The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-04-20

there would be less yelling on gov- ernment spending. The government will spend approximately $3,0O0, ,000 this coming fiscal year just to audit its books. This sum is the appro- priation of the General Accounting Office, which will have force of 12,000 employees to reconcile some 25" million checks with a similar number of vouchers and authoriza- tions. Tn a way, this is a good bit like locking the barn after the horse is-well, not necessarily "stolen,' '' but certainly after it is dead.
 In contrast to this 5000, 900 uIl- dertaker's bill, how much is spent on doctor bills to keep the horse from dying and police work to keep the horse from. being stolen? Next year 1t will be about $2,500,000. That is roughly the appropriation for the Bureau of the Budget, whose less than 800 employees - as compared with the 12,000 General Accounting Office employes-are given the job of not only preparing but also par- ing federal agency expenditures.
 All most people know about the Bureau of the Budget is that once year 1t prepares what is probably the biggest and dullest book in the world. It is the annual estimate of expenditures which the President sends up to Congress each Janu- ary with his budget message, and which no one ever looks at again if he can avoid 1t. .--.. PENNY PINCHERS,
 THEY'RE CALLED
 But that Is only a smidg1n' of the Bureau of the Budget assignment. Its day-in-and-day-ou job - the thankleSs task which brings down on the heads of all Bureau of the Budget examiners the curses of the bureaucrats who call them paper clip counters, penny pinchers, un- progressive reactionaries and worse lis the business of cutting back and holding down on government agency requests for appropriations before they go to Congress, and then in checl:ing the programs of the agencies after they get their money.
 By July l, which is the beginning of the governments fiscal year, every government agency must pre- sent to the Bureau of the Budget its proposal on how 1t proposes to spend its appropriations. A similar proposal must be made every three months, and every month there must be a report on money actually spent.
 In addition, under the Overtime Pay Act, every three months there must be a check on the number of employees in every department, job by job, in an effort to keep bureaus from becoming overstaffed and per forming lot of useless functions. But only about half of the 5000, 600 federal jobs today are so inspected. CHECK AND DOUBLECHECK
 All this inspection work for the whole Sprawling federal machinery is supposed to be done by staff of 125 examiners" as they are called plus special staff of 20 engineers in war projects unit, set up to construction program. Every agency is supposed to have its own audit and control but these examiners are the key men in the governments present system of inspection. They are not auditors. They go beyond that in that they may determine whether an agency should do what 1t wants to do.
 Tn addition to these examiners, there is a staff of about TO men in the Bureau of the Budgets section of administrative m na g m e Il t, which is supposed to check into and improve procedures, take out the red tape and put efficiency into govern ment operations.
 To the taxpayer, there may be be some consolation just in Knowing that this goes on. But that there isn't enough of 1t, administrative of- ficials in the Bureau of the Budget will freely admit. And there, per- haps, you have one reason for lot of the congressional special investi- gationS, which in themselves cost al- most as much money as the Bureau of the Budget.