Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-04-30
4 Budget Idea IN Public
and IN Private Business
-HE Senate's passage Of the budget bill,

|"HE Senate's passage of the budget bill,
with the prospect of early concurrence
by the House, brings to the eve of
contamination an improvement which has
been urged upon Congress repeatedly for the
last twelve years. Lacking, however, the ele-
ments in which political "spell-binders" find
inspiration and running counter to the habits
and interests OF the pork-barrel dividers, the
proposal aroused scant enthusiasm save
amongst thinking business men and q few
close students of Governmental needs. It is
characteristic of Congress and of the popular
mind which Congress reflects that this funda-
mentally important measure without which
other fiscal reforms cannot be intelligently
undertaken, has been kept waiting in the ante
room of Indifference for more than a decade,
while all manner of superficial matters were
given ready audience and voluble discussion
for no better reason than their adaptability
to political ends.
There is nothing sensational in a move
ment to balance Governmental expenditure
and income, nothing with which an office
seeking orator can court the favor of what
Shakespeare called 1.-The mutable many But
the success or failure Of that unpretentious
movement will mark the difference between
efficiency and inefficiency, economy and ex-
travagance, and, to a great extent between
excessive and reasonable taxation. Neglect
Of these matters is unjust to the people and
a bar to national progress Burdened as the
country is, and will be for many year, with
great war debt, every available aid to saw
ing public money and getting full value for
that which is spent, ought to be utilized.
The budget system called for in the pending
bill will go far toward that end. 1t provides
that the President shall submit to Congress an
nually an estimate of expenditures and Of re-
ceipts, together with statements of the condi-
ton Of the treasury, Government indebted
ness and other pertinent data. A Bureau of
Budget will be established, whose director
gathers from the divers branches of the Fed
eral Administration facts CONCERNING their
requirements. The Bureau, moreover, will
make detailed studies of the departments,
with view to offering suggestions that will
promote efficiency. There will be also "gen-
eral accounting office" under comptroller
general, which is expected to add much to
the exactness and range Of easily available
information touching< the Governments
financial affairs.
1t is a tribute to the excellence of the
budget idea, as we'll as to the loyal persist
ence of it's advocates, that at last it is about
to be actualized despite the indifference and
opposition against which it has had to strug-
gle. An idea it is which, if given opportunity,
will do a vast deal for private business and
for individuals, as we'll as for Government.
Every mercantile and industrial concern,
every household, every man and woman will
profit by adopting the budget system in the
management of affairs. Many a bankruptcy
could be prevented, many life disappoint-
ment spared, many a case of personal failure
or mediocrity changed to shining success, if
only the simple, safeguarding, conserving
methods Of the budget plan we're duly ap-
piled.
That impecunious philosopher, Mr.. Wilkins
Micawber, explained the difference between
happiness and misery in this wise: annual
income, twenty pounds; annual expenditure.
nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and six
pence-result< Happiness: Annual Income,
twenty pounds; annual expenditure, twenty
pounds and siXpence-result, Misery" 1t is
the budget system that enables one to pro-
coed with knowledge and assurance, instead
Of blindly or haphazardly, in trying to keep
on the safe side of this Outlines narrow
boundary between Mus and minis