Other programs.—­It is recommended that the continuing forest land-acquisition program be resumed at the rate of 3 million dollars annually, which is about the minimum rate at which this program can be economically carried on.  The lands involved in this program can contribute fully to the national welfare only when brought into the national forest system for protection and development.

Such programs as those of the farm Security Administration and the farm Credit Administration are estimated to be continued during the fiscal year 1947 at about the same level as in the fiscal year 1946.  Recent action by the Congress has Permitted some expansion of the school lunch program.  I hope it will be continued and expanded.  The budgets of the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and the federal farm Mortgage Corporation will be transmitted in the spring under the terms of the Government Corporation Control Act.

4.  Transportation

Transportation is one of the major fields for both public and private investment.  Our facilities for transportation and communication must be constantly improved to serve better the convenience of the public and to facilitate the sound growth and development of the whole economy.

Federal capital outlays for transportation facilities are expected to approximate 519 million dollars in the fiscal year 1947.  State and local governments may spend 400 million dollars.  Private investment, over half of it by railways, may approach 1,150 million dollars.

The Congress has already taken steps for the resumption of work on improvement of rivers and harbors and on the construction of new Federal-aid highways.  Much needed work on airports can begin when the Congress enacts legislation now in conference between the two Houses.

The Federal expenditure estimates for the fiscal year 1947 include 53 million dollars for new construction in rivers, harbors, and the Panama Canal and 291 million dollars for highways and grade-crossing elimination, assuming that the States expend some 275 million dollars on the Federal-aid system.  Additional expenditures for highways totaling 36 million dollars are anticipated by the forest Service, National Park Service, and the Territory of Alaska.  Civil airways and airports will involve expenditures of 35 million dollars under existing authority.  Additional Federal expenditures exceeding 20 million dollars (to be matched by States and municipalities) may be made during the fiscal year 1947 under the airport legislation now in conference between the two Houses of the Congress.

The United States now controls almost two-thirds of the world’s merchant shipping, most of it Government-owned, compared with little more than one-seventh of the world’s tonnage in 1939.  This places a heavy responsibility upon the Nation to provide for speedy and efficient world commerce as a contribution to general economic recovery.

The estimates for the United States Maritime Commission and War Shipping Administration provide for the transition of shipping operation from a war to a peace basis; the sale, chartering, or lay-up of much of the war-built fleet; and for a program of ship construction of some 84 million dollars in the fiscal year 1947 to round out the merchant fleet for peacetime use.