Can Federal Expenditures Be Cut? A Compendium of Proposals for Effecting Economy in the U.S. Budget, Volume Two

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Foreword Advocates of economy in Federal spending are confronted perennially with the blunt question: “Where can we cut?” Now the President has proposed an unprecedented peacetime budget of $85.4 billion for fiscal 1953 and there is renewed clamor in and out of Congress for sharp reductions. To the inevitable question of where to cut, this compendium provides some answers. Here are three volumes containing a representative sample of statements outlining proposed savings and illustrating waste in the Federal budget of fiscal 1952. Most are applicable in principle to the budget for fiscal 1953.

It is significant that many of these statements apply not merely to waste and inefficiency in Federal activities but to whole programs believed out of place in our present rearmament economy. The comments and opinions in these volumes are, of course, those of the persons and groups credited and not necessarily of the Tax Foundation.

Sources used in compiling the compendium were: government publications, such as the Congressional Record and Hearings and Reports of Congressional Committees, published in calendar year 1951; non-government periodicals, pamphlets, books and press releases published during 1951 and the latter part of 1950s A representative sample of items appearing in these sources has been included in the compendiums. One of the chief determinants of selection was the extent to which the proposed economy was supported by specific reasons and/or data. I1lustrations of waste were selected in similar fashion.