[From The Washington Daily News, Apr. 2, 1971]

CONGRESS FRYING NIXON OVER FISH

(By Joseph Volz)

A $10 million national home for fish has been quietly scuttled by the Nixon Administration touching off Congressional objections that threaten to erupt to a full-scale constitutional issue.

At the center of the controversy is the National Aquarium, a sort of combination Disneyland-Smithsonian Institution of the sea slated for East Potomac Park. Congress appropriated funds for the project five years ago.

But now the Office of Management and Budget has ordered a halt to planning of the aquarium, and disgruntled supporters of the project believe the administration has no intention of ever resuming it.

But can the President not do what Congress has said it wants done? A number of people of the Hill, including Sen. Sam Ervin, D-N.C., and Rep. Julia Hansen, D-Wash., are siding with the fish.

Sen. Ervin, chairman of a Judiciary subcommittee studying separation of powers, thinks President Nixon may have overstepped his executive branch prerogatives.

He will introduce a bill giving the Interior Department a deadline for starting construction, but it is anybody's guess what will happen if the administration doesn't dig the Aquarium.

Rep. Hansen, chairman of the Interior Appropriations subcommittee, is equally perturbed. She is known to believe the administration deliberately delayed construction until the aquarium's biggest booster, powerful Rep. Mike Kirwan, D-Ohio, left Washington. Rep. Kirwan died last year.

It was he who won President Kennedy's support in 1962 over the objections of Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis., who called the aquarium "would be the most extravagant gold-plated fish bowl in world history." The cost was chopped in half and the bill became law.

The aquarium was supposed to have been built in 1967 but there have been numerous delays. Some District residents argued that housing for people was more important than a building for fish.

Sen. Ervin called in Caspar Weinberger, OMB deputy director, recently who said the administration has decided "to give Congress another chance to consider the relative importance of the fish in this particular fiscal year.”

But nobody in OMB was taking the credit for dumping the aquarium. Dep. Director Sam Cohn revealed: "I do not have any feeling for fish." He said somebody in the Johnson Administration "impounded" the money.

That word "impounded" has been bothering Sen. Ervin, too. It means the President failed to release funds. But Ervin aides say the aquarium is the only case in recent years when the administration has indicated it will never release the funds unless Congress really gets angry.

Interior officials argue this is one federal project which would be self-supporting. Admission charges would pay off construction and operating costs. District fish lovers are not completely cut off from aquatic life, tho. There is an aquarium in the basement of the Commerce Building, 14th-st and Pennsylvania-av nw, next to the cafeteria.

[From The Wall Street Journal, Mar. 17, 1971]

REVIEW AND OUTLOOK-SOMEDAY WE'VE GOT TO GET ORGANIZED

The recent Senate flap over the withholding of federal funds points up some serious problems. Unfortunately, they weren't the ones that were getting the lawmaker's attention.

Senator John J. Sparkman touched off the dispute when he attacked the administration for 'impounding" more than $8 billion in funds appropriated for various programs, chiefly domestic. In the view of the Alabama Democrat this action was nothing less than a "serious breach of faith" with Congress.

Well, it quickly became evident that everyone has a little trouble keeping up with what's going on within the vast federal establishment. The $8 billion

figure had been supplied by George P. Shultz, director of the Office of Management and Budget, but it apparently was a month or so out of date. The total "impounded" now comes to around $11 billion, give or take a few hundred million.

Now, this obviously isn't the best possible way to run a government. Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr., a staunch Constitutionalist, was much milder than his Alabama colleague but still was worried: "What concerns me," he said, "is the use of the impounding practice to avoid or nullify congressional intent. All too frequently, when Congress votes substantially more funds for a program that the Executive Branch requested, the President signs the appropriation bill, then directs the Office of Management and Budget not to release the funds."

In this case at least, however, the administration was not merely trying to thwart Congress. Instead, it was merely trying to make a messy "system" temporarily viable.

As the administration noted, Congress itself set a ceiling on federal spending in the current fiscal year. Then, in their own appropriations, the lawmakers paid no particular attention to the ceiling and cheerfully directed the administration to spend merrily away.

