How shall this riot of extravagance be checked? By concentrating the power of control over appropriation bills and by establishing a definite responsibility for them. Two methods have been proposed. President Taft in a special message urged upon Congress the plan of a national budget. The various departments would prepare the estimates as now; these would be diligently studied and coördinated, with constant reference to the estimated revenue of the year; and the Executive would then submit to Congress such a budget statement as in most other countries the legislative body receives from the Government. In the House of Representatives this budget would be considered by a budget committee, or, if the old name were retained, by the Committee on Appropriations. And the report of that committee, of course, would be subject to discussion and amendment by the House. Representative Fitzgerald of the Appropriations Committee and ex-Speaker Cannon agree in advising a return to the practice of intrusting, the preparation of appropriation bills to a single Committee on Appropriations.
Prior to the year 1865, the Committee on Ways and Means had control of appropriation bills. Then the Committee on Appropriations was created, with full control of supply bills. In 1885, because of jealousy of the great power exercised by Samuel J. Randall, the bills making provision for the army, the diplomatic and consular service, the military academy, the navy, Indian affairs, and the post-office, were taken away from the Committee on Appropriations. This change marked the beginning of the era of extravagance. Under the present system, appropriations are made in thirteen annual bills, and “eight different committees, unrelated to one another, without coöperation, are charged with the duty” of preparing these bills. No fairer invitation to extravagance could be issued. Each committee works with regard only to itself, and, as we have seen, all together work without regard to the revenue side of the account. Coordination is impossible, and no balanced and well-apportioned budget could be the result of such a system.
The national-budget plan proposed by Mr. Taft should have the most serious consideration of Congress and of the country. Objection is made that this plan is “wholly inapplicable to our system of government.” It may be admitted at once that it is wholly incongruous with the present “system” of Congress in respect to appropriations. It would smash in both heads of the “pork-barrel,” and apprehension of that catastrophe, rather than any constitutional scruple, we imagine, is the motive of the objections that have been raised. It is true that the House under the Constitution originates revenue bills. But there is no constitutional impediment to the submission of estimates by the Executive, since that has been the practice of the Government since the beginning. A budget based upon the “needs of the Government economically administered,” and scrupulously adjusted to the revenue account, is the most promising remedy for the evils of the present method of preparing bills in eight committees, working with no recognized relation or understanding, under which extravagance has grown into a habit.
ERRATUM
IN the April CENTURY, on page 821, by a misapprehension M. André Tardieu was spoken of as the editor of the “Revue des Deux Mondes,” to which he is a contributor. The editor is M. Francis Charmes of the French Academy.—THE EDITOR.
