pose of increasing the salaries of the employees in Washington, because we were not granting relief to them; we were granting relief to the people that were out of employment, that needed it. They would not accept the General Accounting Office ruling on that and had the President issue an Executive order. That Executive order was sent to the Attorney General of the United States, and he rendered an opinion that the President had the right to issue the Executive order, and then they increased the salaries of the Washington employees.

Well, as the result of that you have now $250,000-it was reduced from $750,000 to $250,000-overpayments charged against the disbursing officers. They want to relieve those disbursing officers. Is that the fault of the General Accounting Office?

Mr. BUCK. No; I would not say so. It is the fault of the system. Representative COCHRAN. I am not here to defend any Government agency if they are making mistakes, but I do not believe in having a Government agency attacked that should not be attacked in certain instances.

Mr. Buck. But the General Accounting Office is part of the system, and that is what we were discussing.

Representative COCHRAN. The Attorney General overruled the General Accounting Office, the President issued an Executive order, and the Attorney General of the United States gave the executive department an opinion that resulted in the payments being made. Representative GIFFORD. Mr. Buck, is this for the wastebasket now, this chart that you gave us last week?

Mr. Buck. Oh, no; that is what we hope to obtain.

Representative GIFFORD. You have two charts here.

Mr. Buck. If I may explain that, the one that I gave you last week is the proposed system, and the one I gave you this morning is the present system. The two charts are drawn on the same basis, so that you may put them side by side and see the comparison.

Representative GIFFORD. I want to find out if this is a new one and whether we can throw the old one away.

Mr. BUCK. No.

Senator BYRD. Mr. Buck, can you explain the difference between the two plans? Under the new plan here the expenditures take 21 trips and under the old plan they took 18. I would like to have you explain definitely the different trips they take, and exactly why it is. Mr. BUCK. Before you came in, Senator, I did go over the trips very briefly.

Senator BYRD. I would like, if you can, to take trip no. (1) and compare trip no. (1) under the old plan with trip no. (1) under the new plan.

Mr. Buck. Those are the same, Senator, you will observe if you put the two charts together. Let me see if I can clear that up. One of the major differences between the charts, you will observe is the lack of a systematic and centralized accounting organization. There is great need for an accounting system we think in the Treasury Department, through which all this information can be filtered and from which the Executive and the Congress can get reports that really mean something.

Then you will observe on the right-hand side of this chart of present expenditures, that the procedure seems to run very fre

quently to the General Accounting Office. Finally, it is a repository for all of the records, no. (18) being the end of that trail, you might

say.

Senator BYRD. Just let me ask this question: Is the present chart made up on the idea that you have a precontrol or preaudit of expenditures?

Mr. BUCK. No; it is supposed to give you just what you have. Senator BYRD. You stated a little while ago that the main function of the General Accounting Office is the control function.

Mr. BUCK. Yes.

Senator BYRD. It was testified here that only 10 percent of the accounts are precontrolled, preaudited.

Mr. Buck. If you look at it that way, if you regard the control which the General Accounting Office exercises as being one that emanates from a preaudit, then it is only 10 percent. But I am assuming that it exercises control, as well, over those expenditures which it postaudits.

Senator BYRD. How can you exercise control over an expenditure that has already been made?

Mr. Buck. Oh, you may review it certainly.

Senator BYRD. I mean control in the sense that you are interfering with an administrative function of the Government. That is the contention, is it not?

Mr. BUCK. Yes; that is true.

Senator BYRD. The money has already been spent. That control cannot interfere with the administrative part of it, can it?

Mr. Buck. Oh, yes; it can harass. The General Accounting Office can start harassing the Department in the matter of contracts. Senator BYRD, You have that same power under your plan to harass them. You have a postaudit,

Mr. Buck. Yes; but the harassment under the proposed plan is one induced by the Executive who controls or should control the administrative functions, whereas under the present plan you have all the irritation coming from this agent of Congress.

