On the Cards

For three months the biggest date on President Roosevelt's calendar has been Nov. 6. This week that day came and went and for the 74th time in its history the U. S. electorate chose another Congress (see p. 14). Automatically the next big day on the White House calendar became Jan. 3, when the new Congress sits for the first time.

Last week, even before the election was held, President Roosevelt was busy with the legislative program he will send to the Capitol next winter. To his office for luncheon went Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau. After the trays on which the meal was served had been cleared away Daniel W. Bell. Acting Budget Director, was called in. They were closeted until 4 p. m. Three days later the conference of three was repeated, morning and afternoon. Among the first things a new Congress needs is a budget and that was the President's prime concern last week.

From July 1 to Nov. 1 the U. S. took in $1,214,000,000 and spent on "regular" running expenses $1,142,000,000. If times were normal, that would seem to leave a $72,000,000 surplus. But times are far from normal and $1,112,000,000 was spent in four months for ''emergency" purposes. Result was a very real deficit of a cool billion dollars. Preparing the "ordinary" budget of department expenditures was merely the first and routine step. Big job was the selection of extraordinary projects on which the bright young men of the Administration have been quietly working while the political campaign roared outside their office windows. In nearly every case detailed decisions had yet to be made by President Roosevelt, but some things were definitely on the cards:

1) A new Public Works program, including Government-built low-cost housing, to prime the pump of heavy industry which refused to be primed by the first $3,300,000,000 appropriated last year. Such a program was discussed about the White House in astronomical terms of billions of dollars. Prime point was govern-ment spending on such a scale as the country had never before dreamed of.

2) A new relief program for winter to take care of the normal winter unemployment which this year is due to add around 1,000,000 cases to the 4,000,000 which are already on relief rolls (see p. 17).

3) A Navy building program. Secretary Swanson said last week he would ask Congress for money for 42 ships to raise the Navy to treaty strength, and a larger program may follow if the 1935 Naval Conference turns out to be a failure (see p. 24).

4) Old-age pension laws and unemployment "insurance." with the Federal share of the latter's cost possibly financed by a tax on payrolls. (For news of old-age pensions among the States, see p. 17.)

5) A permanent NRA law.

6) Taxes, with a continuation of the present Federal rates on gasoline, bank checks, etc., and new levies, probably on incomes, to yield perhaps half a billion dollars a year, unless the President decides he prefers the inflationary effect of mounting U. S. deficits.

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