AMERICAN BUDGET

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12623, 7 December 1926, Page 3

AMERICAN BUDGET

TAX REDUCTION RECOMMENDED WAR EXPENSES TO BE KEPT DOW? MR COOLIDGE’S DESIRE By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Received December 6. 0.0 p.m > WASHINGTON, December 6. President Coolidge, in his Budget speech, asked Congress for more than four billion dollars to run the Government for the fiscal year ending in 1928. He declared that he wanted the expenses of war preparedness kept down in peace time, and he announced that he would refrain from asking for appropriations for three cruisers authorised for construction before July Ist. He also sought only part of the money authorised for starting the Government’s five-year aviation construction programme. Taxation questions occupied most of the speech. The President estimated this year’s surplus at 383,079,095 dollars, and the 1928 surplus at 200.703.863 dollars, but he declared that the 1928 surplus would not be too large an operating margin. He recommended Congress to reduco taxes for the first six months of 1927. and urged that the amount of relief should depend upon the surplus it wi desired to divert, from debt reductic to tax reduction. Mr Coolidge asked for an appropriation of 680,537,642 dollars for national defence, saying: '‘This country is now engaged in negotiations to broaden the existing treaties with great Power: which deal wilb the eliminatiot of competition in naval arms ents.” He asked for 366,722,142 dollars (12 million dollars more than last year) for the War Department, and 313.815,500 dollars (nearly 12 million dollars less than last year) for the Navy, and 82,500,000 dollars for the promotion of aviation for national defence and commerce. Of the last-mentioned sum, 73,477,380 dollars is allotted to Army ' and Navy aviation, embracing 20,600,000 dollars for new ’planes, and 2,400,000 for the construction of aviation barracks. He recommended that the construction of an airship of 6,000,000 cubic feet capacity, .included in the programme approved by Congress, be delayed until the tests made on an all-metal airship which has been authorised. Other votes asked for ranged from 50,000 to 2,500,000 dollars, for a postal air mail service, the operation of the coastguard seaplane fleet, forestry, patrol ’planes, and weather observation ’planes. The President also requested a vote of 30 million dollars for prohibition enforcement.

ARMY STARVED

WAR DEPARTMENT COMPLAINS ‘ ‘APPALLING CONDITION. ’ ’ WASHINGTON. December 5. Mr Dwight F. Davis, Secretary of War, and General John Hines, Chief of Staff, in their' annual reports stressed the appalling condition of tho American army. They declared that the terms of the National Defence Act, which provides for the maintenance of an army of 280,000. have not been fulfilled. The army now, it is alleged, has only 40. per cent, of its contemplated strength.