$450,000 for salaries, Bureau of Old Age and Survivors' Insurance. Both amounts have been represented as required to meet costs beyond those foreseeable when the original appropriations were being processed. The committee proposes the grant of the first amount in full. It has halved the second amount, which is entirely for personal services. Only recently has claims work fallen in arrears. Half of the additional force contemplated by the supplemental estimate may or may not be able to avoid an unreasonable backlog. The committee feels that an effort should be made to find out.

FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY

COMMUNITY FACILITIES

Authority exists under title II of the Lanham Act of June 28, 1941 (Public Law 137, 77th Cong.), as amended, to appropriate $500,000,000 for a program of public-works construction and public services in communities experiencing an abnormal growth of population because of war-connected activities.

Under such authorization, appropriations heretofore made total $477,000,000. The committee considered an estimate of appropriation for an additional $23,000,000, which would exhaust the authority to appropriate.

Of the amount heretofore appropriated, there remained on January 16, 1945, a balance free of commitments (formal or otherwise) or obligations of $12,509,694. The additional amount of $23,000,000, if appropriated, in conjunction with the balance indicated ($12,509,694), or a total of $35,509,694, would be employed, according to representations to the committee, as follows:

Irrespective of the merits of new projects, construction or service, the committee was confronted by the fact that the additional appropriation requested, if employed as projected, would leave no margin for maintaining and operating service projects when funds within the existing authorized appropriation ceiling become exhausted. That ceiling may or may not be raised. The committee has no right to assume that it will be. It must proceed in accordance with the law as it is. Therefore, in order to be certain that the maintenance and operation of service projects would continue for several months beyond the end of the current fiscal year should there be no increase in the presently authorized appropriation ceiling, the committee is recommending an additional appropriation of $20,000,000, to which it has coupled a provision that $18,000,000 thereof shall be reserved for financing contributions subsequent to June 30, 1945, for the maintenance and operation of service projects. The effect of this course as to the remainder of the current fiscal year would be to add $2,000,000

to the free balance on January 15, 1945, of $12,509,694, which would be available for employment as follows:

Maintenance and operation of existing service projects Jan. 16, 1945,

to June 30, 1945 (additional amount needed) ____.

For new projects, either construction or service, and contingencies.-

Total____

$8, 703, 437

5, 806, 257

14, 509, 694

This would leave $18,000,000 in the clear for employment as previously indicated after next June 30, and an unappropriated $3,000,000 as a backlog for such uses or needs as later may warrant the appropriation of such amount.

PUBLIC ROADS ADMINISTRATION

The committee is proposing the additional amounts requested for access roads ($15,000,000) and the strategic highway network ($8,000,000).

Section 6 of the Defense Highway Act of 1941, as amended, authorized the appropriation of $290,000,000 for access roads, and there has been appropriated heretofore under such authorization $229,600,000. All but $2,560,461 of the $290,000,000 has been committed, and the additional amount proposed is for meeting maturing bills.

Section 4 of the aforementioned act authorized the appropriation of $50,000,000 to correct critical deficiencies in the strategic network of highways and bridges. To date $20,000,000 has been appropriated under such authorization. Commitments, however, approximate $45,000,000, and here, too, the additional amount is needed for paying maturing bills.

As to these two appropriations, the committee suggests that the Bureau of the Budget should exercise the closest scrutiny and supervision of propositions to enter into further formal obligations. It would seem that purely war needs should have been fully met, either by work accomplished or under way, at this stage of the war effort.

GENERAL ACCOUNTING .OFFICE

Public Law, Seventy-ninth Congress, approved requires that the financial transactions of all Government corporations shall be audited by the General Accounting Office in accordance with the principles and procedures applicable to commercial corporate transactions and under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the Comptroller General. Pursuantly, the bill (p. 9) includes a provision for enabling the Comptroller General to engage help possessing the requisite qualifications for the discharge of this added and very important responsibility.

NATIONAL HOUSING AGENCY

Title I of the Lanham Act of October 14, 1940, as amended, authorized an appropriation of $1,500,000,000 for the purpose of meeting acute housing shortages for industrial workers and for families and civilian personnel of the Army and Navy and civilian employees of the United States Maritime Commission. There has been appropriated against such authorization $1,380,000,000, and as of January 31, 1945, there remained available for further programing but $7,878, which assumes definitely obligating all projects in the commitment category.

The Budget has proposed an additional appropriation of $90,000,000, all of which is earmarked for presently known needs for immediate purposes. These are set forth in the tabular matter on pages 163-164 of the hearings.

Of the total additional amount requested, approximately $40,000,000 is intended for meeting needs sponsored by the Army and about $29,000,000 has Navy sponsorship. These needs were justified to the committee by Under Secretary of War Patterson and Vice Admiral Moreell, respectively. The remaining amount of the estimate is for providing "must" housing in industrial areas and on account of commercial activities in which both the Army and Navy have a single or dual interest.

The committee is recommending an appropriation of $84,373,000. The reduction of $5,627,000 is responsive to these factors: (1) The Navy had made provision in its own supplemental estimates for the instant bill for 700 family type units at the naval ammunition depot, Hastings, Nebr. The amount involved is $2,520,000. That amount has been deducted from the estimate under this head and is provided for under the Navy head. (2) A Navy restudy, according to a communication the committee has from the Administrator of the National Housing Agency, dated February 21, 1945, has indicated a probable lessened need in the Norfolk-Portsmouth, Va., area, which would release $5,800,000 of the $90,000,000 estimate. The committee has taken off half of such released amount, allowing the remaining half ($2,900,000) for providing 1,000 units in Honolulu, where an acute housing shortage exists which is hampering the operation of vital military installations. One thousand units have already been programed for Hawaii out of funds heretofore made available.

