Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 2 · column 1 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
If the Federal budget is going to be better than balanced on June 30 to the tune of a $2,000,000,000 surplus, this is encouraging news. It should be remembered, however, that this is just one “educated guess’-in a city in which guessing both educated and uneducated, is the daily occupation of countless experts .
Anyone who has been in Washington more than a month can find something on which to pose as an expert, and a few will contest his claim to the title, as to do so would expose die tenous nature of their own.
This is not meant to disparage the comments by the staff of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report, which, for all we know at this moment, may turn out on June 30 to represent some of the Capital's best guessing.
There is reason for caution, however, in appraising predictions of a $2,000,000,000 surplus for the fiscal year. In the first place, there has been no official change in the estimate of the Treasury, as made in January. The Treasury -apparently has seen no reason, so far, to forcast a surplus substantially in excess of $200,000,000. A Treasury spokesman indicated that it would be the middle of May before any new official prediction would be forthcoming, the reason being that the totals for the spring flood of individual income tax payments would not be known until then.
In addition, it should be recalled that related surplus predictions, for the 1957 fiscal year, were based on approval of the Presi
60.3%