Professor Leahy, in an effort to complement the traditional functions of public expenditures, i.e. allocation, distribution and stabilization, pro? poses another function that the government should perform.1 In all its functions the government must recognize the spatial dimensions of our economy in order to improve the quantitative and qualitative aspects of man and his society. The issue of public expenditures raised in this paper deals not only with what but also with where and why public expendi? tures should be allocated. He seems to favor balanced regional economic growth and progress, or, as I shall refer to it, a "balanced public ex? penditure" concept. I do not object to the validity of Professor Leahy's thesis?that "public expenditures?their nature and impact?must be quickly and efficiently reoriented." Unfortunately, however, there is very little in? formation available on the geographic distribution and impact of federal taxing and spending. Such information is essential before an efficient reorientation of public expenditures can be implemented. According to the National Industrial Conference Board, "the diffi? culties in developing such information are staggering and require not only a large amount of statistical sorting and reclassification of budget data by state, but also numerous economic assumptions on the shifting and incidence of federal taxing and spending."2 Some federal payments are difficult to trace geographically. The real initial impact of a defense payment is at the headquarters of the defense contractor which may be in a state other than that of the defense plant. Moreover, a prime contractor may pass on parts of the original defense order to one or more variously located subcontractors. The only study that traced and allocated, state by state, the regional impact of federal taxing and spending was that developed by the Legis? lative Reference Service of the Library of Congress for the fiscal years 1965-67. The analysis was cast mainly in terms of broad indexes based on national per capita averages of federal taxing and spending. Twenty three states with 35 percent of the country's population received per capita federal outlays within reasonably close range of national average ($590). Thirteen states with 44 percent of the population fell short of 119