Community Civics and Rural Life Part 68

The responsibility is partly in the executive department; but it is also partly in Congress, for it creates bureaus, defines their duties, appropriates money for them. And in Congress the responsibility is divided among various committees.

One committee or subcommittee has supervision of building the barracks at a given army post while another committee or subcommittee has supervision of building the hospital at the same post. One committee has jurisdiction of the guns, another committee has jurisdiction of the emplacement of the guns. All committees are jealous of their own prerogatives and sometimes more or less jealous of other committees. [Footnote: Will Payne, "Your Budget," SAt.u.r.dAY EVENING POST, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 166.]

APPROPRIATIONS MADE MORE OR LESS BLINDLY

Each year the executive departments submit to the Secretary of the Treasury an estimate of the amount of money they think they will need. The Secretary of the Treasury puts these estimates together without revision and without criticism and submits them to Congress, together with an estimate of the probable revenues available. While there is a committee on appropriations in each house of Congress,

... one cla.s.s of appropriations after another has been taken away from this committee and intrusted to other committees until, as a result, the work of preparing appropriations in the House of Representatives is broken up so that there are now no less than fourteen general appropriation bills prepared by seven different committees ... In the preparation of their bills the committee on appropriations and the other committees in charge of appropriations are really compelled to work more or less blindly.

Sometimes they hold extensive hearings endeavoring to get a complete grasp of the mult.i.tudinous detailed expenditures for which they must provide. But, of course, it is impossible for the several committees, in the time at their disposal, to give even minor matters the amount of attention demanded by sound public economy. [Footnote: C. A. Beard, AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS, pp. 366, 367.]

THE PRINCIPLES OF A BUDGET SYSTEM

The first principles of a budget, according to students of government, are that it should be prepared by the executive branch of the government, which is responsible for spending the money; that it should be prepared by an agency responsible directly to the President, and with authority to revise and adjust the estimates of the several departments in the light of the needs and resources of the government as a whole; and that it should be based upon an accounting system that will show clearly how efficiently each department and minor subdivision is doing its work. As this chapter is being written, a bill is before Congress which, if pa.s.sed, will more or less completely accomplish these results.

THE NEED FOR CENTRALIZING APPROPRIATIONS

It remains for Congress, however, to make the appropriations requested in the budget, with such modifications as may be shown to be wise. It is generally accepted that appropriations cannot be wisely made under the present system, and that responsibility for them must be centered in one committee in each house.

This change will necessitate a change in the rules which can only be made by each house for itself. A resolution has been introduced in the House of Representatives recommending this change, but it has not at this writing been acted upon.

In the English House of Commons, when the appropriation bill is introduced, the House becomes in effect a court before which the prime minister and his cabinet are placed on trial to defend their budget. The whole House is in session. The minority party, which conducts the opposition, employs counsel, and by its searching inquiries compels the cabinet to explain and defend the budget at every point. By this procedure the public is informed as to the work and program of the government, and the executive leaders held strictly to account.

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CITIZEN

A budget system, however good it may be, like all other governmental machinery is merely an organization for team work, and will do very little good unless the team work is forthcoming, not only among the various branches and departments of government, but also on the part of the citizens.

If there is a real budget it has got to be your budget. It will be good, bad or indifferent finally just in proportion to your interest in it and your expression of that interest at the polls and elsewhere. If there is a good budget system--not on paper, but in actual practice--you've got to make it. If, when a budget bill is finally enacted you say, "Well, that job is done," and dismiss it from your mind there will be no lasting gain ... [Footnote: Will Payne, "Your Budget," SAt.u.r.dAY EVENING POST January 3, 1920, p. 30.]

Effective control over government can be exercised only by PUBLIC OPINION and PUBLIC INTEREST. We may have any kind of government we want, if we only want it badly enough, and only when we want it badly enough. The blame for inefficiency and wastefulness on the part of government at Was.h.i.+ngton, or at the state capital, or at the county seat, rests largely with the people back home, who are either selfish or blind to the fact that the interests of the nation are larger than their own or those of their own little community. The very people who talk most loudly about the extravagance of government, or about the burden of taxes, are likely to be the ones who expect most from their congressmen for purely personal or local advantage. They are likely to judge their representative's fitness for his position more by his ability to get funds from the public treasury for local gratification than by his att.i.tude toward great national questions.

