Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies
SUBJECT: Prevention of June Buying
I want you to take steps immediately to see that there is no so-called "June buying" in your department or agency this year. Wasteful purchasing and inventory practices are an affront to the taxpayer and cannot be tolerated.
The ordering of goods and services at the end of the fiscal year to prevent the lapse of available appropriation balances is indefensible at any time. It is absolutely unthinkable this year--with men fighting and dying in Vietnam and inflationary pressures worrying us at home.
I am asking each of you personally to do whatever is necessary to insure that in your department or agency:
--orders for supplies, materials, and equipment are kept to the minimum needed to carry on essential, approved programs.
--inventories are held to normal levels.
--new contracts for future services and advance payments to contractors and vendors are made only in accordance with established plans.
By May 18, will you please report to me, through the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, the specific steps you have taken to provide top level control of your department's purchases during the remainder of the fiscal year, in the context of preventing June buying.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
Note: In response to the President's memorandum, Budget Director Charles L. Schultze submitted on June 14 a memorandum report on steps taken throughout the executive branch to prevent "June buying." The text of the report, issued as a White House press release, is printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 2, p. 773).
Lyndon B. Johnson, Memorandum on June Buying by Federal Agencies. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239037