The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1949-10-28
Let Harry Do It.!

President Truman is being belabored in editorials, news
stories and cartoons for his call for increased taxes in order
to balance the federal budget, which faces a ~$5-billion deficit
for this fiscal year.
He is advised to cut federal expenditures, abandon
his socialist schemes, cut federal payrolls to the bone, re-
duce taxes to encourage production and up the national
income to $300-billion, and a host of other things.
Let's look at a few of these suggestions:
u Congress makes the appropriations and not the pres
ident. The present $5-billion deficit was voted by Con-
gress, which in turn is Mortified at the thought of increased
taxes to meet it. If the government has to use deficit fl
nancing to operate in times of prosperity, it certainly faces
a rough and rocky road in the eventualty of a depression.
q Congress rejected the socialist" schemes of the
president, with the exception of the housing bill. There
was no national health bill. no federal aid to education. and
consequently no appropriations for them which would have
added materially to the present deficit. How. then. can
the presidents "socialistic" program be responsible?
- The one attempt at reduction of federal payrolls has
run into as much Congressional opposition and pressure as
any question before Congress during the recent term. Late
in August Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced
he was going to save money by dropping $4,000 civilians
and 12,703 reserve officers from the payrolls of the army,
navy and air force.
What has been the result of this move? johnson has
been opposed on every hand. AS the Philadelphia Inquirer
said editorially, members of Congress are demanding that
he keep his dirty economies out of their districts and that
he economic somewhere else instead. People who live in
affected areas are insisting that there be no reduction of
what johnson characterized as terrible waste and extrava-
gance.
lney dTe turning III neat on m frSt genuine effort
in years to economic in the national government"
How tri,e those words are. Look over the list of Con-
gressional members. Virtually each one has his own pet
district projects for the benefit of his constituents. In order
to get appropriations he votes for the other fellows on the
theory that you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours"
The net result is that the pork barrel stays as full as ever,
expenditures mount and deficits stare us in the face.
But raise taxes? Heavens. no! Reduce expenditures?
Well. maybe. but If it must be done let's do 1t in your dis
trict. not mine. Reduce payrolls? Same answer.
Congress even went to the extreme OF trying to pass a
bill ordering the president to cut all expenditures that had
been voted by them an even 10 percent. Passing the buck
to Harry for what they didn't have the courage to do them
selves.
The sanctimonious editorial attitude of a majority of
the newspapers and magazines is what particularly peeves
us. They lambast the president about economies, but de-
veloped one of the most powerful Hobbies in Washington
during the last session to see that their own pork barrel
postal subsidy was let alone. Freedom of the press is being
threatened, they screamed. 1t wasn't freedom of the press
they were worried about, but rather the right to operate on
a subsidy supplied by the taxpayers which costs said tax
payers in the neighborhood of %$3O0-milion annually.
AS long as we have pressure groups, pet regional prof.
ects, pork barrel" appropriations, we'll have deficits unless
we are willing to raise the necessary money to pay for the
many unnecessary appropriations