Evening star., 1937-02-26
ACCOUNTS GROUP
PROPOSED IN BILL
Reorganization Measure
Also Would Set Up
Fiscal Bureau.
BY WILL p. KENNEDY.

The new draft of the Presidents
bill abolishing the Office of controller
general and taking from Congress the
General Accounting Office, trans
ferring to the Treasury Department
most of its functions, proposes crea-
tion of new joint committee in
Congress on public accounts and
would set up in the Treasury a new
Bureau of Fiscal Affairs. This bill
is being considered in executive ses-
sion by the Joint Committee on Gov
ernment Organization, of which Ma
jority Leader Robinson of the Senate
is chairman.
Representative Cochran, Democrat,
of Missouri, who has just been elected
chairman of the House Committee on
Reorganization, and who is member
of the Joint Committee, was in con-
ference with the President at the
White House today regarding features
of the new administration bill.
Administration leaders have made
it clear that the biggest drive in the
reorganization program is to have
the Office of controller general wiped
out and have the bulk of duties of
that Office transferred from the Gen.
eral Accounting Office to the Treasury
Department-and it has been equally
clear that this is the particular issue
on which Congress will oppose the
Presidents reorganization program, as
an attempt to wipe out its own agency.
This new bill, folloping the sugges-
tions of the Brownlow Committee,
emphasizes that under the Constitu-
ton, Congress has the obligation to
appropriate money from the Treasury.
and that the Executive has the obliga-
tion to see that the laws relating to
the expenditure of and accounting for
public money are faithfully executed.
The bill proposes to establish:
% A joint committee of Congress
to consider reports of an auditing
agency and report thereon to Con-
greSs; ca an auditing agency respon-
sible to Congress through which Con-
gress will be currently informed of
all settlements and expenditures
deemed by the auditing agency to
have been improperly or IMPROVE
IDENTIFY made; and 90 an accounting
agency responsible to the President
through which the President can
exercise more effective control over
appropriations and assume full re-
sponsibility for the final determina-
ton of the availability and the faith
full expenditure of appropriations, and
the final determination of amounts
due to and from the Government,
and the collection and settlement
thereof
24-Member COMMITTEES.
The proposed Joint Committee on
Public Accounts would be composed
of "a members, e from the ma
jority party and from the minority
chosen by each of the following COM
mittees: In the Senate, the Committee
on Expenditures in the Executive De-
partments, the Appropriations Com
mittee and the Finance Committee;
in the House, the Committee on Ex-
penditures in the Executive Depart
ments, the Appropriations Committee
ana the Ways and Means Committee
It is intended that the report OF
the auditor general shall be referred
by Congress to this new Joint Com
mittee, which after study would re-
port its findings to Congress. This
Joint Committee is authorized 0) to
hold public hearings and sit and act
in executive session at any place OF
time; (2) to request any officer OF
employe of any agency Of the Gov
ernment to attend such sessions and
to produce books and documents and