ments made in congress were from five to eight billion dollars
above the mark, and the secretary of the treasury has been
forced to base his last estimate of requirements on the private
and unofficial reports of chairmen of the various congressional
committees and the heads of other departments.
Bondholders will receive interest in full from the United
States treasury, but the taxpayers will not have to pay the in
terest on the part of the debt which represents loans to our al
lies. In estimating the revenue required, the interest to be
paid by our allies does not seem to have been taken into ac-
count. Whether our government collects this interest as it ac-
crues or permits our allies to defer payment of it has not been
made clear, but this interest and this principle, as well, are as
sets the value of which can only be impaired by the loss OF the
war and the bankruptcy of our allies.
If congress does not adopt a budget system, the least it can
do is to prepare, or instruct the treasury department to prepare
and publish a report setting forth our financial relations with
our allies. The public has a right to know what repayments
our government is entitled to exact from our allies just as
much as to know how the money is spent. Six billion dollars
in one year is not a mere bagatelle to be lost sight of when dis
cussing the cost of this war.
Six weeks ago no one knew whether the years bill for war
purposes would be ten or twenty billion dollars, and it is not
yet clear, though Mr.. McAdOO has thrown some light upon it,
but he confessed that he did not possess accurate information.
He admitted that the expenditures of the war department for
the first four months Of the fiscal year hae been fifty per cent
less than was estimated by that department for that period
and he assured the investment bankers that it may be conf
IDENTIFY expected, therefore, that the actual expenditures for the
balance of the year ending June 80 next will not at the most
exceed the estimates.
Let us have a budget or congressional report which will
check the efforts of pro-Germans in congress to scare timid in
cstors to death and injure the business and industries of the
country.-New York Commercial