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2. To have the Congress, instead of adopting specific legislation,delegate to the President the authority to make the laws within theframework of a general congressional directive.3. To give the President a complete free hand over the structureof the government.4. To repeal all the laws that govern procedures in administrationand have all this determined by regulations proclaimed by the President.5. To put the Comptroller General under the authority of thePresident instead of Congress.6. To put all the quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial establishments,like the Federal Trade Commission, under the direct authorityof the President.This is the program. Now in respect to this I think the followingis a fair statement: That some of these objectives have been alreadycompletely achieved, others partly achieved, and that there is notone of them we have not already either done wholly or in part atsome time in the last ten years. It is not a question whether or notthese things can happen in this country. They have happened.1. Take the first proposal to have the Congress make appropriationsin lump sums leaving it to the President to allocate this money,that is, to spend it as he sees fit—leaving it to him to determine whoshall get it. In the last ten years from 40 to 50 per cent of all federalappropriations have been made in that way. The budget of 1933-34amounted to $7,105,000,000. Of this amount $3,300,000,000 wasvoted in one big lump sum to the President, leaving it to his judgment(save for a very minor exception) to pay out to whom and insuch sums as he chose. This was the beginning of the most dangeroustendency this country has ever known. This practice has beencontinued to the present time. The blank-check appropriation isnot, then, a vague fear of something that may come to pass. It ishere and has been here for ten years.In the last days of the session before the summer recess of Congressin 1943, Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones was testifyingbefore the Banking and Currency Committee of the Senate. Thesenators were somewhat surprised to learn that the Board ofEconomic Warfare had spent about $1,500,000,000. Not one cent246

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