Letters, statements, etc.-Continued Stahl, Steve, coordinator-Continued Letters and telegrams to Steve Stahl-Continued Rea, L. Owens, executive director, Maryland Public Ex- Rudisill, John A., Little Rock, Ark., May 8, 1951 Staples, Edward, Jefferson City, Mo., May 2, 1951- Tennessee Taxpayers Association, Nashville, Tenn., May 1, Tillinghast, Carlton W., executive director, New Jersey Taxpayers Association, Inc., Trenton, N. J., May 7, 1951. Tillinghast, C. W., New Jersey Taxpayers Association, Yost, Max, Associated Taxpayers of Idaho, Boise, Idaho, Young, F. H. manager, Oregon Business and Tax Research, Letters to Senator John L. McClellan, chairman, Senate Com- mittee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, from- Letter to Hon. John L. McClellan, March 22, 1951--- Letter of Herbert G. Brown, Chief of the Bureau of Efficiency, reporting on a bill (H. R. 8388) to abolish the Bureau of Effi- TO CREATE A JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET TUESDAY, MAY 15, 1951 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON EXPENDITURES IN THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS, Washington, D. C. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a. m., in room 357, Senate Office Building, Senator John L. McClellan (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators McClellan (chairman), Hoey, Monroney, Mundt, Smith (Maine), Schoeppel, and Dworshak. Also present: Senator Moody 2 and Walter L. Reynolds, chief clerk. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. We have hearings scheduled today on S. 913. With the permission of my colleagues and the members of the committee, and as the author of S. 913 and chairman of this committee, I wish to make a statement in support of this bill. On January 19, 1950, I introduced in the Senate what became S. 2898, of the Eighty-first Congress, which had the same general objectives as those of S. 913. That bill was also referred to this committee. Due, however, to the large number of reorganization plans and other legislative matters and work of the committee, we did not find time or opportunity to hold hearings on S. 2898. On February 19, of this year, I introduced the pending bill, which is a revised version of S. 2898. Prior to introducing the original bill, S. 2898, I had served for 1 year on the Appropriations Committee of the Senate. In that brief time I observed, and my subsequent service on that committee has further convinced me, that under present procedures the Appropriation Committees of both Houses labor under a tremendous disadvantage in their efforts to pass judiciously upon budget requests for Federal expenditures. This disadvantage is not attributable in any sense to their lack of interest or their desire to screen budget items against the necessity or justification for the expenditures involved. On the contrary, I can testify that the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee are anxious to eliminate and reduce budget items wherever and whenever such action is warranted. The trouble is that the Senate Appropriations Committee-and I would assume this holds true with the House committee-is simply not staffed and equipped to adequately examine the budget and make checks and studies of different departments and agencies to determine whether real justification exists for the literally hundreds of items presented by the budget. Thus, when hearings are held on appropriation bills, the departments and agencies that want the money to spend are present testifying in full support of the requests made. 2 The appointment of Senator Moody to the committee had not been confirmed by the Senate as of the date of these hearings. 1 These requests come from the executive branch of the Government. The witnesses who appear represent the executive branch of the Government. It is their primary responsibility to support the budget items and requests that the President has submitted. They have a personal and official interest in having the appropriations made for their particular department or agency. Their testimony in most instances, therefore, is ex parte in character. No one appears on behalf of the legislative branch of the Government, and usually no one appears on behalf of and in the interest of the public, to advise and counsel the committee regarding the merits or lack of merits of the appropriations being sought, either as to purpose or as to amount. Thus the Appropriation Committees are left largely to their own limited resources-principally such personal knowledge as they may possess to determine whether such appropriations should be approved. With their other tremendously heavy legislative responsibilities, they do not have time to personally study each item of the budget and to get the facts and information necessary to pass accurate judgment. The Appropriation Committees, and certainly the Senate Appropriations Committee, are not equipped with an adequate staff to do a year-round job of studying budget requirements and carefully examining each item with the purpose of eliminating those that are not essential and of reducing others to such an amount as the facts may fairly warrant. The result is, in my judgment, that many millions of dollars are appropriated annually in excess of the actual requirements and needs of the several departments and agencies in the executive branch of the Government. The swollen cost of operating the Federal Government, which is known to everyone, makes it unnecessary for me to point up the need for the most rigid economy and savings on all budget items where it is possible to do so. It is to meet this problem that I have introduced the pending bill. I make no strong claim that the bill S. 913, which we are now considering, is the only or best approach to a solution of this problem. There may be a better approach and a more effective solution than this measure affords. But I do maintain that this bill affords a basis for study. It gives an opportunity for this committee, whose duty it is under the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, and under the rules of the Senate, to study the operation of Government activities at all levels with a view of determining its economy and efficiency, to conduct these hearings and make a study of this problem; and, if it is found that this bill provides an answer that offers hope of greater efficiency and economy, to report it out favorably and recommend its enactment into law. If, after due hearings and study, S. 913 is found to be inadequate or attempts the wrong approach to this problem, then it is my hope. that there will be developed in the course of these hearings facts and information upon which the committee can act in reporting out either this bill with amendments or a new bill altogether that will be effective. I shall not consume further time by undertaking a complete analysis of this bill. The staff of this committee has had such an analysis made by the Legislative Reference Service, and at the conclusion of my remarks I shall submit that analysis and a copy of the bill for the record. I only wish to say that if the Joint Committee on the Budget, for which this bill provides, is established and properly and adequately staffed, the result will be the saving of many millions of dollars annually. Someone may ask what cost will be entailed in the functionings of such a joint committee. I cannot give an accurate answer. But those costs should not be great. The Bureau of the Budget has something over 500 employees working the year around at an annual cost of $3,412,000. That is the agency of the executive branch of the Government, the agency that asks us to make these appropriations, representing the executive branch