CHAPTER V 

 Financial Administration 



The law of the United States relating to the preparation 

 of estimates, the submission of financial reports, and the 

 expenditure of appropriations is very meager and frag- 

 mentary. Indeed, it may be said that there is no general or 

 comprehensive statute designed to regulate the financial 

 affairs of the executive departments or of the other units of 

 government. Such financial legislation as there is, then, 

 consists almost wholly of small excerpts or sections from 

 general laws or appropriation acts. Some of the earlier of 

 these have been incorporated into the Revised Statutes ; 

 most of them are to be found only by searching the volumes 

 containing the Statutes at Large. ]\Iany of these legislative 

 fragments give evidence of hasty and ill-considered action 

 intended to correct some undesirable practice or abuse on 

 the part of administrative officers : few, if any, of them show 

 that their framers had any grasp of the whole situation.^ 



Speaking generally, the financial affairs of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture are subject to the same law and the 

 same methods and procedure as those of the other govern- 

 ment services. There are, however, some notable differ- 

 ences. These will be noted and emphasized in the proper 

 place in this chapter. 



The federal law governing the preparation of estimates 

 of appropriations and their submission to Congress deals 

 almost exclusively with the form which the estimates shall 

 take, the channels through which they shall be transmitted, 

 and the time when they must be furnished to Congress. 



^ For a good discussion of federal laws relating to government 

 fin.'uices see the Report of the President's Commission on Economy 

 and KlTiciency, "The Need for a National Budget," part l.pp. 15-IJ8. 



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