Shortcomings & Solutions

Harry Truman reported last week on the State of the Union and found it "good." In two messages to Congress he was able to report that the country, at peace, was bigger, busier, and richer than it had ever been in its history.

Throughout 1948, a record number of workers (an average of over 59 million) were employed. Wages in general had kept pace with higher prices. Said the President's Economic Report: "Percentagewise, lower-income groups have enjoyed the larger gains." There had not been enough strikes to cause very much worry. Corporation profits were at a record high; in fact, having increased 16.6% over 1947, they were excessive, said the President.

People were spending their money with more caution; some businessmen were encountering some bumps; some wage groups had been left behind. But in general, he said, the country breathed confidence in the future. Moreover, he said, it breathed a new air of democracy.

It had rejected the leadership of the "privileged few." Said Mr. Truman: "We have abandoned the 'trickle-down' concept of national prosperity." The election had shown, he said, that the American people believe "poverty is just as wasteful and just as unnecessary as preventable disease." As President, he promised that there was going to be a "fair deal."

The Program. Then Harry Truman noted some "shortcomings" in an otherwise happy land. He told Congress what it should do about them and thus laid out his legislative program:

P:Prices were too high, and further inflation still threatened. Extend and strengthen rent controls for two years, said Harry Truman; give the President stand-by authority to impose ceilings on some prices and wages, power to control consumer credit, regulate speculation on commodity exchanges and allocate materials in short supply.

P:Farmers faced an uncertain future. Continue farm price support, said Truman ; restore CCC authority to build more storage bins.

P:Production of some critical materials, such as steel, was below demand. Give the President authority to study the situation and, if necessary, lend industry money to build new steel plants; and if the expansion still lagged, grant authority for the Government itself to build plants (see BUSINESS).

P:The nation was short of electric power. Build more TVAs.

P:5,000,000 families were living in slums. Build 1,000,000 low-rent housing units in the next seven years.

Other Truman remedies for shortcomings were: a prepaid medical-insurance program; federal aid to schools; the Truman civil-rights program. He also asked for universal military training, broadening of social security, extension of reciprocal trade treaties for three years. He wanted repeal of the Taft-Hartley law and re-enactment of the Wagner Act with some "improvements" such as a ban on jurisdictional strikes. Then he called for new taxes to raise $4 billion in additional revenues and five days later sent along a 1,400-page budget to explain it. He no longer advocated, as he had last year, restoring the wartime excess-profits tax. He urged Congress instead to get the money by raising rates on straight corporation taxes and rates on incomes in the middle and upper brackets.

Some observers, reading the Truman messages, saw the U.S. rushing straight into a "social-welfare state," saw it as a not too roundabout way to socialism. The Manchester Guardian, which sees socialism at first hand every day, thought that the U.S., as an alternative to socialism, was heading toward an "insurance state," i.e., "deliberate shortening of the odds against the weak but without abandoning the individualist way of life."

Change in Climate. Being neither a philosopher nor an economist, practical Harry Truman did not bother to characterize his program in philosophical terms. Actually, the State of the Union message, put together by Presidential Counsel Clark Clifford and polished by Sam Rosenman, old Roosevelt speech-polisher, was a familiar and almost dogged reiteration of virtually everything Harry Truman had been recommending for the past two years. Obviously what made everyone sit up and take notice of it this time was the fact that Harry Truman was putting it before a Democratic Congress which might very well give him a number of the things for which he asked. House Speaker Sam Rayburn last week asserted confidently that Congress would receive the program with "considerable favor." Democratic Congressman Robert ("Muley") Doughton, chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, was not so sure about one point. Said he: "The country will not look very favorably on increased taxes until the people are convinced that we are not wasting money."

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