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THE FORT WAYNE JOURNAL-GAZETTE
Publishing Information A Sound Fiscal Future
(Editorial)Sept. 30, 1937
Of special interest in President Roosevelt's address at Bonneville dam was his specific declaration that the federal budget would be "definitely balanced" by the next fiscal year.
This is an event to which men and women of the nation have long been looking forward, certain as they are that a sound fiscal structure is essential to the conduct of good government.
As Mr. Roosevelt himself pointed out in the early days of 1933, too many liberal administration of the people's business have been wrecked on the rocks of loose fiscal policy.
In order to guarantee democracy, in order to insure the maintenance of liberalism in America, it is up to the President and Secretary of the Treasury Morganthau to bring the budget within balance and to reduce the national debt.
All this is said not in adverse criticism of the expenditures made under Mr. Roosevelt's direction during the past four and one-half years, for we believe the broad principle behind those expenditure was sound--the principle that the pump had to be primed.
Between then and now, the pump was in fact primed. And distribution became a reality again. Production, increased because consumption increased, and the greater consumption in its turn was due to greater distribution--which is largely attributable in the final analysis to the role of federal funds.
Since the emergency is now gone, and since the people are infinitely more prosperous, the time for the priming of the pump is past.
The time has arrived for reduced expenditures, for balanced budgets, for slackening deficits, for a firm finance that will brook no tempering.
In view of these facts, it is not difficult to see why President Roosevelt's speech at Bonneville dam was so tremendously important.