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General revenue sharing was supported and initiated by a diverse group of advocates, each of whom expected it to accomplish a different goal or to meet a different need. After reviewing the specific reasons used to support the program, this article reviews revenue sharing in action. Several questionable results are then discussed, including the program's fiscal impact on state and local governments, its impact on state and local spending priorities, and its impact on governmental reform at the state and local level. The concluding section considers the possible future of general revenue sharing during the 1975 congressional session. Three congressional choices are outlined and fully discussed: (1) improving and expanding general revenue sharing; (2) abolishing it in favor of the federal government's assuming the costs and administration of various state and local expenses (welfare, for example); or (3) expanding block grants while reducing or eliminating general revenue sharing. Throughout the discussion, the importance of state and local governmental reform is stressed.

The United States has maintained a foreign aid program since World War II, but the objectives of aid have been mixed. When President Truman announced the technical assistance program in 1949, many hoped that we had embarked on a continuing commitment to assist poorer coun tries toward economic development. Actually, aid in recent years has been largely military aid, and even economic assist ance has been concentrated in a few countries of strategic value to us. Aside from this overemphasis on military aid, our main problem has been the failure to recognize that haphazard, project-by-project economic grants or loans, administered by many agencies, do not much help poor countries. Economic development requires capital, technical skills, and entrepre neurship in combination. It will not take place without educa tion and social reforms creating incentives for progress among the majority in any country. The new program proposed by President Kennedy could go far to correct present deficiencies. It would commit the United States to long-term development assistance, administered by a new aid agency, in accordance with plans to be worked out by recipient countries. The role of the United States will continue to be difficult. We must learn to tie together money, projects, and people in effective ways and to supervise all programs closely. Yet we will have to avoid giving offense to countries which ask for aid, and we must persuade them to invite increasing participation by United States businesses in all types of enterprise. We should continue to try to strengthen the economic foundations of the free world, but we must not try to buy friendship, and we must be sympathetic toward true neutralism in politics.