In addition, the Attorney General will soon appear before your Committees to present his recommendations for needed additional legal weapons with which to combat subversion in our country and to deal with the question of claimed immunity.

II.  STRONG ECONOMY

I turn now to the second great purpose of our government:  Along with the protection of freedom, the maintenance of a strong and growing economy.

The American economy is one of the wonders of the world.  It undergirds our international position, our military security, and the standard of living of every citizen.  This Administration is determined to keep our economy strong and to keep it growing.

At this moment we are in transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy.  I am confident that we can complete this transition without serious interruption in our economic growth.  But we shall not leave this vital matter to chance.  Economic preparedness is fully as important to the nation as military preparedness.

Subsequent special messages and the economic report on January 28 will set forth plans of the Administration and its recommendations for Congressional action.  These will include flexible credit and debt management policies; tax measures to stimulate consumer and business spending; suitable lending, guaranteeing, insuring, and grant-in-aid activities; strengthened old-age and unemployment insurance measures; improved agricultural programs; public-works plans laid well in advance; enlarged opportunities for international trade and investment.  This mere enumeration of these subjects implies the vast amount of study, coordination, and planning, to say nothing of authorizing legislation, that altogether make our economic preparedness complete.

If new conditions arise that require additional administrative or legislative action, the Administration will still be ready.  A government always ready, as this is, to take well-timed and vigorous action, and a business community willing, as ours is, to plan boldly and with confidence, can between them develop a climate assuring steady economic growth.

THE BUDGET

I shall submit to the Congress on January 21 the first budget prepared by this Administration, for the period July 1, 1954, through June 1955.  This budget is adequate to the current needs of the government.  It recognizes that a Federal budget should be a stabilizing factor in the economy.  Its tax and expenditure programs will foster individual initiative and economic growth.

Pending the transmittal of my Budget Message, I shall mention here only a few points about our budgetary situation.

First, one of our initial acts was to revise, with the cooperation of the Congress, the Budget prepared before this Administration took office.  Requests for new appropriations were greatly reduced.  In addition, the spending level provided in that Budget for the current fiscal year has been reduced by about $7,000,000,000.  In the next fiscal year we estimate a further reduction in expenditures of more than $5,000,000,000.  This will reduce the spending level over the two fiscal years by more than $12,000,000,000.  We are also reducing further our requests for new appropriations.