request. The President's budget, calculated as a 

 percentage of the Department of Agriculture's 

 request, shows that in the period 1955-1961 

 the so-called "one-eyed bookkeepers" were 

 forwarding requests equal to 96.2 percent of 

 the departmental requests. In only two in- 

 stances did the President's Budget call for 

 funding below 90 percent of the level re- 

 quested by the Department of Agriculture, 

 and it was precisely in these two resource 

 areas (F and O) that we find the greatest ap- 

 parent reluctance on the part of the Congress 

 to correct slashes. It is in these two areas that 

 the Forest Service is least able to demonstrate 

 the consequences of management alternatives. 



It would appear, then that during the pe- 

 riod prior to enactment of the MU-SY Act 

 (1955-1961), the largest deviations from the 

 original requests by the Forest Service were 

 coming at the hands of the Department of 

 Agriculture. This situation was altered some- 

 what in the period following the passage of 

 the MU-SY Act (1962-1972); the data indi- 

 cate that the Bureau of the Budget on the 

 average only requested 87.8 percent of the de- 

 partment request in its messages sent to Con- 

 gress. In the latter period, cuts were made at 

 both levels of the administration. A possible 

 explanation may be found in the political 

 realities. The relationship of the Secretary of 

 Agriculture to the Office of the President is 

 very similar to that of the Bureau of the 

 Budget. Thus, in the earlier period, a similar- 

 ity between the two in handling of budget re- 

 quests is not surprising. The process by which 



reductions at these two levels are later re- 

 versed in the congressional appropriations is 

 apparent from the testimony before the con- 

 gressional appropriations subcommittees. It 

 would appear that when budget cuts are sug- 

 gested by the two intermediate administrative 

 departments, the Forest Service responds by 

 reducing its requests in the areas "closest to 

 home" with respect to specific Senate and 

 House members seated in the subcommittees. 

 As the hearings proceed, the Congressmen one 

 by one inquire about the funding of their fa- 

 vorite projects only to find that these are the 

 items that have been reduced. Not surpris- 

 ingly, they are quick to catch such items. 

 When the final appropriations package is pre- 

 sented to the full Appropriations Committee, 

 most of the cuts have been restored. Obvious- 

 ly, this process is not specifically operative 

 with respect to the Forest Service, as evi- 

 denced by the following exchange during 

 congressional hearings in 1968: 79 



Chairman Proxmire: We might as well be as 

 blunt and comprehensive as we can on this. The 

 problem is, we are not just dealing with sheer 

 economic theory. We are dealing with some 

 hard, tough political facts. The people who 

 really determine whether we go ahead with 

 many of these projects are the members of the 

 Senate and the House Interior Committees and 

 the Secretary of the Interior. The President and 

 Members of Congress have many, many other 

 obligations and we tend to delegate to these 

 gentlemen our decisions to a considerable ex- 

 tent in this area. 



'As quoted in Haveman (1970, p. 146). 



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