The administration, moreover, showed more awareness than the legislators of the fact that the federal government has become such a big spender that it has enormous power to distort the economy. That's of special importance now when the economy is nervously edging through a transition from recession to recovery.

Even the construction unions are aware that inflated costs and prices in their industry are seriously restricting its activity. It so happens that most of the federal funds impounded so far were for various government construction projects and wou'd have inflated demand even more.

In passing it's worth mentioning that the gap between congressional action and administration sometimes reflects only the huge size of the spending task. Under Secretary of Transportation James M. Beggs, for instance, says that "administrative curbs and small staff" chiefly explain why his agency so far has committed only $400 million of the $600 million available for urban mass transit.

The solution to these various problems is not to make the administration a more effective spending robot, shoveling the money out automatically as Congress presses the button. Somewhere someone has to worry about the total impact of federal outlays on the nation's economy.

A first step toward a real solution would be a thorough overhaul of the Congressional appropriations process. Hardly ever does anyone in Congress have even the opportunity to view the year's total outlay; everything is examined in bits and pieces. Appropriations bills often aren't passed until six months or so after the start of the year they're supposed to cover.

Massive collections of unlike things are assembled into single appropriations bills, which the President must either accept or veto in toto. The government spends its money with the care and wisdom characteristic of a sailor on a drunken spree.

Whatever Congress may think of the administration's actions in this instance, the government's overall financial performance certainly does amount to a serious breach of faith with the nation's people.

[From The Washington Post, Mar. 24, 1971]

NIXON ASKS $8 BILLION ADDED FUNDS

President Nixon asked Congress yesterday for $8.2 billion in supplemental appropriations but at the same time came under attack for not spending money appropriated earlier.

Mr. Nixon said the new money he seeks was already taken into account in computing the budget presented in January and will not add to it. The biggest item is $4.4 billion to pay for federal employee pay increases. Another $1 billion would cover an increase of 1 million persons in the aid-todependent-children caseload throughout the country.

Meanwhile, appearing before a Senate subcommittee on separation of governmental powers, former Interior Secretary Stewat L. Udall urged Congress

to force "a confrontation with the President" over the White House practice of freezing or impounding funds appropriated by the Legislative Branch.

Subcommittee Chairman Sam J. Ervin Jr. (D-N.C.) said the practice has been common since World War II and has been just as objectionable under Democratic as Republican presidents.

Impounding permits a President to determine which laws passed by Congress he will enforce and to what extent, Ervin complained, adding that the latest check finds $12.2 billion in appropriated funds held up one way or another by the Nixon administration.

F. C. Turner, federal highway administrator, indicated that $5.5 billion of this figure represented obligational authority for highway projects that has not been used. But he noted that the comptroller general has ruled that the administration "has no duty to spend all that Congress appropriates or authorizes to be obligated."

[From The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., Apr. 6, 1971]

HUMPHREY AND BUDGET AIDE CLASH OVER FUNDS FREEZING

(By James Welsh)

The practice of "freezing" funds appropriated by Congress is at least as old as the administration of Thomas Jefferson and, during the Kennedy-Johnson years, accounted for a bigger portion of the budget than the $12 billion the White House now is withholding.

This was the response yesterday of a top Nixon administration official Deputy Budget Director Caspar Weinberger, to a sharp attack by Sen. Hubert Humphrey, D-Minn., on White House spending policies.

Both Humphrey and Weinberger spoke before several hundred county officials who are in Washington primarily to lobby Congress for revenue sharing and other fiscal relief.

CONSTITUTION CITED

Humphrey, speaking earlier than Weinberger, called the fund-freezing "a constitutional issue." He challenged the President's power to withhold money the Congress has appropriated "for the general welfare."

Weinberger hit back directly, saying that when Humphrey was vice president, the Johnson administration consistently followed the practice of "not spending immediately" funds Congress made available.

"During the Kennedy-Johnson years, the average amount of money frozen represented a higher percentage of the federal budget than the money now in question."

