It is worthwhile to remember that the annual national people's
income was thirty billion dollars more last year in 1937 than it
was in 1932. It is true that the national debt increased sixteen
billion dollars, but remember that in that increase must be
included several billion dollars worth of assets which eventually
will reduce that debt and that many billion dollars of permanent
public improvements--schools, roads, bridges, tunnels, public
buildings, parks and a host of other things--meet your eye in every
one of the thirty-one hundred counties in the United States.
No doubt you will be told that the government spending program of
the past five years did not cause the increase in our national
income. They will tell you that business revived because of private
spending and investment. That is true in part, for the government
spent only a small part of the total. But that government spending
acted as a trigger to set off private activity. That is why the
total addition to our national production and national income has
been so much greater than the contribution of the government
itself.
In pursuance of that thought I said to the Congress today:
"I want to make it clear that we do not believe that we can get an
adequate rise in national income merely by investing, and lending
or spending public funds.
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