THE BUDGET: Money, Anyone?

The sharpest-eyed reader of fine print in all Washington is Delaware's Republican Senator John ("Whispering Willie") Williams. While many Senators seem to spend much of their time thinking of ways for the Federal G....ernment to spend more, dedicated John Williams. 56. devotes his time to trying to get the Government to spend less. His latest discoveries in the fine print of federal expenditure records: ¶ The Air Force needed 116 fuel-pump screws in a hurry some time ago. The screws were worth about 5(' apiece, but the cost of extra handling and air-special delivery ran the cost up to $1 apiece. Later, when the Air Force came to pay for 272,-710 identical screws. Government purchasing agents agreed to a price of $1 apiece. If ¶The Defense Department sold 488 unused heavy-duty tires as surplus at about $60 apiece, though they had cost the Government $311. A few days later, a Defense Department arsenal bought 20 tires of the same type for $341 each. In another surplus sale, the Government unloaded 369 tires at $266. then bought some more of the same at $414.

Even as John Williams whispered last week's quota of complaints on the Senate floor, Budget Bureau Director Maurice Stans appeared before a House committee and pointed with pride to the prospect of a slender $200 million surplus in the $78 billion budget in fiscal 1960 (ending next June 30). But if Senator Williams' findings were any indication of what goes on among federal purchasing agents, it seemed pretty clear that the surplus could have been a lot bigger with a few turns of the screw.