We should also give special attention to the decentralization of industry and the development of areas that are now under-industrialized.

HOUSING

The third major policy is also of great importance to the national economy:  an aggressive program to encourage housing construction.  The first federal program to relieve the veterans’ housing shortage was announced in February 1946.  In 1946 one million family housing units have been put under construction and more than 665,000 units have already been completed.  The rate of expansion in construction has broken all records.

In the coming year the number of dwelling units built will approach, if not surpass, the top construction year of 1926.  The primary responsibility to deliver housing at reasonable prices that veterans can afford rests with private industry and with labor.  The Government will continue to expedite the flow of key building materials, to limit nonresidential construction, and to give financial support where it will do the most good.  Measures to stimulate rental housing and new types of housing construction will receive special emphasis.

To reach our long-range goal of adequate housing for all our people, comprehensive housing legislation is urgently required, similar to the non-partisan bill passed by the Senate last year.  At a minimum, such legislation should open the way for rebuilding the blighted areas of our cities and should establish positive incentives for the investment of billions of dollars of private capital in large-scale rental housing projects.  It should provide for improvement of housing in rural areas and for the construction, over a 4-year period, of half a million units of public low-rental housing.  It should authorize a single peacetime federal housing agency to assure efficient use of our resources on the vast housing front.

FISCAL AFFAIRS

The fourth major policy has to do with the balancing of the budget.  In a prosperous period such as the present one, the budget of the Federal Government should be balanced.  Prudent management of public finance requires that we begin the process of reducing the public debt.  The budget which I shall submit to you this week has a small margin of surplus.  In the Budget Message I am making recommendations which, if accepted, will result in a substantially larger surplus which should be applied to debt retirement.  One of these recommendations is that the Congress take early action to continue throughout the next fiscal year the war excise tax rates which, under the present law, will expire on June 30, 1947.

Expenditures relating to the war are still high.  Considerable sums are required to alleviate world famine and suffering.  Aid to veterans will continue at peak level.  The world situation is such that large military expenditures are required.  Interest on the public debt and certain other costs are irreducible.  For these reasons I have had to practice stringent economy in preparing the budget; and I hope that the Congress will cooperate in this program of economy.