Doctor's Report

Along with his budget message, the President reported last week on the nation's economic health. It was a long-winded document of 11,000 words which dealt with the subject in the gingerly manner of a doctor looking over a temperamental patient. How well was the U.S. fitted to endure the rigors of mobilization?

The President and his economic advisers* prescribed some vitamins, some exercise and a plainer diet. Steel capacity would have to be raised from 103 million to about 120 million ingot tons, electric power capacity from 67 to 87 million kilowatts. Besides adding another million men & women to the armed forces within a few months, the U.S. needed "probably not less than four million more in defense production by the end of the year." More women and oldsters would have to go into industry.

Some Jargon, Some Quackery. There would be sacrifices for all to bear. The defense program might absorb up to a third of such basic commodities as copper, aluminum and rubber. Workers would have to "accept restraints and controls upon wages," forgo strikes. Families would have to make "their household goods last longer, their automobiles and appliances, their linen and clothes." Everyone would have to pay higher taxes (see above).

Unfortunately, most of the specific recommendations were buried in generalities and bureaucrat's jargon, and some were the products of political quackery. For some of the country's most vexatious twinges, the report had no specific remedy. What to do about the threat of galloping inflation? Said the doctor vaguely: "We must use direct controls, as well as the tax and credit measures."

What to do about farm and food prices, now riding up & up and taken out of the reach of price controls by act of Congress? The doctor prescribed a poultice. Said he: we must "control speculative trading." The report was also filled with good advice which no one needed so badly as the doctor himself. Sample: "All of us must plan . . . Government must assume leadership."

No Strain. But all in all, the doctor found the U.S. in roaring good health. "From the beginning of World War II . . . our national output rose by more than 60%," still showed no sign of reaching an end of expansion. "Our total [physical] output today has reached approximately the 1944 [wartime] peak . . . with much shorter hours and less strain upon facilities." Even if the contemplated defense program were doubled, "it would still be clearly within our capabilities." The U.S. was the industrial giant, alongside of whom all other industries looked puny.

The U.S. was in little danger from a collapse of its economy, the doctor concluded. The greatest danger to the giant, in fact, was that his enormous potential would be misused, or not fully utilized until too late.

* The Council of Economic Advisers: Chairman Leon Keyserling, John D. Clark, Roy Blough.

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