The President said:
The American Legion has set an example to other voluntary bodies in the country in its determination to make no requests of the next Congress. A very large part of the pressure for increase in expenditures of the Federal Government arises from the action of voluntary assocations, whether they be group interests, sectional interests, business, or a thousand other activities in the country. This office is already the recipient of many resolutions recommending expenditures and undertakings by the Government at the next session. I have no doubt that members of Congress are receiving them also.
Everyone in Washington is familiar with the process by which such bodies, often with meritorious projects, instruct their representatives in Washington to promote these activites to the Administration and Congress. We are all familiar with the energies they show both in direct pressures upon Congress and the country to induce citizens to exert their individual influence in the massing up of pressures. This is a time when they should emulate the American Legion in standing with what is the wish of the Administration and the great majority of Congressmen and Senators—that is, not to increase but to decrease the expenditures of the Federal Government.
I have before me a review from the Bureau of the Budget of 271 bills introduced into the last Congress asking for increased federal expenditures which were referred to the executive agencies for report. These fall into two categories—those in which the total obligation is expressed in the bill, and those which would result in a continued annual obligation. After eliminating all duplicates the bills which were reported adversely by the Administration during the 71st Congress amounted to $4,900,999,999 of the first category and an annual expenditure in the second category of $1,200,000,000. Taking only a ten year period, this latter category would amount to an expenditure of some $12,000,000,000 or a total of nearly $17,000,000,000.
The main interest in this table is the fact that it discloses how largely these bills arise from pressures of group and sectional interests. Unless there is a general recognition that this is no time for such activities these same pressures will again arise. It is important that there should be a great effort on the part of organizations of our country to express their disapproval of such expenditures now even though the projects may be most meritorious. they should be withheld until the country is in better condition.