Mr. MAHON. I thought in Arthur Burns' statement sure that this is in yours-he seemed to think probably the gress fixing a firm expenditure ceiling by June 30 and th the Executive to submit a detailed plan for complying w ng, might be the better approach. I would have no objed procedure, as the plan would not take effect if Congress it. But it seems to me in discharging our responsibilities w Congress to be willing to tell the President where the cuth have to be made in order to achieve the ceiling. That wou the bullet. That would be the more painful way of doing course, we could do it the other way and use our power o to put the responsibility on the President's back to submit complying with the ceiling.

Mr. STAATS. If this were to be done I think it would be essential that Congress spell out the criteria where reduction made and not be made.

I recall the beginning of the Korean war, after Congres pleted action on most appropriation bills, that the Cong a law which directed the President to cut back $500 milli grams that might compete with the Korean war effort. T for reduction were spelled out specifically one, two, three, the types of programs that would be cut back.

And we had the job in the Bureau of the Budget of deve recommendations for the President of how to save $500 expenditures that year for that purpose. I think that is t thing you are talking about, but certainly I would agree t Congress goes this route, then it would have to spell out t as to where the President's descretion resided.

Mr. MAHON. I want to say, Mr. Staats, that I think th is fortunate to have a man of your expertise and stature ar tion in a position of great responsibility and it is a very that you could share your views here with this joint grou you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WHITTEN. It is my own view that the people are in the Constitution. and that Congress could not knowingly power of the purse over to the executive branch without s ing the rights of the people and in my opinion abrogating sibility that I have as a representative of those people.

We are meeting here so that Congress can meet its respon While we might be able to turn some of our power over to t dent we couldn't in my opinion, without laying down on the I don't think the Constitution contemplated any such situa The gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. JAMES BROYHILL. You have given alternative suggesti to come up with a better plan. Of course, this report that we with is pretty clear in outlining what goals we need to focus on Chairman has pointed out in other hearings, we have to come a workable plan that is possible to get the Congress to adop course, your suggestions, your alternatives and your expertise vice will be helpful to that extent.

I gave very close attention to the last section of your statem that was concerning the evaluation of existing programs. Of in my opinion the evaluation of this program is going to receive

ng priority in the coming years, even if we do nothing here. Of course, if the Congress does adopt some plan here, as outlined in the committee report, it seemed to me that evaluation is even going to be more important.

So, if Congress is going to work under a budget ceiling and if Congress is going to be held accountable to that ceiling we must realize you always have more requests for expenditures than you have revenues, and we are going to have to base these budget decisions on more than just political or parochial reasons. For that reason we are going to have more evaluating of the program.

As I am sure that you are familiar with a recommendation that has been made that a time limit be placed on programs. Most of the members of this committee are members of the prestigious tax writing committees or appropriations committees of the House of Representatives or Senate. I happen to be one of the few on this committee representing one of the legislative committees. In my Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, as you know, we have adopted the practice in recent years of actually putting a time limit on authorizations, so that they must be accountable to us at some time.

Of course, as this practice advanced, on this committee and other committees, there would have to be more evaluation, not only to evaluate the program itself, but to assure that you are going to have timely action on the authorization so that the appropriation process can proceed expeditiously. So, evaluation, as you say in your statement, is an art about which all of us have much to learn.

I don't have a question, but I would like to have a general comment from you, if the plan of time limiting program authorizations is adopted what impact is this going to have, not only on professional staffs in the various congressional committees, but also on the staff that you would be required to have in order to come up with a meaningful study and evaluation.

Mr. STAATS. I would be very happy to comment on this general subject.

First, I do agree that putting a terminal date on authorizations is a good idea. I think that the tendency is that we modify, we patch up, but we rarely take a basic look at where the program is going.

Along with that, it seems to me, and I have written to all the committee chairmen making this suggestion, that at the time the program is authorized, the committee report could address itself more than it has in the past to what are the kinds of questions that the committee would like to have answers to a year hence, 2 years hence, or 3 years hence, in order to assess whether the program is working or not. I think too frequently this is not done.

The law may require an annual report, a bi-annual report, or some other type of report, but it doesn't specify what is to be in the report. Mr. JAMES BROYHILL. So the one impact you are saving is that it is going to mean that the members themselves, and particularly the leadership of the committee, is going to have to take a longer range look at these programs to have some input. We can't do it just a week before the hearing.

Mr. STAATS. If those questions are not raised at that time, the agency is not going to be much interested in assembling the data and making

the analysis it needs to make when they come back for rea or when they come up for the appropriation bill.

We can help in this process, but we can't do the who don't think we should try to do the whole job. We are i trying to force the agencies or push the agencies or sugg anything we can do to do a better job themselves.

We can, when the Congress gets reports, help the commit those reports and we can make some of our own, but the making is that we should never try to grow in size to the we try to do the whole job. We are much more interested in program evaluation efforts in GAO to the specific interests mittees of the Congress, that is, to meet their identified need agree with the idea of putting some terminal date on aut of programs. Some are that type now, as you have already What I am emphasizing is that coupled with that idea, t to be identification of kinds of answers or data and analys kind of issues the committees want to have back from the agency.

Mr. JAMES BROYHILL. What you are saying then is that it have great impact as far as increasing staff, if you have pr ning, and get the agency itself to provide the information a of course.

Mr. STAATS. That is exactly right.

Mr. JAMES BROYHILL. Thank you very much.

