Inflation is apparent in the cost as well as the contents of the four volumes of the federal budget. This year they cost $26.50, up $6.30 over last year. The four volumes contain 1,092 pages. George Washington wrote his first budget out in longhand on a single sheet of paper. But, then, George Washington’s Administration did not budget $3 million to pay beekeepers for bees killed by carelessly sprayed pesticides. James Polk of the Washington Star-News looks at it this way: “For every dollar you pay in income taxes next year, the government will have to borrow another 50 cents to make ends meet. . . . Two hundred years ago the infant nation began by borrowing a mere $8 million to help underwrite the revolution amid the spirit of ’76. The debt is now roughly 76,000 times higher than that.”
■ A lot of Republicans voted against the President in the 76 to 8 vote on Mr. Ford’s proposed increase in the price of food stamps. Robert Dole (R., Kan.), who had to scramble for re- election this year, said that the GOP is too weak to be able to afford votes that seem to be “anti-people.”
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