Mr. LAWTON. One was a Presidential commission. One was a straight congressional joint committee. One was a combined congressional committee and one executive member who was the chair

man.

Senator FERGUSON. What do you claim the remedy is? How are we going to get efficiency in government?

Mr. LAWTON. We do not make a claim that it is not possible. As I stated here earlier, the past is not necessarily a gage of the future. We are just raising one point. We did not raise it as an objection. Senator FERGUSON. Do you have a better way-a suggestion of a better way?

Mr. LAWTON. The only method by which reorganization proposals generally have been adopted and taken effect has been under the method now in effect, now in force, namely, a proposal made by the President and the requirement that Congress disapprove within 60 days.

That has been more successful than any other method.

Senator FERGUSON. Have you seen the chart in the President's office on the wall?

Mr. LAWTON. Yes, sir.

Senator FERGUSON. Did you draft it in your office?

Mr. LAWTON. It was drafted in the Bureau of the Budget. Senator FERGUSON. As I understand it, if the President saw all the people he is supposed to see for a period of 30 minutes, it would take him 3 months to complete the course of seeing these people.

Mr. LAWTON. If he saw all the people who are heads of agencies or members of commissions listed on that chart it would take him some time to see them.

Senator FERGUSON. That was the purpose of getting the chart up. Mr. LAWTON. But he would not necessarily have to see then all. Senator THYE. Under the present system of government who would you answer to if you did not answer to the President?

Mr. LAWTON. You would answer to the President, but I mean you would not necessarily have to see him at a specific time or once every month or once every week, nor would every member of a commission of 10 or 12 people have to see him. The chairman might be the one to see him for or on behalf of the commission.

Senator THYE. Of whom?

Mr. LAWTON. The chairman of one of these commissions like the Interstate Commerce Commission, or the Federal Trade Commission.

Senator THYE. I think that is what we had in mind when we first referred to the chart, because these are individual and separate agencies, and all the questions I have asked here this morning or any statements I have made today have all been for the purpose of trying to arrive at responsibility. And, I am finding many loose agencies which are responsible to no one and have not been. That is the reason for the deficiencies and increased expenditures.

Mr. LAWTON. They are responsible to the President in their operations.

Senator THYE. Now then, if the President heard every one of them, every single agency, and they are responsible only to him, it would take him 3 months, allowing 30 minutes each, or 10 minutes to a small agency and maybe an hour and a half to a big agency. That is what we are trying to get at.

In other words, you are the Assistant Director of the Budget Division, and, therefore, the budget question is your responsibility or your chief's. And yet, you have no responsibility except to compile information for the President which he submits as a recommendation for an over-all proposition, broken down into certain specific functions. So, the question that comes to my mind is who is responsible to whom, and you have not cleared that question yet. If you can just answer that one question I would be quite happy about it, because I am trying to understand how this Government can function from a standpoint of efficiency, with knowledge of when appropriations are exceeded and when appropriations could be in some manner or other curtailed and still render the efficiency that the public is entitled to.

Mr. LAWTON. Well, taking the first point, our responsibility as a part of the Executive Office is to the President; it is so stated in the Budget and Accounting Act. The responsibility of the head of each department and each independent establishment in the executive branch is likewise to the President.

Senator FERGUSON. Do I understand you make confidential reports to the President? I mean confidential reports which Congress cannot obtain? On efficiency and economy?

Mr. LAWTON. I do not know that that question has ever risen. do not know of any.

Senator FERGUSON. I am asking it now. Is that true?
Mr. LAWTON. I do not know of any.

I

Senator FERGUSON. You do not know of any confidential reports of that character?

Mr. LAWTON. We have made reports on other subjects that were confidential.

Senator FERGUSON. What subjects not on efficiency and economy? What subjects would you be involved in outside of efficiency and economy as a budget bureau?

Mr. LAWTON. We have made reports on proposals of departments for transfers of functions of certain character.

Senator FERGUSON. Is that not efficiency or economy?

Mr. LAWTON. Well

Senator FERGUSON. Is that not the purpose of giving such a report? Mr. LAWTON. In the case I am thinking of it was not that sort of It was a case of security. It was during the war.

case.

