"We have good news today," said Treasury Secretary George Humphrey briskly to a specially summoned press conference last week. After rattling off a list of facts and figures, George Humphrey came to the heart of his good news: "The country has reached the essential turning point toward a balanced budget."
One prime reason, Humphrey explained, is that the U.S. Government is going to spend far less in fiscal 1954 than Harry Truman estimated, less even than Humphrey figured last Maypartly because of the Korean truce and partly because of plain, everyday economies. The case of the dwindling deficit estimate went...