Evening star., 1933-09-05
Rate by Mail-Payable In Advance.
Manila, nd and XiruiHaia
n.mber Of the Associated Press.
Budgets and Public Works.

Instructions have been received at
the District Building from the Bureau
OF the Budget regarding next years es-
Inmates, now under preparation. 1t is
understood that total figure has been
set for the Commissioners, who must
trim the estimates within that total.
This is further demonstration OF the
complete control over the municipality s
finances assumed by the Bureau OF the
Budget and indicates that the COM
munity's budget will again undergo the
identical process applied to the Govern
ment department sections Of the Fed
ersl budget. Local needs and local rev.
enues are not in the picture. The i'm
portant thing is the total, arbitrarily
set by the Budget Bureau with an eye
single to the size Of the national
budget
Thus the District, as far as its bud
yet H concerned, Is placed strictly on
par with the Federal departments, de-
spite the fact that more than eighty per
cent of the revenues to be spent in this
budget can have no effect whatsoever
on the Federal budget, being local reve-
nues derived from local taxation.
It will be recalled that the budget Tor
the current fiscal year was arbitrarily
cut about rs per cent to conform to the
percentage cut applied to the national
-
Nd surplus revenues derived from local
taxation, unavailable for national bud
get balancing or anything else. Taking
note of this condition, Congress made
a part Of the surplus revenues available
for unemployment relief and necessary
local improvements, provided the Bu-
reau Of the Budget approved the ex-
penditures. Thus far the Bureau of the
Budget has approved nothing.
Some Of the Federal departments,
however, which had their budgets
whacked in the neighborhood Of IS per
cent-this being the cut to which the
District was forced to conform-have
subsequently Jared pretty well. Some
of them have received from the Public
Works Administration allotments Of
cash that 60 far to Offset the IS per
cent budget slash. Some Of the allot-
ments to the departments. outside the
statutory authorizations, are as follows:
Department of Agriculture. $58,513,514
Department Of Commerce.. 8,698, 900
Department Of Interior.... 161, ,270,0 900
Department Of Justice..... 851 900
Post Office. e..............., 1900
State Department. ....-... 1,528, 900
Treasury Department ..... 20,873 ,636
War Department ......... 32,063 900
Navy Department. ........ 13,600,000
The allotment here set down for the
Navy does not include the $238, 900, 600
for the ship building program. nor is 1t
considered the complete allotment ex-
pected by the Navy.
Virtually every agency in the Gov
srnment has been given funds to spend
on needed and useful projects, giving
work in every State in the Union" Sec
retary Ickes said the other day, ex-
planning that the greater part of the
$1,196, ,721, ,389 allotted up to August 20
had been for Federal projects.
Inasmuch as the Bureau of the
Budget construes the District of Co
lumbia in the light of a department of
the Federal Government, and not as a
municipality, having shorn the local
budget Of practically all employment
giving capital expenditures in order to
make the cut in local funds conform to
cuts in departmental funds, the District
OF Columbia should in equity be con-
strued In the same fashion by the Pub
lie Works Administration in making
allotments for local public works. It
would be illogical, as well as unfair, if
after the Bureau of the Budget treats
the local municipality as a Federal de-
partment when it comes to slashing its
budget and depriving local citizens of
necessary improvements, the District is
viewed by others as a normal, self-gov-
erning American municipality when it
comes to making the terms for allot-
ments of public works grants