STATE AND LOCAL EXPENDITURES 13
much greater importance. In two years, 1925 and 1926,
capital expenditures exceeded 509, of the net total for all
purposes. In the former year capital expenditures for high-
ways alone amounted to more than 509%, of the net total for
both capital and maintenance. Comparisons between capital
expenditures for highways and total capital outlays and be-
tween net total expenditures for maintenance and for capital
indicate the overwhelming importance of the highway con-
struction program in the finances of the state, beginning with
the year 1923. Consideration of the relatively small amounts
of capital outlays for other purposes suggests the inference
that the state may have neglected to develop the plants
needed in its social welfare and educational activities. That
such may be the case is evident from the reports of the State
Survey Commission.!
StaTE ExPENDITURES IN Missourl CoMPARED WITH THOSE
IN OTHER STATES?
The expenditures of any state government take on added
significance when compared with those of other states. It is
only when compared with data for other states in the same
region that the fiscal statistics of Missouri attain their full
meaning. Accordingly, summary data for the expenditures
of eleven states with comparable data for Missouri are
presented in Tables 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.
Table 3 shows that in 1913 the net expenditures of Missouri
were exceeded by 6° of the 11 states and in 1918, by 5* states.
As has been seen, in 1923 and later years the expenditures of
Missouri were relatively much larger than in 1913 and 1918.
[t is not surprising, then, to find that when the data are com-
bined for the years 1923 through 1928 the expenditures of
Missouri were exceeded by only 3 states in the group,
t See particularly the pamphlet entitled “Penal and Eleemosynary Supporting
Data to the Report of the State Survey Commission. For further discussion of
this subject see Chapter IX.
* The expenditures considered in this section do not include payments for inter-
est and debt redemption. Interest payments are discussed in Chapter II. Data
in this section are on a fiscal year basis.
% Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Kentucky.
$Same as footnote 8, except Kentucky.
