The Sidney herald., 1962-11-28
S1OO-BiIIion Congress

On the day Congress adjourned, Representative Clarence
Cannon, Democrat of Missouri and Chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee, took advantage of the oppor-
tunity to castigate the members of Congress for their financial
responsibility. Thinking excerpts from this speech deserve
the careful consideration of all newspapermen, we turn the
rest of this column over to Representative Cannon, who said
to his fellow Congressman:
"We are spending this year $115 billion, the largest
amount ever spent in a peacetime year in the history of the
American Congress.
Gentleman, when you go home you can attract special
attention by saying, 4 have just come from a S~1OO-billion
Congress- You are the first man ever to come back to your
congressional district from a SlOO-billion Congress in all its
"Today the public debt is 1902 billion. 1t is now past the
high water mark. 1t is the largest debt in the history OF the
in any country in the history of the world. And we are still
busily adding to it as fast as we can.
Surely, gentlemen, we ought to be satisfied with a debt
of 1902 billion. Why add to it? That is what you voted to
do just now. And will you tell us what your people and your
district gets out of it? Nothing but more taxes.
"There is many a taxpayer out on a small farm, a small
businessman in the local town, a workman here who has a
hard time paving even a few dollars of taxes. But when the
Internal Revenue men bring it to Washington we spend it
all; we spend it as you have spent it today.
To-day, gentlemen, you have voted to increase the an
nual expenditures of the Nation although the Government is
already spending the largest amount ever spent in one peace
time year In the history of any nation on earth.
"You have today added to the number of Government
employees when they are falling over each other in every de-
partment. Competent men tell us that if they only had one
third the number of employees in the Pentagon, they could
do better work. That is true of every department of the
Government. You have today voted to increase the national
debt already so large tina. it staggers the imagination. 1 was
In Germany after the war. At one time the German mark
was an unassailable standard of value throughout Europe.
Then Germany followed this primrose path until eventually
the deposltor had to carry his money to the bank in a basket.
When they got to the bank, the bank did not count the money.
1t just distributed the bills by denomination and weighed it.
SIN 1886 when a housewife took a dollar downtown to
the grocery store, she got $1O7 worth of groceries for that
dollar. Nations all over the world were scrambling for that
dollar. They wanted hard cash. But now they are not so
keen about it. Today it is only worth A cents.
The House, the press, and the country are becoming in
creasingly aware of the fact that it is rising non-defense ex-
pendltures that have unbalanced the budgets and expended
the national debt and, in consequence, precipitated foreign
holders OF our once peerless dollar to demand gold. We lack
the Selt-QSclDllne TO live within orr inpOua to ~ orr VIZ
as we 60, That is the genesis of our present tenuous fiscal
situation"