Evening star., 1950-07-16
Says Trumun Should
Retrench at Home
CoIumnist Urges Halt
In Domestic Spending
By Frank R. Kent

Certainly, before long President Tru-
man will go before Congress with a
statement of the facts and, along with
mobilization enactments, a request for
large additional appropriations to meet
the Korean crisis Already announce
ment has been made that the. Defense
Department will need at least a billion
more dollars. Whatever Mr.. Truman
asks along this line, it is quite sure his
request will be granted and his position
supported by the country.
Anything else is unthinkable and
Senator Taft, chairman of the Repub-
lican Policy Committee, has made it clear
in advance that such will be his .atti-
tude. So has Senator Byrd of Virginia.
Nevertheless. Mr.. Truman owes q good
deal more than this to the American
people. And if the situation is to be
met effectively he has to rise higher to,
meet 1t. No patriotic man in either
party wants to be niggardly or reluctant
\ about the cost of carrying the Korean.
conflict to complete victory against
the Soviet-encouraged North Korean
aggression.
On the other hand unstinted support
OF the President by Congress and the
people, with evidence of willingness to
do anything for swift conclusion Of the
Korean campaign, entities them to con-
crete assurances from Mr.. Truman along
lines which up to now he has avoided.
Chief among these is the assurance that
on his part no unnecessary dollars win
be spent for domestic purposes. OBJ
viously, this would involve cessation
upon the part of Mr.. Truman of all
effort to jam through Congress the ex-
pensive experiments in his program
such as the absurdly grandiose Bran
nan farm scheme, the extravagant and
Impractical proposals to socialize
medicine being pushed by his aide,
Oscar Ewing, and the other undigested
and costly plans for the expansion Of
Government subsidies and handouts. =
Senator Byrd points out that purely
domestic expenditures have increased n
per cent since 1948. with war on
our hands" he says. some Of these
outlays must be cut unless we are going
to spend ourselves into the kind Of
bankruptcy the Russians are counting
on" 1t does not seem that this kind
OF assurance is expecting too much Of
Mr.. Truman. AS a matter of fact,
indefinite postponement of his entire
domestic program is the only logical
and sensible thing for him to do.
Under the circumstances nothing less
can be justified. Rigid economy in all
domestic expenditures, accompanied by
taxes that will keep US from sliding
mere deeply into the red is the only
sound presidential program, the one
way by which we can keep steady our
Federal fiscal structure upon the solid
arity Of which our. military strength
depends.
Few will dispute these facts. YET so
far there has been no real indication
upon the part of the administration Of
willingness to face them. No admins
ton voice has been raised either in
favor of a sharp slice in domestic
expenditures or for postponement of
the Truman domestic program, the
enactment of which would add literally
billions to them. There has been no
time since he became President that Mr..
Truman has been in so great need Of
sound economic advice. Yet that sort
of advice does not seem forthcoming
from his Council of Economic Advisers,
headed by the ebullient Leon KeySerling.
On the contrary, the words retrench-
ment and the reduction in domestic
affairs seem altogether left out of the
Keyserling lexicon. His recent public
announcements appear entirely de-
voted to assertions of how strong our
economy is at present, how equal it
will be to practically any strain and
how marvelously rosy the whole business
outlook of the country is.
Few economists agree with Mr.. Key
serling in this view Yet. that is the sort
of economic advice Mr.. Truman now gets
from him.