Senator FERGUSON. You have that one report that would be confidential?

Mr. LAWTON. The only one we have characterized as confidential and have declined to submit, I think, was to a committee considering the Federal Communications Commission.

Senator FERGUSON. And, you claimed that was solely on the ground of security to the agency?

Mr. LAWTON. That was the reason, Senator.

Senator FERGUSON. Then, this committee could get all your reports to the President on budget matters?

Mr. LAWTON. That is a matter which I would assume we would have to have the President's permission for. I do not know. Senator FERGUSON. They are confidential then?

Mr. LAWTON. Well, we

Senator FERGUSON (interposing). I mean the Appropriations Committee nor this committee has a right to get any of the reports?

Mr. LAWTON. The reports that we make to the President on the question of the budget and the submission of estimates are printed documents. In the case of supplemental estimates they are printed in congressional documents.

Senator FERGUSON. Then they are not confidential?

Mr. LAWTON. Those are not confidential, Senator.

Senator FERGUSON. What are the reports that are confidential and for which we would have to get the President's consent?.

Mr. LAWTON. The only thing I can think of would be the set of figures that we would present to the President at the time we were preparing the budget, and they would be confidential up to the time the budget was released. We consider all of the actions on the budget up to the time the President submits it to Congress as confidential. Senator FERGUSON. Confidential?

Mr. LAWTON. Up to that point.

Senator FERGUSON. But afterwards they are all public?

Mr. LAWTON. They are incorporated in the Budget as a matter of fact.

Senator FERGUSON. That is what I mean.

What is the personnel of the Bureau of the Budget? How many people?

Mr. LAWTON. About 580.

Senator FERGUSON. How many are in Washington?

Mr. LAWTON. About 554.

Senator FERGUSON. Five hundred and eighty and 554? Where are the others located?

Mr. LAWTON. They are located in San Francisco, in Chicago, in Denver, and in Dallas.

Senator FERGUSON. You cannot do much survey work, then, with the few people that are out of Washington-some 30?

Mr. LAWTON. Only major items.

Senator FERGUSON. Now what would you call a major item?

Mr. LAWTON. Well, we have made a survey of veterans' hospital staffing. We have made a survey of hospital facilities on the west coast. We have made certain surveys of certain of the operations of the OPA in the field offices. We have made, in the past, a study of the relationships between OPA and ODT on gas rationing. We have made studies of public-debt operation in Chicago, which is a large field operation. We have made studies of the procurement operations, the space handling, certain surplus property functions, and other matters of that character.

I can provide a list for you, Senator, and put it in the record. Senator FERGUSON. I wish you would so we can put it in the record. (The information requested is as follows:)

EXAMPLES OF MAJOR FIELD STUDIES MADE BY THE BUREAU OF THE BUDGET IN SELECTED AREAS OR CITIES

Survey of meat-enforcement program. Office of Price Administration (consolidation of local boards, and enforcement reporting and information program in OPA regional offices).

Community facilities and services (a survey of the activities of the Federal Security Agency, War Manpower Commission, Federal Works Agency, and War Production Board in this field).

Bureau of Reclamation (the management and program of the Bureau of Reclamation in the field).

National Housing Agency and constituent units (study of activities and trends in the housing field).

Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce (evaluation of its activities and service in the field in third quarter of fiscal year 1945, and a follow-up study along somewhat broader lines in the first quarter of fiscal year 1947). Readjustment-allowance program, Veterans' Administration.

Relationships between State Departments of Health and Labor.

Smaller War Plants Corporation field operations.

Impact of work loads on field offices of the Bureau of Old Age and Survivors In

surance.

Veterans' emergency housing program (report for third quarter of fiscal year 1946 and follow-up report for first quarter of fiscal year 1947). Survey of Government-occupied space in Denver.

OPA district office sugar rationing.

Maritime Commission training program.

Space utilization-Federal agencies in Dallas.

ICC and ODT railroad car-service activities.

On-the-job training for veterans.

Veterans' administrative work loads and personnel requirements.

Veterans' Administration field operations (hospital).

New and expanding programs, Public Health Service.

Hospital facilities on west coast.