Senator BYRD. You do not think there should be any irritation, assuming that a department illegally makes an expenditure?

Mr. BUCK. Oh, yes; yes. I would not condone an illegal expenditure, and I think under the proposed system all those expenditures would be ferreted out, and what is more, they would be brought to the attention of Congress through an independent postaudit. much more effective accounting could thereby be obtained than under the present system.

Senator BYRD. But when we speak of control we mean, as a rule, the control of an appropriation before it has been disbursed, is that not true?

Mr. BUCK. No; I never did so regard it, Senator.

Senator BYRD. You think that with the power of the postaudit in your plan there will be no irritation or harassment of any of the officials of the Government?

Mr. Buck. The main irritation would come from this joint committee of Congress. If the administrative officials were called up here and the committee asks them why they did this or that, they would be a little bit irritated, perhaps chagrined, and I think it would be salutary.

Senator BYRD. A little irritation would be very good at times, would it not, in order to have the expenditures made in accordance with the law?

Mr. BUCK. I should think this proposed procedure would be very helpful to Congress in making appropriations to those organizations that had rather overstepped themselves. It would give you information that you do not now have.

Senator BYRD. What is not clear in my mind is that under the plan of the General Accounting Office if some department has not obeyed the law in the opinion of the Comptroller General it complains of irritations.

Mr. BUCK. It is worse than that.

Senator BYRD. Because the Comptroller General thinks they have not made a legal expenditure. I disagree with you on that. They should be harassed. If the Comptroller General, the independent agency of the Government believes that the disbursement is illegal he should harass them, he should make them refund it.

Mr. BUCK. Suppose, Senator, that he makes a mistake himself, and he has the final filing of all the papers, what accounting can you bring him to?

Senator BYRD. Well, what accounting can you bring this proposed postauditor to?

Mr. BUCK. He is only a postauditor, he does not do anything about administrative policy, he does not have anything to do with those things. He simply reviews.

Senator BYRD. I am speaking of postaudits, postaudits that are now made by the Comptroller General, which you say constitute 90 percent of the disbursements of the Government.

Mr. Buck. That is right, but those postaudits are also preaudits under the law now, because he is the agent of final settlement. That is the thing we are quarreling with. We maintain that that is an executive function.

Representative COCHRAN. In a private corporation if the last auditor makes an error and then files the papers away would you suggest that the board of directors of that great corporation check over the last audit to see whether or not he has made a mistake, and if so whom would you suggest to check over the board of directors?

Mr. BUCK. This is the line of distinction that I draw: An auditor who is at the same time a comptroller has an interest in the documents and transactions which he is auditing, because of the power to control.

Representative COCHRAN. But you say there is an end with the Comptroller General. There must be an end somewhere.

Mr. Buck. If this man is stripped of the power to control, to become interested in administrative acts, then his audit is going to be more independent and disinterested. That is what we want. We want a disinterested audit.

Representative COCHRAN. All right, then let us strip him of control, as I suggested before, and then will we have a better audit and a disinterested audit. Then what would you say to that?

Mr. BUCK. All right, then he becomes the Auditor General. That is just the thing we are recommending.

Representative COCHRAN. That is fine. We will change the name of the Comptroller General to Auditor General. What would you say to that? If we simply change the name would it be just as good? Mr. BUCK. Yes; if you take the control function from him.

Representative COCHRAN. Your viewpoint, in the final analysis, is to take it away from the Comptroller General and put it into the Secretary of the Treasury, is it not? That is the final analysis. Names mean nothing.

Mr. Buck. Yes; with the review that you do not have now. With this machinery, namely, the committee of Congress, reported to by an auditor who does not have any axes to grind in the administration, but whose audit is disinterested in that he goes out to find the facts and presents them to this committee. Then the committee studies the facts-the findings of the Auditor General. It has the right to call in the administrative officers to explain their books. That is the kind of audit we think that the Government ought to have, and that is the kind of audit that the Government does not have now.

