get the information and you say no, no, you shouldn't do that, you don't want to start there, I wouldn't advise the President to sign that because that just wouldn't do at all.

Mr. Asн. We are saying that you should have available to you, and we want to make sure you do have available to you the information that does allow you to do your job of considering the total of the budget and all of the parts of it. We are not denying the information. You want to characterize my position as denying you the information. It is not that. You should have all of the information, and I believe you would have it in the way most useful to you and most workable for the processes that Congress has to carry out and the processes the executive branch has to carry out. We are not talking about denial of information. We are talking about the methods of managing the total budget, the congressional parts and executive parts that can together get their job done.

If you had in hand today-let's just take-and Senator Muskie says it is not a mechanical matter, it is substantially a mechanical matteryou are starting today, or not today-or have had the opportunity to start considering the budget for the fiscal year 1974. The Office of Management and Budget will be beginning very soon getting in this pertinent information relevant to the year 1975. If you have the two in front of you at one time I think that the whole system will just come apart and we will lose 52 or 53 years of having developed a system that serves the interests of Congress for information, allows the President to carry out his responsibilities of providing useful information to the Congress by a specified time. Mechanics are important. Senator CHILES. You said you would be presumptuous to tell the Congress how it should be doing its job or seeking its information, but that is of course exactly what you are saying, and you are saying we can't sit in on those original hearings and come out where OMB is going to come out, that they are going to get mixed up and they are going to listen to the wishes, but we are not going to be able to do it. I feel like you rubbed some manure in my hair and then you kicked me out because I smell.

On the one hand you don't want to provide the information to us or don't want us to have it, and then you say we don't have the sufficient. information.

Mr. Asн. To give you a stereoscopic view of our comments, and maybe a more useful response, Mr. Cohn on my left, as you know, has been working on the process of the budget longer than anybody else in this room, and believes that he can contribute to an answer on your point. I will ask him to do so.

Mr. COHN. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I think I am going to repeat some of the things Mr. Ash said, but I would like to say them in a little different way.

I think, Mr. Chairman, we are concerned at this point with our processes and statutory deadlines. But at the outset let me say I think Congress can decide how it wants the budget system to operate. In the Budget and Accounting Act it did. It built a system in 1921 that I thought was a very good system; I think now it is still a very good system. It amended it in 1950. It was brought up to date as an entire system and is still a good system. The Congress has since amended the Budget and Accounting Act a few other times and each of these

times it did not look at the entire system. There were problems the Congress had, and the Congress thought that another requirement on the President and on the OMB might help Congress solve its problems For example, there is now a requirement for a June report to the Congress and a requirement for certain 5-year projections to the Congress in the annual budget. I don't object to these requirements, but they were not made within the context of a system.

How does the Congress want the budget put together? The Budget and Accounting Act says in effect, that the Congress wants to start its work with the President's budget before it. The President has a big job in formulating that budget and sending it to the Congress, especially in the last 10 years. In that period, at least, the Congress has not finished with its appropriations actions for the year that started the preceding July 1, sometimes until the next calendar year, and sometimes until between October and December, up to 6 months after the affected fiscal year begins. Now, this gives the President and it gives us in the Office of Management and Budget many problems in working with agency requests. They are often based on guesses as to what Congress will do. We change figures back and forth as the committees and the Congress act.

I personally think that Senator Muskie's bill might be used if we change the system and make it part of a different system. But to take it and superimpose it on the same system we have had-a system that requires the President by a date certain to get a budget to the Congress, and requires him to start on his budget proposals when the Congress has left things for the prior year unfinished-I think Senator Muskie's bill adds more problems and requires more time. The more problems that are added, the greater is the probability that the budget system by which the President provides you with a timely budget may be given added weight it cannot carry. If you want to change the system, and the new committee on budget control is probably looking at it this way, we have to think of a whole system, not a bill that says here is another requirement, and then another bill, here is another requirement.