The Administrator of the National Housing Agency has assured the committee that the instant proposal applies to projects which are not susceptible of private financing and that privately financed construction is availed of to the utmost.

VETERANS' ADMINISTRATION

The accompanying bill carries without change the Budget estimates for the Veterans' Administration. The total is $246,775,000, the major component being $233,000,000 for pensions, made necessary by the series of laws enacted by the Seventy-eighth Congress affecting rates of payment, standards of eligibility, and entitlement of additional groups of beneficiaries, and by the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 as regards subsistence allowances under the educational program and readjustment allowances to unemployed veterans.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

CONSERVATION AND USE OF AGRICULTURAL LAND RESOURCES

Section 5 of the act entitled "An act to amend the Federal Crop Insurance Act", Public Law 551, Seventy-eighth Congress, approved December 23, 1944, authorizes an appropriation of $30,000,000 for the War Food Administration to make payments, subject to the applicable provisions of the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, as amended, to producers to encourage an increased production of flax for the crop year 1945. For the crop year 1944, farmers planted 3,052,000 acres of flaxseed. The 1945 objective is 5,000,000 acres. As

an incentive for increased planting, $5 per acre will be offered for each acre planted.

The committee considered an estimate of $250,000 for administrative expenses of county agricultural conservation associations during the remainder of the fiscal year 1945 in establishing production goals on approximately 250,000 farms to obtain an increased production of flax in 1945. The growers very largely will be the growers of the 1944 and prior-year crops. The names and production of past growers are known and of record. Why a letter to them explaining the need for increased production and advising of the incentive payment should not suffice is not at all clear. The estimate contemplates personal contacts by community committeemen. The committee feels that a less expensive procedure is practicable and is not recommending the appropriation. There has been available the present fiscal year $16,300,000 for expenses of county agricultural conservation associations. That allocation should be adequate to absorb any added expense in the way of paper work or clerical work as may be incident to the encouragement of larger crop plantings.

INTERIOR DEPARTMENT

OFFICE OF HIGH COMMISSIONER TO THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

The Budget submitted an estimate of $40,000 for reestablishing the Office of High Commissioner to the Philippine Islands, either in Manila or elsewhere in the Philippines, before the end of the current fiscal year. The committee does not recommend that the appropriation be made.

The Office of High Commissioner to the Philippines has been vacant since shortly after the Japanese took over the islands. A nucleus of the Office (five employees) has been maintained in Washington, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior.

Section 3 of Public Law 380, Seventy-eighth Congress, approved June 29, 1944, provides as follows:

In order speedily to effectuate the policy declared in section 1, the President of the United States is hereby authorized, after proclaiming that constitutional processes and normal functions of government have been restored in the Philippine Islands and after consultation with the President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, to advance the date of the independence of the Philippine Islands by proclaiming their independence as a separate and self-governing nation prior to July 4, 1946.

Confronted with that law, the committee is unable to recommend an appropriation for the reestablishment of the Office, and certainly not on a scale comparable with the former set-up. Furthermore, since the islands are now under control of the military, which probably will need to remain in control for some period of time ahead, there is a question as to the advisability of introducing a civilian organization into the picture while such military domination obtains. In any event, the committee would not wish to provide for such a course unless it had positive assurance of the approval of the Secretary of War and General Marshall.

NAVY DEPARTMENT

There follows a summary of the Budget estimates and committee recommendations touching the Navy:

Direct appropriations...
Contractual authority..

Budget

Bill

$1,914, 120, 488. 40
136, 800, 000, 00

$1,875, 047, 488.40 114, 300, 000. 00

The reduction under direct appropriations ($39,073,000) is wholly compensated for by the committee's proposal to make available in lieu thereof certain reported surpluses under various current appropriations.

Of the direct appropriations, $80,000,000 is for deficiencies incurred or to be incurred in the fiscal year 1944. The remainder ($1,834,120,488.40) falls mainly under the following heads:

The need generally is the Navy's war activities, which have reached a tempo creating demands beyond the provision heretofore made in pursuance of estimates which had their origin more than a year ago.

The amount for contractual authority under public works ($136,800,000) has been presented under the authorization contained in Public Law 224, approved January 28, 1944, and is for projects falling under the following general classifications:

Fleet facilities: Berthing for inactive ships (itemization on p. 99 of hearings...

$20, 000, 000

Ordnance facilities: Ammunition storage, etc. (hearings, pp. 114139)

92, 021, 392

Personnel training and housing facilities (itemization commences on p. 95 of hearings) ---

24, 778, 608

136, 800, .000

Total....

The committee has eliminated the entire amount for berthing for inactive ships, and $2,500,000 toward the erection of a building at Harvard University for a school for logistical training, thus reducing the amount of contractual authority to $114,300 000.

The item for berthing inactive ships represents but a small part of a program which it is understood will be presented for consideration in connection with the 1946 naval appropriation bill. The committee feels that the program should be considered as a whole and that the projects to be deferred by such course are not of such urgency as to require advance consideration. If later approved, the time difference would be but a matter of a few weeks.

With respect to the project for a school for logistical training, the committee recognizes the need and importance of a school specializing in this vital branch of the military art. The conduct of the present wars has presented logistical problems unparalleled in history. Achievements merit the highest commendation of those responsible.