From his annual budget messages to congress:
Herbert Hoover: Annual Budget Message to the Congress, Fiscal Year 1931 [December 1929]: [E]stimates of appropriations payable from the Treasury in this Budget is $145,696,000 less than the appropriations for 1930. The estimates in the Budget, however, contain no amount for the revolving loan fund for the Federal Farm Board, for which $150,000,000 is included in the appropriations for 1930.... Eliminating this item from the 1930 total the estimates of appropriations in the Budget for 1931 exceed the appropriations for 1930 by $4,304,000.... Through nonrecurring items and justified reductions in other items funds have been found to make increases in certain of our activities without enlarging to any appreciable extent the total of the estimates for 1931 over the appropriations for 1930...
Herbert Hoover: Annual Budget Message to the Congress, Fiscal Year 1932 [December 1930]: This is not a time when we can afford to embark upon any new or enlarged ventures of Government. It will tax our every resource to expand in directions providing employment during the next few months upon already authorized projects. I realize that, naturally, there will be before the Congress this session many legislative matters involving additions to our estimated expenditures for 1932, and the plea of unemployment will be advanced as reasons for many new ventures, but no reasonable view of the outlook warrants such pleas as apply to expenditures in the 1932 Budget. I have full faith that in acting upon these matters the Congress will give due consideration to our financial outlook. I am satisfied that in the absence of further legislation imposing any considerable burden upon our 1932 finances we can close that year with a balanced Budget. When we stop to consider that we are progressively amortizing our public debt, and that a balanced Budget is being presented for 1932, even after drastic writing down of expected revenue, I believe it will be agreed that our Government finances are in a sound condition...
Herbert Hoover: Annual Budget Message to the Congress, Fiscal Year 1933 [December 1931]: [I]n spite of an estimated... reduction in expenditures of more than $365,000,000, a large excess of expenditures is still indicated for the fiscal year 1933 under present laws.... My recommendations appear later in this message....
For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1932, the receipts... are now expected to fail of realization because of the severity of the depression.... Rigid reduction of expenses elsewhere supplemented by decreases in public-debt expenditures on account of the moratorium and smaller tax refunds than were originally estimated serve to offset the total increases. These changes in receipts and expenditures indicate a deficit of $2,123,000,000 which includes statutory debt retirement or a probable net debt increase of $1,711,000,000....
We are now face to face with a situation where for a time the current revenues of the Government under our existing laws have fallen below the amounts required to meet the absolutely necessary expenses.... We can not maintain public confidence nor stability of the Federal Government without undertaking some temporary tax increases. It is obviously impossible to impose a degree of taxation which will balance the Budget for the current fiscal year. We should endeavor by increase of taxes and rigid curtailment of expenditures to balance the Budget for the next fiscal year.... I recommend that Congress provide for an increase in taxation for a definite limited period and upon the general plan of taxation which existed under the revenue act of 1924.... In framing this Budget, I have proceeded on the basis that the estimates for 1933 should ask for only the minimum amounts which are absolutely essential for the operation of the Government under existing law, after making due allowance for continuing appropriations. The appropriation estimates for 1933 reflect a drastic curtailment of the expenses of Federal activities in all directions where a consideration of the public welfare would permit it....
We have recently closed one fiscal year and are now advanced into another year where the depression in business has resulted, on the one hand, in a heavy falling off in receipts and, on the other hand, in large Federal expenditures to provide work to assist in the relief of unemployment. The welfare of the country demands that the financial integrity of the Federal Government be maintained. This is a necessary factor in the rebuilding of a sound national prosperity. This Budget, with its recommended reductions in appropriations and increases in revenues, presents a definite program to this end involving three steps--first, a material reduction in the anticipated deficit for the current fiscal year; second, a relation between receipts and expenditures for the fiscal year 1933 which will avoid a further increase in the public debt during that year; and third, a balanced Budget for 1934. To carry out this program it is important to emphasize the fact that we are now in a period where Federal finances will not permit of the assumption of any obligations which will enlarge the expenditures to be met from the ordinary receipts of the Government.... To those individuals or groups who normally would importune the Congress to enact measures in which they are interested, I wish to say that the most patriotic duty which they can perform at this time is to themselves refrain and to discourage others from seeking any increase in the drain upon public finances...
