Pensions for veterans will require expenditures estimated at 1,748 million dollars for the fiscal year 1947.  Two-thirds of this amount will be received by veterans of the war which we have just won.  This figure includes 55 million dollars of increased pensions for student-veterans in our vocational rehabilitation program.  In addition, 170 million dollars will be expended in transfers to the National Service Life Insurance fund from general and special accounts.

Expenditures under the appropriation for salaries and expenses of the Veterans Administration are estimated at 528 million dollars in the fiscal year 1947.  This includes 260 million dollars for medical care and the operation of some 103,000 hospital and domiciliary beds.

A separate appropriation for hospital and domiciliary facilities, additional to the total for veterans’ pensions and benefits, covers construction that will provide some 13,000 hospital beds as part of the 500-million dollar hospital construction program already authorized by the Congress.  The estimated expenditures of 130 million dollars for this purpose are classified in the Budget as part of the general public works program for the next fiscal year.

(b) For interest.

Interest payments on the public debt are estimated at 5 billion dollars in the fiscal year 1947, an increase of 250 million dollars from the revised estimate for the current fiscal year.  This increase reflects chiefly payment of interest on additions to the debt this year.  Assuming continuance of present interest rates, the Government’s interest bill is now reaching the probable postwar level.

(c) For refunds.

An estimated total of 1,585 million dollars of refunds will be paid to individuals and corporations during the fiscal year 1947.  Slightly over half of this amount, or 800 million dollars, will be accessory to the simplified pay-as-you-go method of tax collection, and will be the result of overwithholding and over declaration of expected income.  Most of the remainder will arise from loss and excess-profits credit carrybacks, recomputed amortization on war plants, and special relief from the excess profits tax.

This category of expenditures is thus losing gradually its “aftermath-of-war” character, and by the succeeding year will reflect almost entirely the normal operation of loss carry-backs and current tax collection.

3.  Agricultural programs

The agricultural programs contemplated for the fiscal year 1947 are those which are essential for the provision of an adequate supply of food and other agricultural commodities with a fair return to American farmers.  To support these objectives, expenditures by the Department of Agriculture estimated at 784 million dollars from general and special accounts will be required in the fiscal year 1947.  This compares with estimated expenditures of 676 million dollars in 1946.  These figures exclude expenditures by the Department of Agriculture on account of lend-lease, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and other war expenditures.  The expenditure for the fiscal year 1947 is composed of 553 million dollars for “aids to agriculture,” 35 million dollars for general public works, and 196 million dollars for other services of the Department.