Investigate and report on the following:

The present Speaker of the House of Representatives, and some of the more important members.

Leaders in the Senate at the present time.

A list of some of the more important committees in each House of Congress.

The procedure by which a bill becomes a law, from the time when it is introduced to the time it goes into effect as a law of the land.

Bills introduced in Congress by the representative from your district. The purposes of these bills. (Consult at home, at your public library, at your newspaper office.)

Follow the course of debate on some measure in the House of Representatives or the Senate in the files of the Congressional Record (files may be found at your public library, or at the newspaper offices, if not in your school).

Conflict of opinion regarding the powers of the President and of the Senate in connection with the discussion of the treaty of peace with Germany.

"Filibustering" in Congress.

Clause 2 of section 6 of Article I of the Const.i.tution says, "No person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office." Why is this?

The privileges of members of Congress under clause I of section 6 of Article I of the Const.i.tution. Reasons for these privileges.

"Log-rolling" in Congress, what it is and why so called.

The details of the budget system of the national government if one has been created by the time you study this chapter.

Any change in the rules of Congress relating to appropriations.

The desirability of introducing in our government a plan similar to that used by the House of Commons.

THE NATIONAL JUDICIARY

The judicial power of the United States government is vested by the Const.i.tution "in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish"

(Art. III, sec. I). The number of judges in the Supreme Court is determined by Congress, and they are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. At present the Supreme Court consists of a chief justice and eight a.s.sociate justices.

Its sessions are held in the Capitol building at Was.h.i.+ngton.

Congress has created circuit courts of appeals, of which there are now nine, each "circuit" including several states; and district courts, of which there is at least one in every state, and sometimes several. In addition to these there is a court of customs appeals and a court of claims, for special cla.s.ses of cases. The courts of the District of Columbia are also United States courts, inasmuch as the District is governed entirely by the national government. The judges of all United States courts are appointed by the President and hold office for life.

POWERS OF THE FEDERAL COURTS

The powers of the federal courts are stated in Article III, section 2, of the Const.i.tution. In general, they have jurisdiction over cases of a national or interstate character. Most cases that come in the first instance before the federal courts are tried in the United States district courts, going to the higher courts only on appeal; but there are certain cla.s.ses of cases that go to the Supreme Court at once (Art. III, sec. 2, cl. 2). A case brought to trial before a state court may be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States when the Const.i.tution, the laws, or the treaties of the United States are involved, and its decision is final. The Supreme Court may declare a law pa.s.sed by Congress or an act of the President null and void if, in its opinion, such law or act is contrary to the provisions of the Const.i.tution. It has been questioned whether the framers of the Const.i.tution intended the Supreme Court to have this power, but it exercises the power on the ground that the Const.i.tution is the supreme law of the land to which even Congress and the President are subject, and that it is the sacred duty of the courts to preserve it from violation. We have noted the influence exercised by the Supreme Court in extending the activities of the United States government by its broad interpretations of the Const.i.tution.

Study the powers of the federal courts in Article III, sections 1 and 2.

What is treason? (Art. III, sec. 3, cl. I.)

What is meant by the second clause in section 3 of Article III?

READINGS

Guerrier, Edith, The Federal Executive Departments, Bulletin, 1919, No. 74, U. S. Bureau of Education. Swanton, W. I., Guide to United States Government Publications; Bulletin, 1918, No. 2, U.

S. Bureau of Education.

In Lessons in Community and National Life:

Series A: Lesson 12, History of the federal departments.

Lesson 18, Local and national governments.

Series B: Lesson 13, The Department of the Interior.

Lesson 14, The United States Public Health Service.

Lesson 21, National standards and the Bureau of Standards.

In Foerster and Pierson's American Ideals: The nature of the Union (Daniel Webster), pp. 17-26. The nature of the Union (John C.

Calhoun), pp. 27-44. Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, pp 59- 64. The frame of the national government (Bryce), pp. 285-300.

Criticism of the federal system (Bryce), pp. 301-311. Merits of the federal system (Bryce), pp. 312-321.

Beard, C. A., American Government and Politics, Part ii, especially chaps, xi and xiv Hart, A. B., Actual Government, Part v, The National Government in Action. Bryce, James, The American Commonwealth, vol. I, Part i. Wilson, Woodrow, Congressional Government (Houghton Mifflin Co.). Haskin, F. J., The American Government (Lippincott). Young, The New American Government (Macmillan).