of the Government along with the officials in charge of the affected departments and agencies of the executive branch of Government, who give the testimony before the committee. And we have nothing, as a rule, no evidence on the part of the legislative branch or on the part of the public, to refute any testimony presented to us. I certainly do not envision that large a staff or any such expense for this committee. I should think a staff of some 25 or 30, with expenditures not exceeding $300,000 annually, is all that would be required. But, even if it cost $500,000 annually, when that is measured against the many millions in savings that would result from reduced appropriations, the justification for such cost is abundantly established. I respectfully invite the serious interest and cooperation of the members of this committee and the Congress in the enactment of legislation of this character. Without objection from the members of the committee, I should like to have printed immediately following my remarks a copy of S. 913 and also a copy of the analysis of the bill which has been prepared by the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress. (S. 913 and analysis are as follows:) [S. 913, 82d Cong., 1st sess.] A BILL To amend the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 to provide for more effective evaluation of the fiscal requirements of the executive agencies of the Government of the United States Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 138 of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, as amended, is hereby amended to read as follows: "JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET "SEC. 138. (a) There is hereby created a joint service committee, to be known as the Joint Committee on the Budget (hereinafter in this section called the 'joint committee') and to be composed of 10 members as follows: "(1) Five Members who are members of the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate, three from the majority party and two from the minority party, to be chosen by such committee; and "(2) Five Members who are members of the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives, three from the majority party and two from the minority party, to be chosen by such committee. "(b) No person shall continue to serve as a member of the joint committee after he has ceased to be a member of the committee from which he was chosen, except that the members chosen by the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives who have been reelected to the House of Representatives may continue to serve as members of the joint committee notwithstanding the expiration of the Congress. A vacancy in the joint committee shall not affect the power of the remaining members to execute the function of the joint committee, and shall be filled in the same manner as the original selection, except that (1) in case of a vacancy during an adjournment or recess of Congress for a period of more than two weeks, the members of the joint committee who are members of the committee entitled to fill such vacancy may designate a member of such committee to serve until his successor is chosen by such committee, and (2) in the case of a vacancy after the expiration of a Congress which would be filled from the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives, the members of such committee who are continuing to serve as members of the joint committee, may designate a person who, immediately prior to such expiration, was a member of such committee and who is reelected to the House of Representatives, to serve until his successor is chosen by such committee. "(c) The joint committee shall elect a chairman and vice chairman from among its members at the first regular meeting of each session: Provided, however. That during even years the chairman shall be selected from among the members who are Members of the House of Representatives and the vice chairman shall be selected from among the members who are Members of the Senate, and during odd years the chairman shall be selected from among the members who are Members of the Senate and the vice chairman shall be selected from among the members who are Members of the House of Representatives. "(d) A majority of the Members of each House who are members of the joint committee shall together constitute a quorum for the transaction of business, but a lesser number, as determined by the joint committee, may constitute a subcommittee and be authorized to conduct hearings and make investigations. Any member of a subcommittee so designated shall constitute a quorum for the conduct of any hearing or investigation, but the concurrence of a majority of the members of such subcommittee shall be necessary before any report or findings may be submitted to the joint committee. "(e) It shall be the duty of the joint committee "(1) (A) to inform itself on all matters relating to the annual budget of the agencies of the United States Government, during and after the preparation thereof; (B) to provide the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate with such information on items contained in such budget, and the justifications submitted in support thereof, as may be necessary to enable said committees to give adequate consideration thereto; and (C) to consider all available information relating to estimated revenues, including revenue estimates of the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation, essential programs, and changing economic conditions, and, on the basis thereof, report to said committees findings relating to revisions in appropriations required to hold expenditures to the minimum consistent with the requirements of Government operations and the national security; "(2) to recommend to the appropriate standing committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate such changes in existing laws as may effect greater efficiency and economy in government; "(3) to make such reports and recommendations to any standing committee of either House of Congress or any subcommittee thereof on matters within the jurisdiction of such standing committee relating to deviations from basic legislative authorization, or in relation to appropriations approved by Congress which are not consistent with such basic legislative authorization, as may be deemed necessary or advisable by the joint committee, or as may be requested by any standing committee of either House of Congress or by any subcommittee thereof. "(f) The joint committee, or any subcommittee thereof, shall have power to hold hearings and to sit and act anywhere within or without the District of Columbia whether the Congress is in session or has adjourned or is in recess; to require by subpena or otherwise the attendance of witnesses and the production of books, papers, and documents; to administer oaths; to take testimony; to have printing and binding done; and to make such expenditures as it deems advisable within the amount appropriated therefor. Subpenas shall be issued under the signature of the chairman or vice chairman of the committee and shall be served by any person designated by them. The provisions of sections 102 to 104, inclusive, of the Revised Statutes (U. S. C., title 2, secs. 192-194) shall apply in the case of any failure of any witness to comply with any subpena or to testify when summoned under authority of this section. "(g) The joint committee shall, without regard to the civil-service laws or the Classification Act of 1949, as amended, employ and fix the compensation of a staff director and such other professional, technical, clerical, and other employees, temporary or permanent, as may be necessary to carry out the duties of the joint |