Representative COCHRAN. One more question. This long trip that goes from the Congress, no. (1) and ending with the General Accounting Office in no. (18), is that due to the so-called administrative forms that they have?

Mr. Buck. No, no; that is legal.

Representative COCHRAN. This is legal?

Mr. BUCK. Yes.

Representative COCHRAN. Then you want to dispose in part of the legal method of accounting now?

Mr. Buck. We just want to take the kinks out of it and straighten it out. We want to make a procedure which will be expeditious and will check itself as it goes along as effectively as possible. Then bring it up at the end, give it another checking by an auditor who hasn't any interest whatsoever in the transactions, after which there is a final reporting to Congress.

Representative COCHRAN. If they haven't any interest in the transaction they will not give it any checking, there is no question about that. Suppose you put your new set-up under the Comptroller General and we change his name to Auditor General, still maintaining the independent agency but taking away his control; would that be satisfactory?

Mr. Buck. If I understand your question, that is what we propose exactly. We are in harmony on that.

Representative COCHRAN. If you propose that, then it is satisfactory to you to leave it as it is-taking away the control and not place it in the Treasury Department?

Mr. Buck. Oh, yes; I propose to concentrate the control in the Treasury Department so we can have a central accounting office. Representative COCHRAN. Haven't we got a central accounting office

now?

Mr. BUCK. We have in name; yes.

Representative COCHRAN. Cannot they change the system, according to your viewpoint, and then have a central accounting office where it is now by changing the system?

Mr. Buck. No; it could not be there. If you are going to make this man an auditor he should not keep the accounts, because he cannot

audit his own transactions. If he keeps his own books and has an interest in the settlements, then he cannot be an effective auditor.

Representative COCHRAN. If that be the case, then how can the Secretary of the Treasury do it?

Mr. BUCK. He is not doing it under our plan. We are setting the office up independently. I think you are confused in this, that you keep thinking of the General Accounting Office as performing the functions under the proposed scheme which it now performs. It would be an entirely new office. It would have only the functions of post audit, it would not keep any accounts, it would not supervise any accounts in the administrative department, and it would not do any preaudit work.

Representative COCHRAN. You are insisting that we take away the preaudit? Mr. BUCK. Sure.

Representative COCHRAN. I am agreeing, for the sake of argument, that we do take it away. That is the whole complaint, is it not? Boiled down, is it not the entire complaint?

Mr. Buck. Then we are in agreement. There is no use arguing any more about it.

Representative COCHRAN. Then we are in agreement so far; but we are in disagreement when I say leave the Comptroller General's Office as it is, only change his name to Auditor General, which will meet with your approval, and see that the Auditor General sets up a system in keeping with your recommendation, and he is still independent; now, how about that?

Mr. BUCK. That is all right, as I understand your statement.

Representative GIFFORD. Yes; but, Mr. Cochran, may I suggest there cannot you see that he is trying to relieve you under his system of presenting and acting on bills to forgive; that you will not have to forgive the disbursement officers; you would not have any more such bills?

Representative TABER. No more surcharges.

Representative WARREN. I assume the system has been in effect since the General Accounting Office was established, about 15 years ago.

Mr. BUCK. Yes; it was established in 1921. That is, the system has been in the making since then, and I suppose attained pretty much the procedure now followed by 1925. As you know, you do not get procedure started overnight.

Representative WARREN. Mr. Buck, have you attempted to estimate the increased cost of your proposed system over the present system?

Mr. BUCK. I think I stated the other day that I did not think the costs should be any greater, or very little greater. In fact, I think if you consolidated these emergency agencies now handling finances your costs would be reduced. You see, we now have several fiscal systems or parts of systems not integrated. Congress appropriates a very large amount of money in a lump sum for emergency purposes; then the President sets up almost an entirely separate system to spend that money. That is in effect what you have over in the Treasury.