THE ECONOMY: Rain Some Day

Treasury Secretary George Humphrey's critics like to think that his idea of heaven is an enormous mass of carefully audited ledgers, in each of which income exactly balances outgo. As far as a balanced federal budget is concerned, Humphrey is still far from heaven. Last week, with Budget Director Rowland Hughes, he held one of his rare press conferences, to explain new budget estimates for fiscal 1955, and spent most of his time parrying pointed questions from reporters.

The new 1955 estimate of expenditure is $64 billion, while income is expected to be $59.3 billion. This means a deficit of...

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