THE NEED FOR ECONOMY

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2236, 8 February 1921, Page 1

THE NEED FOR ECONOMY

The importance of economy in taxation and. expenditure was one of the principal'/subjects discussed by Mr Wilson in his presidential message to the United States Congress in December. Among the immediately serviceable acts of legislation which he recommended to assist: the recovery from the. effects of the war was to prove that a great democracy can. keep house as ccssfully and in. as businesslike a. fashion as any other government. “It seems to me,” said Mr Wilson, “that the first step towards proving this is to supply ourselves with a systematic method of handling our estimates and expenditures and bringing them to the point where they will not lie an unnecessary strain upon our income or necessitate unreasonable taxation. In other words, a workable budget system, and I respectfully suggest that twp elements are essential to such a system; namely, not only that the proposal of appropriations should be in the hands of a single body, such as a single appropriations committee in each house of the Congress, but also that this body should be brought into such co-operation with the departments of the Government and with the Treasury of the United Stales as would enable it to act upon a complete conspectus 7 of Ihe needs of Ihe Government and the resources from which it- must draw its income.”