Chairman WHITTEN. The gentleman from Wisconsin. M Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Staats, yesterday we were presented with of a rather substantial staff. I don't know what the name w aimed to a staff for financial analysis to be under the Joint 1 Committee. While we do not specifically refer to that, I gathe your presentation here, which I was very appreciative of, tha your office as an arm of the Congress feel that you have the the know-how to provide that kind of information to us, if t permanent committee of this kind made, or the Congress in as it stands right at the present time. Was that a fair evalu your comments?

Mr. STAATS. Yes: I made two points. One is I think Cong available to it now resources from its own committees, from gressional research staff, the GAO, plus any consulting help want to hire on a temporary basis, to support the joint staff for committees which are contemplated in the Interim Report. There is a great deal of professional staff already availabl Congress. I have had an analysis made which shows that as 30, 1972, we have available in the Congress itself, and this include the Congressional Research Service or GAO, over 1.0 fessional staff members. That is as of June 30, 1972.

The other point I would make, though, is fairly fundamen I see it, if you are going to have a committee in each House charged with the responsibility of coming up with an overall or target and allocating that along the different programs or a committees, that staff ought to support those committees a be the staff of another committee of Congress. This is not critical Joint Economic Committee, but I think the staff has to be resp to those committees. It has to be servicing those committees and

don't think it would work if you put that staff somewhere else in the Congress.

Mr. DAVIS. We have had, not today, but on other days, a considerable amount of discussion on this general issue of impoundment by the Executive, and yet it does seem to me that those who talk about this from a constitutional sense are talking about an entirely different atmosphere than we have always had traditionally both in our mother country and this country where the issue traditionally has been that Executives who wanted more money for certain purposes and a legislative body who simply was not willing to grant that amount.

There is, of course, fear of constitutional authority and refusal to grant those funds.

However, we have now a kind of reverse twist of the thing where it is the Executive who is saying that I am not required to spend all of the funds that a Congress might see fit to give me and this is where we are groping for some means of congressional control to deal with the problem that would make it unnecessary for the President to take what may appear to be rather drastic action.

I think our overall problem is this: that, first of all, we have authorizations and in that area the general atmosphere is, well, we will put a ceiling on it, but they don't have to actually spend that much money. Then we come to the appropriation process and we have nationally organized full funding groups who accuse us of bad faith if we don't appropriate everything that is being authorized, and then in that atmosphere sometimes we have members who say, well, let's go ahead and appropriate it.

The President doesn't have to spend it. This all adds up. Unless the President is going to take this rather arbitrary action, it seems to me, we have to find a way to put what in itself may be an arbitrary ceiling that is going to stick and that can't be deviated from in any easy

manner.

A suggestion has been made that perhaps we ought to, once we have accurate information as to the expenditure impact of an appropriation bill and it is beyond the ceiling that Congress itself would set, that we ought to require a two-thirds vote, for instance, in both Houses, in order to achieve that. That is, Congress may be harnessing itself in that respect, but in view of this background with which I am sure you are completely familiar, is that a suggestion that appeals to you?

Mr. STAATS. I think you could either approach it from the standpoint of requiring an offsetting adjustment, or you could require a two-thirds vote to modify the ceiling.

You could work it either way. I agree with you that any ceiling is bound to be, in the eyes of someone, arbitrary. Otherwise, you have no budget process at all. That is the very nature of a budget-to make decisions which are going to be inevitably less than the total of the individual requests. I recall my own experience. We would add up all of the agency requests for the President, usually at his suggestion or request, as to what it would all add up to if we had not made some reductions and the figures were fantastic. Completely out of reason from any standpoint.

But, nevertheless, someone has to make these kinds of decisions. I think the very essence of the idea of a ceiling and allocation of priorities within that ceiling is exactly what the executive branch has had

to do, I am not saying this critically of the Congress, be have changed over the years where less and less of the to in any one year to discretion, and particularly the discr Appropriations Committees.

Mr. DAVIS. Does it seem to you that if Congress were meaningful type of ceiling that was not a substantial dev the ceiling that is contemplated in the budget documents that a President might feel inclined to go along with th within the ceiling that the Congress might set rather tha necessary to take action on some of these?

Mr. STAATS. I think it would be much more difficult for dent to argue about priorities than it is for the President to the Congress about the total size of the budget. I can see th might argue with the Congress about the total obligationa as well as expenditures because that means expenditures years. But it seems to me to be very difficult for any Preside seriously with the Congress if the totals were substantiall Mr. DAVIS. One final question.

As this Interim Report of ours points out, and it has alw matter of great concern, we have appropriated unexpen carried over from one year to the next year that are rapidly ing the point where they are going to equal the size of the yea priations. I have been told, and I have never had a chand into this, that the British, for instance, have what they c penditure budget. In other words, this is where the author spend money ceases from one year to the next, and there i thing as these huge carryovers looking like a cloud over the expenditure picture.

Have you had a chance to compare them?

Mr. STAATS. I have not examined that specifically, but comment that their procedures are quite different from our parliamentary form of government. They can make those much more rapidly. The system is much more flexible. The ment will come in with its program knowing it has the votes have the votes. I know the British have put through tax bi course of a single day, a highly complicated tax program, th take, in our case, probably months.

But I am not familiar on the specific point you mentioned Chairman WHITTEN. Mr. Roth.

Mr. ROTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I, too, would like to congratulate you for your fine statemen along with the question about the funds already in the pipelin it be desirable that insofar as these funds are uncommitted, reviewed by Congress?

Should we do the same thing with respect to appropriations Mr. STAATS. I remarked earlier that the concept that I prefe new obligational authority but total obligational authority w cludes the funds that are carried over from one year to the o seems to me, that when Congress is looking at obligational aut that it necessarily should be looking at both and looking at the total sense and adjusting the total in light of current needs of

year.