THE ECONOMY: Cut that Budget!

Cut that Budget

"I have received personal letters about the budget from nearly every state in the union," said Missouri's Clarence Cannon to his colleagues in the House, "and every one of them urges a reduction." Oldtimer Cannon, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has seen 34 federal budgets come and go over the years, but he cannot recall anything like the current public outcry against President Eisenhower's $71.8 billion fiscal-1958 budget, biggest in the nation's peacetime history.

A lot of Washington lawmakers and officials report an extraordinary tide of budget-criticizing mail. Treasury...