Hospitals, sanitation works, and additional facilities at medical schools will be required for an adequate national health program.  Legislation is now pending in the Congress to authorize grants for the construction of hospitals and health centers and grants and loans for water-pollution control.  I hope the Congress will act favorably on generous authorizing legislation.

7.  Research and education

The Budget provides for continuation and desirable expansion of the research activities that are carried on throughout the Federal establishment and through previously authorized grants to the States.  Additional appropriations will be required for the proposed central Federal research agency which I recommended last September 6.  That agency will coordinate existing research activities and administer funds for new research activities wherever they are needed; it will not itself conduct research.  The plan contemplates expenditures through the new research agency of approximately 40 million dollars for the first year.

These amounts are small in relation to the important contribution they can make to the national income, the welfare of our people, and the common defense.  Expenditures must be limited for the time being by the capacity of research agencies to make wise use of funds.  The maintenance of our position as a nation, however, will require more emphasis on research expenditures in the future than in the past.

Educational expenditures will require a significant share of the national income in the fiscal year 1947.  State, local, and private expenditures for the current support of elementary, secondary, and higher education are expected to be substantially above 3 billion dollars in that year.  These nonfederal expenditures will be supplemented by Federal expenditures estimated at 625 million dollars in the present Budget.  Of this amount, the estimate for veterans’ education, as previously mentioned, is 535 million dollars.  Other amounts include 21 million dollars for the support of vocational education in public schools, 5 million dollars for the land-grant colleges, 50 million dollars for the present school-lunch and milk program, 1 million dollars for the Office of Education, and approximately 13 million dollars for various other items.  In view of the major policy issues which are still under study by the Congress and the Administration, no specific amount has been determined for the Federal grants, previously recommended in this Message, which would assist the States generally in assuring more nearly equal opportunities for a good education.

Notwithstanding the urgent need for additional school and college buildings, careful planning will be required for the expenditures to be made under the proposed legislation to aid the States in providing educational facilities.  A major share of the grants for the first year would be for surveys and plans.

I have already outlined the broad objectives of our foreign economic policy.  In the present section I shall indicate the Federal outlays which the execution of these programs may require in the fiscal years 1946 and 1947.