According to Weinberger, that average amount was 7 percent of the total budgets. The $12 billion the White House now is holding up represents 6 percent of the 1971 budget.

The practice goes back at least as far as Thomas Jefferson who held up $25,000 the third Congress appropriated for building gunboats, said the budget official.

A number of congressmen have joined in demanding that the administration spend the $12 billion, which involves highways, public works, urban renewal model cities and public housing.

COURT TEST SUGGESTED

Yesterday, Senate Democratic Leader Mike Mansfield proposed that the House challenge in court the President's power to impound funds.

He told the Associated Press that Nixon's refusal to spend money voted by Congress "raises a grave constitutional question" and he would like to see a Supreme Court ruling on the issue.

Mansfield suggested such a ruling could be obtained if a suit were brought by the House. "It's their responsibility, since they initiate appropriations bills." he said. However, he said he had not discussed it with House leaders and doesn't intend to.

Sen. Sam Ervin, D-N.C., chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on separation of powers, said in a separate interview that it's extremely doubtful the House could bring such a suit, the AP reported.

berger defended the current freeze. He said it is necessary in part e of statutory outlay ceilings, and desirable in part because of the fight ation.

phrey and Weinberger also were at odds on the question of the Presispecial revenue-sharing proposal, which would consolidate dozens of rical grant-in-aid programs, totalling more than $10 billion, into six purpose programs of assistance to states and local governments.

› Minnesota Democrat said he favors Nixon's general revenue-sharing sal, which would distribute $5 billion in extra money for states, cities counties to spend as they wish.

ut he called special revenue-sharing "a planned dismantling of much of at we have accomplished in the last 20 years."

Referring to the categorical grant programs that would be consolidated, such as urban renewal, Humphrey charged that "the people in favor of this dismantling weren't in favor of the programs in the first place."

Weinberger told the county officials:

"If all those narrow categorical programs are so good and have done such a good job, then we should have no problems in this country. They should have all been solved."

Doing away with the red tape and regulations accompanying the categorical grants would follow "the great tradition of local self-government," Weinberger added.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,
LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE SERVICE,

February 13, 1968, Washington, D.C.

CONGRESSIONAL CONTROL OF EXPENDITURES: ANNOTATED
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SELECTED REFERENCES

Bailey, Stephen K. and Howard D. Samuel. Congress at Work. New York. Henry Holt. 1952. 502 pp. Case study of Congress in action. Chapter 13 gives the legislative history of the National Military Establishment Appropriation Act of 1949. Banfield, Edward C. "Congress and the Budget: A Planner's Criticism." American Political Science Review, December 1949, pp. 1217-28. Criticizes the functioning of Congress in making appropriations and suggests that the proper role of Congress in this field is "to secure the most desirable allocation of resources among alternative uses."

Browne, Vincent J. The Control of the Public Budget. Washington. Public Affairs Press. 1949. 174 pp. A history of the struggle for popular control of the purse from 1775 to 1949.

Byrd, Harry F. The unexpended balances of appropriations. Commercial and financial chronicle (New York) v. 177, Jan. 15, 1953: 14. "Leading Senatorial critic of wasteful and non-essential govt. spending estimates unexpended balances of Congressional appropriations, as of July 1, 1953, as approximately $100 billion, and estimates total will reach $175 billion at beginning of new fiscal year. Says it is obligation of new Congress to regain control over Government expenditures by reviewing and adjusting unexpended balances." Cannon, Clarence. "Congressional Responsibilities." American Political Science Review, April 1948, pp. 307-316. Includes a critical discussion of the merits of the legislative budget provision of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. Cannon, Clarence. "A Unique Opportunity: Improved Fiscal Control Through Omnibus Appropriation Bill." Tax Review. February 1950. A sympathetic discussion of the 1950 experiment with the consolidated appropriation bill procedure. Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York. Strengthening Congressional Fiscal Control. January 1950. 17 pp. Describes present obstacles to effective congressional fiscal control and outlines eight steps by which it believes that Congress can exercise more effective control. Chamber of Commerce of the U.S. Controlling Federal Expenditures. June 1944. 38 pp. Outlines a 14-point program for strengthening congressional control of federal expenditures. An Appendix lists 13 bills then pending in Congress to aid it in making appropriations.

Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Committee on Economic Policy.

How much can our economy stand? An examination of the impact of taxes and expenditures. Washington, 1951. 32 p.

Civic, Miriam, and others. How to streamline the federal budget. Conference board business record (New York) May 1951, v. 8: 182-200. Makes various proposals as to where and how cuts can be made.

Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government. Task Force Report on Fiscal, Budgeting, and Accounting Activities. Washington, Govt. Print. Off., January 1949. 110 pp. Includes findings and recommendations of the Task Force on "Congressional Aids in Reviewing the Budget and Authorizing the Appropriations," pp. 69-78.

Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government. Report on Budgeting and Accounting. February 1949. Washington, Govt. Print. Off., 101 pp. Report of the Hoover Commission recommending reforms in federal budgeting and accounting.

Committee for Economic Development. The stabilizing budget policy: what it is and how it works. N.Y., Committee for Economic Development, 1950. 19 p. "Reviews proposals for stabilizing federal taxation and spending." Committee for Economic Development. Research and Policy Committee. Tax and expenditure policy for 1952: a statement on national policy. [New York] 1952. 34 p. The budget problem for 1953. Cutting the budget. If expenditures are not reduced. Improving the tax structure. Congressional digest (Washington) v. 32, Jan. 1953: 1: 32. The question of curbing the federal power to tax and spend. Constitutional provisions involved: The move to repeal the 16th amendment. The move for a 25 per cent tax limit. The move to limit the spending power. Pro and con-discussion. Douglas, Senator Paul H. The federal budget. Journal of finance. (Bloomington, Ind.) June 1950, v. 6, 129-147. "This paper was delivered before a joint meeting of the American Finance Association and American Economic Association in New York City on December 28, 1949." Douglas, Paul H. Economy in the National Government. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. 1952. 277 pp. The Senator from Illinois deals in Part I with the size, growth, and major areas of federal expenditures, need for economy, and the budget process; in Part II he discusses waste and nonessential expenditures in military and civilian areas, with suggestions for savings; and in Part III shows how revenues can be increased by closing tax loopholes.

Douglas, Paul. Ways for the U.S. to save money. Interview with Senator Douglas of Illinois. U.S. news and world report (Washington) v. 31, Oct. 19, 1951: 28-32. Points out the specific activities and expenditures which, in the opinion of Sen. Douglas, should be cut. Urges the aid of special assistants to help Congress in passing upon budget requests. Editorial Research Reports. Washington, D.C. The Executive Budget and Appropriations by Congress, by Harold Kellock. February 1, 1943. Legislative Budget-Making, by L. B. Wheildon. January 6, 1948. Government Spending, by Buel W. Patch, November 30, 1949. Includes discussion of proposed reforms in appropriations procedures.

Fielder, Clinton. "Reform of the Congressional Legislative Budget." National Tax Journal. March 1951. pp. 65-76. Reviews the experience with the legislative budget provision of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 and suggests how it could be made effective.

Ford, Henry Jones. The Cost of our National Government. New York. Columbia University Press. 1910. 147 pp. Discusses the growth of expenditure, making the national budget, constitutional agencies of budget control, theory, and practice in the U.S., comparisons with other countries, evolution of the American system, political conditions and tendencies, and possibilities of improvement. Fortune (Chicago) v. 45, February 1952: 81-84. 220. Has Congress broken down? Concludes it has. "The American Congress is foundering." Finds the Executive has robbed it of power, it has lost control of both the military and the purse, it cannot know what happens to the money it appropriates, is even losing its right to make law. Deplores the legislative procedure, and concludes that the only way Congress can be saved is for it to "control and manage itself"-with a new vigor and determination. Galloway, George B. Congress at the Crossroads. New York, Crowell, 1946. 388 pp. Description and critique of the legislative phase of the budget process; and proposals for strengthening the prospective and retrospective control of expenditures. pp. 245-266.