I would suggest, therefore, that if you want to change the system and you no longer want the President's budget-I would advise against it if asked-but maybe you want a legislative manager's budget or some other person's budget, you can do that and you will get the kind of budget you want. Right now the law rightly puts a responsibility on the President and I think the problems we have in fulfilling that responsibility, and fulfilling it in a way we think is responsible, or the source of the difficulties that lead to the comments Mr. Ash made.

Senator CHILES. I think that is a much more constructive answer and that is the kind of thing where we can determine whether there are problems in the act and whether it should be addressed on a broader spectrum that you set forth.

One more question that I would just like to ask you.

Mr. Ash, currently housing programs are being suspended or terminated because they are said to be wasteful or inefficient. In some instances suspended for 18 months, in some instances terminated. We had some colloquy before. I want to ask you if that standard is being

applied on such a broad scale in defense procurement programs, can you tell me whether OMB has looked at programs like the C-5A or the F-14 and determined whether they are inefficient or whether they should be suspended for any period of time and whether there are on your list any such programs as those?

Mr. Ash. If you will note on page 51 or 52 of the budget of those various actions that relate to this subject you will note that relative to the Department of Defense, this is page 52, relative to the Department of Defense there are a number of very specific items set forth, six, in particular, that do give rise to outlay savings in 1974, $2 billion, 1975, $2.7 billion.

Senator CHILES. Would you numerate any program that is being suspended or being held because it is ineffective, any weapons system

Mr. Asн. A safeguard site is one in particular. There are also some programs involving aircraft, and missiles. To get the detail I have to see what they are. There are a number there. Some research and development reductions, and All Voluntary Force program reductions. Senator CHILES. I see for 1973, zero.

Mr. As. That is right, because typically in the defense areas the leadtimes of those kinds of programs are so different than other areas that they are zero here.

Senator CHILES. Are you saying there is no leadtime in housing? Mr. ASH. When one was suspended it was making new commitments. What was not suspended was continuation of work already made. There are leadtimes in housing and in fact it was the very recognition of that leadtime in housing that allows subsidized housing starts to continue at almost exactly the same level through all fiscal year 1974. You will note in housing there were no savings, in model cities, none in 1973 and 1974, only in 1975, whereas defense came in 1974. Senator CHILES. What about urban renewal?

Mr. AsH. 1975, not 1973 and 1974. So the leadtimes were considered in each program, including defense.

Senator CHILES. In the Farm Home Administration, were they considered there, new housing?

Mr. ASH. No new commitments were made or will be made pending the 18-months' study, but under the old commitments there will be a continuation of outlays at almost exactly the same level because of the very long leadtimes that are in housing outlays. So that is one of the many similarities to defense. The savings are not in this immediate year. Housing-the actual expenditures will be about the same, but there will be savings in years into the future.

Senator CHILES. But you can't cite to me any specific program that you have found to be

Mr. ASH. One of the safeguard sites is one and I am sure there are other particular ones here we can elaborate on. Page 52 has a summary of them. But you will notice

Senator CHILES. Do you know whether the landing helicopter assault program is being considered?

Mr. Asн. I don't know whether that is among this or not. I don't know. But I am sure that if you want the detail that lies behind this program we can provide it.

Senator CHILES. Yes, sir, I would very much like to have it.

(The Office of Management and Budget subsequently provided the following information for the record:)

The original LHA General Purpose Assault Ship program provided for nine ships. Current plans provide for the construction of only five ships. No reduction or increase in this program level is proposed for 1973 or 1974. Resources are requested in 1974 to fund the contract at the ceiling price for the five ships.

Mr. Asн. But defense is one of the largest reductions of any, that of defense as it relates to

Senator CHILES. But zero in 1973?

Mr. ASH. Zero in the 6 months or now about 5 months remaining in fiscal 1973 because of the leadtime consideration, about the same as for urban renewal and about the same as for housing. The leadtimes are such that there are no reductions in outlays for a number of months, if not years, because of the nature of those kinds of programs.

Senator PERCY. Mr. Ash, I would like to get into another area, and I am sorry that Senator Muskie is not here as I will want to discuss this directly with him.

