The National Budget.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 31, 1912:
    Ultimately we shall discover all the "sneak" legislation enacted at the last session of Congress, but the end is not yet. The latest to be unearthed is the solemn enactment under cover of an appropriation bill that there shall be no annual budget prepared for the United States until Congress shall so order. If it were the intention of Congress to order budgets to be prepared no objection would be made. But Congress is so far from having such intention that the object of the "rider" is to balk a reform which is put on its way by the action of the Executive within its prerogative. It ought to be clear even to Congress that it no more can control the Executive than the Executive can control Congress. The President is not seeking to control Congress by his efforts to introduce something like system into the methods of raising taxes and spending them. Surely it is within his function lawfully to recommend such procedure when he communicates the annual estimates. With equal certitude it is within the discretion of Congress to persevere in its crazy-quilt manner of assuming that there will be a surplus whatever it spends — although actually there is a deficit — and making appropriations regardless of debits and credits. No other country does this. No other country could do it. And the United States should not do it.
    Congress seems to have been piqued because the President saw this first, and has done what it could to prevent his proceeding along a path whose end will be reached unless obstructions are placed across it. The obstruction which Congress intends to place was described by the Chairman of the Committed on Appropriations when he declared it unwise and improvident that "the time and energies of large numbers of the most capable persons in the several branches of the public service (should be) diverted to transforming the entire estimates for the next fiscal year into this new and unauthorized plan of a so-called National budget." But these estimates are submitted to Congress, not prepared by Congress. What concern is it of Congress in what form the estimates shall be submitted, unless perhaps it may be imagined that Congress fears that the estimates may be in a form which shall make unwise and improvident appropriations more difficult? If the President is to have any responsibility in the matter he must be allowed the information necessary for his discretion, and Congress is imprudent in trying to limit it.
    The estimates are prepared at present by officers acting as ministerial agents, without discretion, and without provision for Executive review. On these estimates, and without Executive recommendation, Congress proceeds to appropriate a billion dollars without much thought or care where the money is coming from. The estimates are prepared under ninety different statutes, prescribing 200 forms, and with no limitation of totals. There is no trace of responsibility anywhere, and Congress is resolved that none shall be introduced. One Representative did not scruple to complain in his official place that it cost $4,000 to print the President's message recommending abandonment of these time-dishonored methods of inflating the cost of Government.
    The President favors open-handed dealing between the Executive and Congress and the people, and wishes the people to be taken into confidence in the matter. For this reason he has instructed the Secretary of the Treasury, and the heads of all departments of Government, to proceed according to the requirements of Congress, and also to submit to him similar material for the preparation and submission of a summary statement in the form of a budget to be sent to Congress as the President's recommendation in a special message. The more Congress sputters about it the more it will commend the new departure to public approval, at least until Congress shall improve upon the President's method.