"Good News"

"We have good news today," said Treasury Secretary George Humphrey briskly to a specially summoned press conference last week. After rattling off a list of facts and figures, George Humphrey came to the heart of his good news: "The country has reached the essential turning point toward a balanced budget."

One prime reason, Humphrey explained, is that the U.S. Government is going to spend far less in fiscal 1954 than Harry Truman estimated, less even than Humphrey figured last May--partly because of the Korean truce and partly because of plain, everyday economies. The case of the dwindling deficit estimate went thus (in billions):

TRUMAN'S HUMPHREY'S (MAY)

Now Outgo: $78.6 $74.1 $72.1

Income: 68.7 68.3 68.3

Deficit: $ 9.9 $5.8 $ 3.8

Another reason for Humphrey's delight is that a Treasury Secretary now has a fighting chance of getting a balance. By cutting the amount of money authorized this year for expenditure in the future, the Administration has insured that after 1954 a greater percentage of federal income can go to pay current expenses instead of being used to discharge old obligations. This, by Humphrey's reckoning, will permit lower overall expenditures from 1955 on.

Humphrey hedged his predictions to cover unforeseen changes in the national or international situation. He warned, too, that congressional refusal to raise the $275 billion national debt limit (TIME, Aug. 10) left the Treasury "too little headroom for safety." (Last week the national debt stood at $273 billion.) But, barring emergencies, he thought the Administration could squeak through until January without calling Congress to raise the debt limit. And he had high hopes that income and outgo would finally balance by the time fiscal 1955 begins next July.

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