Before a policy of government financing is laid down, it is essential that
a main objective be established. That objective, from my point of view,
should be to provide all the necessary governmental services at a mini-
mum cost to the citizens who have to pay for them. As I see it, there are
three fundamental requirements which must be met before that objec-
tive can be attained. First, there must be a thorough study and a com-
plete understanding of the needs of the citizens and the resources at
hand to fulfill these needs. Second, there must be advance planning—
looking ahead not only to the year for which a budget is being prepared
but many years in advance. And third, there must be efficient execution.
If the money we appropriate to provide the services and maintain the
institutions that the citizens demand of their government is not spent
wisely, government has failed and the taxpayers have been cheated.
These fundamental concepts have guided me, and will continue to
guide me through my term as Governor of the State.

In my first budget message to the General Assembly, delivered shortly
after my inauguration, I stated that my Administration would be dedi-
cated "to the maintenance of a sound and planned fiscal program. " My

first budget, for the fiscal year in which we are now operating, was
essentially a hold-the-line program. It called for the maintenance of all
existing State services, with the expansion and improvement of some, at
tax levels then present. The hold-the-line policy was adopted initially to
give my administration the time it needed to re-examine and re-evaluate
governmental services and governmental spending programs and to set
up the machinery for a long-range fiscal planning. This we have done,
and, although re-examination and planning are continuing processes,
I think I am justified in claiming that we have made substantial prog-
ress in advance planning and in studying and understanding our needs
in relation to our resources.

To achieve an efficient execution of our fiscal programs, we have under-
taken to reorganize and reconstitute a number of our State departments
and agencies.

I have spoken up to now mostly about broad and general policy, and
now I should like to discuss some of the specific problems one encoun-
ters in attempting to formulate a financial program to provide essential
services at a minimum cost to the taxpayers.

All of us are familiar with the business cycle which has become one of
the pronounced characteristics of the free-enterprise economic system we
have established in this country. We have lived through the boom-bust
cycles and we know what they are like. We see evidence of the fact that

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