THE BUDGET: Less Red Ahead

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The Administration is thankfully paring down its gloomy forecasts of a $12.2 billion budget deficit for fiscal 1959. ending next June 30. Reason: budget experts figure that the economy's bounceback toward robust health will raise the 1959 federal-tax take at least $2 billion above September estimates, will thereby hold the red-ink splash to $10 billion or less.

But even with the economy in good health, a high Administration official wanly predicted last week, a deficit looms for fiscal 1960. With the costs of national defense, welfare programs and farm subsidies edging ever higher, budget makers will find it tough to hold 1960 spending below the current year's $80 billion mark, tough to avoid a deficit of about $5 billion. Fondest Administration hope: by the time President Eisenhower submits his fiscal 1961 budget in January 1960, he will once again be able to point to a balanced budget.

Floating upward on a tide of red ink, the national debt reached a new alltime high of $280,851,429,657.13 in late October, the Treasury reported last week. Prospect: the debt will keep floating higher until heavy tax payments start rolling in next January.