The Congress has already made provision for highway programs.  It is now considering legislation which would expand Federal grants and loans in several other fields, including construction of airports, hospital and health centers, housing, water pollution control facilities, and educational plant facilities.  I hope that early action will be taken to authorize these Federal programs.

With respect to public works of strictly local importance, State and local governments should proceed without Federal assistance except in planning.  This rule should be subject to review when and if the prospect of highly adverse general economic developments warrants it.

All loans and grants for public works should be planned and administered in such a way that they are brought into accord with the other elements of the Federal Program.

Our long-run objective is to achieve a program of direct Federal and Federally assisted public works which is planned in advance and synchronized with business conditions.  In this way it can make its greatest contribution to general economic stability.

(1) National housing program.

Last September I stated in my message to the Congress that housing was high on the list of matters calling for decisive action.

Since then the housing shortage in countless communities, affecting millions of families, has magnified this call to action.

Today we face both an immediate emergency and a major postwar problem.

Since VJ-day the wartime housing shortage has been growing steadily worse and pressure on real estate values has increased.  Returning veterans often cannot find a satisfactory place for their families to live, and many who buy have to pay exorbitant prices.  Rapid demobilization inevitably means further overcrowding.

A realistic and practical attack on the emergency will require aggressive action by local governments, with Federal aid, to exploit all opportunities and to give the veterans as far as possible first chance at vacancies.  It will require continuation of rent control in shortage areas as well as legislation to permit control of sales prices.  It will require maximum conversion of temporary war units for veterans’ housing and their transportation to communities with the most pressing needs; the Congress has already appropriated funds for this purpose.

The inflation in the price of housing is growing daily.

As a result of the housing shortage, it is inevitable that the present dangers of inflation in home values will continue unless the Congress takes action in the immediate future.

Legislation is now pending in the Congress which would provide for ceiling prices for old and new houses.  The authority to fix such ceilings is essential.  With such authority, our veterans and other prospective home owners would be protected against a skyrocketing of home prices.  The country would be protected from the extension of the present inflation in home values which, if allowed to continue, will threaten not only the stabilization program but our opportunities for attaining a sustained high level of home construction.