Based on what I know now I will oppose the Muskie bill. We have a complicated enough job over here without further complicating it by agencies submitting their budget requests in raw form to us at the time of original submission to OMB. I wouldn't want to see the raw material that comes over here nor start all the processes and have Senators and Congressmen react prematurely to those requests and programs which have not been through an evaluation process.

You can see how we operate. We go on authorization committees and we are supposed to be the advocate for those committees. The assignment I had when I first arrived in the Senate involved the Space Committee. We were supposed to fight for money for space. But we went again against the grain. We cut the space program by half. That was going against the grain. I have seen authorization bills go in where I have sat with colleagues of mine who say literally, "We need $150 million so we will put $300 million because appropriations committees are going to cut it in half and agencies do the same thing." I don't think we have any business getting into that.

I think the Metcalf bill of last year makes better sense, in addition to the problem of regulating agency budgets. By that bill, the regulatory agencies can send their budgets to us at the same time as they are forwarded to OMB. Regulatory agencies of Congress are meant to be independent of the executive branch of government once created. So we have much more basis, much more reason to treat them differently. But I would oppose the Muskie bill.

Seeking however, to find a way to provide legitimately the kind of information that might be useful to us, would it be possible for OMB, as soon as the budget is presented and without waiting for committees to make individual and separate requests, simply to send us in one document the original request made of that agency so that it could be available at the time we want it-at the time we scrutinize it against the overall budget?

Mr. ASH. I can suggest a problem to that, but I must say that you will have to understand more.

But as you probably know, Senator, it is hard to define what constitutes an original request. There are a number of discussions that take place. First there can be verbal, let alone even in writing. Then

at some point they evolve into a firm position, even though that position then is itself changed and is not the one that is finally included in the budget.

Senator PERCY. If I am on the Space Committee, Mr. Ash, and I am at the time the budget comes up which asks for say $314 billion, and the committee asks OMB to advise what the original request of NASA was, that is what I would want sent up automatically that figure that you feel represents the final agreed upon request of the agency.

Mr. Asн. From the point of view of just the mechanics by which you can best serve your purpose, would it not be even more useful to you to get that information directly from the agency so that at the time you can inquire of them what a particular number means or doesn't mean? It is, of course, a voluminous amount of information and I suppose since it is voluminous-well since the construction of your own committee structure is such that this information would go to many different agencies it might be more useful to you if each committee dealing with its own subject matter were to get that information from the agencies themselves. I wonder what would happen if a great big voluminous amount of information came in altogether and had to be divided up. It may not be as useful as dealing with the agencies themselves. I will certainly consider your thought.

Senator PERCY. It would be helpful if you could work out some logical and reasonable compromise that would recognize this, without causing undue burden.

Mr. Asн. We will think through the suggestion you have made and respond as to how workable such a situation might be.

Senator PERCY. Mr. Ash, Senator Ervin sponsored a bill, which I cosponsored to require confirmation for the director and deputy director of OMB. It passed by 63 to 17 as I recall. Is the prospect of being subjected to Senate confirmation in any way disagreeable to you?

Mr. Asн. Yes; I believe that the principle here is an incorrect principle that says that the Director of OMB should be a confirmable job, and I think that the basis for that is a fairly good one. The OMB is an integral part of the President's office. Its director and others in the OMB are, therefore, as much a part of the staff of the President as your own staff is really an extension of yourself and for the very reasons I would think you would prefer not to have your staff subject to somebody's confirmation, I don't know whose it would be. The President at the same time would believe and I join in that belief that to require the confirmation of the Director of OMB is to require the confirmation of one portion of his personal staff.

Senator PERCY. Another bill, I did introduce myself, contains a grandfather clause for existing occupants to establish a principle without affecting existing appointments, but I am not the author of the OMB bill, and I respect Senator Irvin's proposal.

There are other jobs, though. The Director of CIA is a part of your Office of the President and he is subject to Senate confirmation, and I think to the value of all concerned.

Rowland Evans or Bob Novak last night on television said that on the basis of discussions that he had had with Presidential advisers to Presidents in the White House-should Congress act to require Senate confirmation of the Director of OMB the President would actually divest you of that title. He would instead appoint you as a Special

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