OPA-ODT gasoline rationing.

Utilization of Government field warehousing.

War Department maintenance of inactive, stand-by, and surplus facilities.
Operating procedures of Veterans' Administration regional offices.

War Assets Administration field practices in handling surplus property.

Senator O'CONOR. Getting back to the original question of the need for organizational studies, do you. not feel that any expense that might be entailed in this proposed operation would more than be offset by the economies which, according to your own testimony, you feel might be effected?

Mr. LAWTON. Senator, if that proposal were to include, and to be sustained in, major eliminations of functions, the savings would be substantial. If they are confined to operating methods and efficiency in operation, they would be less substantial. But, of course, I think that any effort of this kind is bound to produce some good results. Now, the measure of that result I cannot foretell.

Senator O'CONOR. Of course, it would remain to be seen as to just what the end result would be. But I did understand from your previous testimony that you did have in mind certain functional areas that might very well be explored and also some methods that might be improved on. Is that not right? Mr. LAWTON. I had no particular items the statement that this job divides itself. this task that is set for this Commission. and study of methods, and apart from that could be the consideration and study of what agency should perform a function or whether that function should be performed at all by the Government. Now, in a great many cases the two dovetail.

in mind. I simply made There are two things in One is the consideration

Senator O'CONOR. You do not feel that because of the emergency undertakings of Government in the recent past in regard to functional operations that there could be very much accomplished by such a study as is proposed?

Mr. LAWTON. I think those are rapidly disappearing, Senator.
Senator O'CONOR. Well, they are.

Mr. LAWTON. And, by the time this committee would report, at the present rate, I doubt if there would be many left.

Senator O'CONOR. You do not feel with regard to methods that the improvements effected would more than justify the initial outlay?

Mr. LAWTON. That is anyone's guess. There would be improvements made certainly. Just how they would compare with the amount of the outlay, I would not have any idea.

Senator FERGUSON. Have you ever tried to make a survey of any agency? That is, a real survey, a study such as a private industry would do to determine its efficiency and questions of economy? Have you ever taken an agency?

Mr. LAWTON. We have taken some small agencies and certain parts of larger agencies, but we have not taken a complete department. Senator FERGUSON. Tell us what they were.

Mr. LAWTON. We have done it in some cases on our own, and in some cases jointly with the agency concerned.

Senator FERGUSON. Do you have those surveys and could the committee get those surveys to see how it did work?

Mr. LAWTON. Yes; some of them I think are in mimeographed form, or at least where there are copies of them. We would certainly make them available to you.

Senator FERGUSON. Would you do that for this record?

Mr. LAWTON. Yes, sir.

(Four sample surveys have been submitted by the Bureau of the Budget and are being retained in the committee's files.) Senator LODGE. May I ask a question?

Senator FERGUSON. Yes.

Senator LODGE. In connection with Mr. Lawton's observations on the precedents for this type of an activity, I think he and I have a fundamentally different way of looking at this thing. I think his assumptions are that the course of government just goes along in a steady stream, and that because a thing was not successful in the Taft administration, therefore it is not going to be successful now, and that we always want to be studying the Government, that we always want to be trying to improve it.

Well, of course that is true in a way. We always do want to be studying the Government. We always do want to be trying to improve it. But, it seems to me, Senator O'Conor is 100 percent right when he points out that the present is a psychological moment; that the Government today cannot be compared with the Government in the Taft administration; and that the fact that a commission at that time did not produce very fruitful results constitutes no precedent at all for saying that an effort now would not be successful.

Of course, I do respectfully point out that a commission of the type which is proposed in this bill has never been tried. Two of the commissions to which Mr. Lawton adverted were congressional committees, and the Taft commission was not set up in the way it is contemplated that this one shall be.

I believe with Senator O'Conor that this is the psychological moment, and after 16 years of an expanding type of government and after 4 years of war there is an opportunity to effect economies, to eliminate waste and overlapping in a way that can only be handled at the very highest level and ultimately by Congress.

Senator FERGUSON. Mr. Lawton, do you conduct any post audits at all?

Mr. LAWTON. No, sir. That is the function of the Comptroller General.

Senator FERGUSON. The Comptroller General?