A Reasoned Budget

The United States' budget system, recognized as inefficient since the time of Alexander Hamilton, has become a mere patchwork of uncoordinated committees. Blind budget hacking is no longer adequate for an intricate economic situation. The congressional budgetary system needs integration, therefore, for appropriations and revenues are handled by separate committees, making a budget tailored to American resources almost impossible. Not only are finances and expenditures not matched coherently, but few of the members of the involved committees are aware of any sort of legislative budgetary policy. Slashes are made in budgets with little regard to the importance of items in any positive economic program, since Congressmen only attempt to avoid rocking the economic boat with overly-heavy taxes. Representative G. P. Lipscomb has suggested a remedy with his proposed Joint-Committee on the Budget, which would join representatives of both Senate and House appropriations and finance committees in a body devoted to the consideration of fiscal policy.

Critics of the Lipscomb bill cite the failure of the now-defunct Committee of the Legislative Budget, set up in 1946. That group, however, wrote its own budget, arbitrarily setting a ceiling on expenditures without even investigating the needs which the Bureau of the Budget had carefully calculated. After having to pass supplementary bills amounting to six billion dollars over the ceiling, Congress dropped the Committee. Lipscomb's proposed committee, however, would not aim at writing an a priori budget. It would simply determine the best fiscal policy by correlating the reports of the various committees on revenue, appropriations, and the economy. Once having established a policy, it would advise the other committees about the propriety of specific appropriations in a planned economy.

Because the Committee on the Budget would only serve as a policy advisor, there need be no duplication of investigations done by other committees. Nor should it threaten members of the four powerful congressional finance and revenue committees, who fear loss of their present leviathan power. The danger, on the contrary, is that the group would be too weak because of its diverse membership. The Joint Committee on the Economic Report has been virtually ignored for this reason.

To cut down on the diffusion of membership, bills supported by Representatives Colmer and Freylinghuysen advocate the use of reports on revenue, without including Ways and Means Committee members in the policy committee. If the House passed this plan, resulting friction from jealous "revenooers" would nullify the whole purpose.

Another of the myriad proposals for integration is that of the National Planning Association, which proposes that the Committee on the Economic Report assume the function of a fiscal policy maker. The plan is impractical, however, because this committee has always concerned itself with investigations of specific economic details. Traditional procedure would inevitably force questions of policy aside. By including members of several committees--finance, expenditures, and economy--in one Joint Committee, perhaps the dissimilarity of methods and practices might restrain the legislative instinct for the insignificant. Of all these proposals, Lipscomb's is most likely to unite the various participants in budget planning in a group which can keep its mind on policy.