Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-06-20

TINE immediate duty of
Congress when it convenes
again on the first Monday
in December will be to re-
enact the budget bill which met
President Wilson's disapproval in
the closing hours of the recent
session.
For a number of months the
country has been demanding the
enactment of a sound budget law.
properly authorized committees of
the House and the Senate gave
long and earnest consideration to
the problem and finally agreed
upon measure which obtained
the approval of Congress and went
to the White House, only to be
vetoed there.
The responsibility for the failure
of the budget belongs to Mr.. Will
SON and his party. The people
know it. They know that he seized
upon a mere technicality, an al
legged unconstitutional feature, in
the bill to defeat the will of the
country that our present hazard
ways OF doing business should be
abandoned. They know that the
advice which Congress received as
to the constitutionality of the bill
was better in all likelihood than
that Mr.. Wilson received, and. any
way, that decisions on points OF
law are reserved to the Supreme
Court and not delegated to the
presidential office, even though Mr..
wilson saw fit to arrogate to him
self this, Standardization. They
know that even when the respon-
slbie leaders of Congress. more in
terested in the broad purposes of
the bill than in a particular para
graph singled out for presidential
opposition, sought to meet that OBJ
position one of Mr.. Wilson's
stanchest supporters in the SEN
ate helped to defeat the measure
In the last minutes of the Con-
gress.
So much for the issue. The
people will not be denied; they
cannot be denied a budget system
any longer, even though Mr.. Will
son has deferred it's operation for
one year at least.
X X X X
That there is need for a reform
In our governments system of
handling its-flnancial affairs is no
longer doubted. It is so real an,
to all-made evident particularly
emit administrations financial Inc
extravagance-that all men famflj
situation. realize that unless thu
maze. and made shortly. we are he
national bankruptcy.
Before the war our national de,
tieally negligible. Today the in
alone is equal to the entire am
annual expenditures for govern
to 1915.
Even before the war, though the
driven home to the people. our
ana our taxes were increasing GU
ton to the increase in wealth an
But the cost of war, for which we
pared. either miltarily or finances
tremendous that today. while our
less than four times what it was
of the civil war. our debt is mt
times greater than the debt Their
national expenditures and our natl
creasing at such an alarming rate
nent to remark that the expendit
legations of our states and large
tiles have increased and still ar
out of proportion even to the inc
national expenditures and debt.
X X X X
Something mas TO be done. Con
to do it through the enactment il
bill which would compel the Pre-!
cept fun responsibility for the f
gram of his administration; to br
ernment's outgo and income into a
with each other; to state specific
sons for increases or decreases i
tions sought from Congress for
government or policy. and to sui
penditures of his administration
tial and non-political audit. 1t
named to which Mr.. Wilson obi
veto, for the measure which he
and in the disapproval of which h
ported him-provided that the CO
eral, under whose auspices the
be made, was to be free from either
or presidential interference. 1t
sire of Congress to provide such
flee for the controller that quest