WHAT PEACE CAN MEAN TO AMERICAN FARMERS 17 



gram so that more people are covered by old-age and survivors' 

 insurance. Steps in this general direction could be made by increas- 

 ing the amount of benefit payments while retaining the present 1- 

 percent tax rates on pay rolls and making direct appropriations from 

 the Treasury to the fund if it begins seriously to decline. 



Important groups that could be covered by old-age and survivors' 

 insurance and which are not now included in the program are: 

 domestic and agricultural wage workers, the self-employed — sucli as 

 farmers and small shopkeepers — and certain classes of "white-collar" 

 workers. These groups probably represent from one-fourth to one- 

 third of the total working force. 



Improvement in the Timing and Coordination 

 of Public Expenditures 



Total demand for goods and services in this country has resulted 

 in part from public spending, in peacetime as well as in wartime 

 (table 2). Governments have long spent money to buy materials 

 and supplies, and to employ directly many thousands of workers to 

 build and maintain schools and roads, as well as to provide other types 

 of public buildings, services and facilities. Government action of this 

 kind is nothing new ; it has been an integrated part of the economic 

 activities of all types of government in this country since the earliest 

 days. Townships, school districts, counties, cities, States, and the 

 Federal Government have always employed workers. But -only in 

 recent years has the "timing" of this type of employment come to be 

 recognized as a possible means for stabilizing total employment. 



Improved timing of public expenditures to counterbalance declin- 

 ing private employment and thus maintain market outlets for the 

 products of both farm and nonfarm labor does not require any 

 increase in direct Government participation in the production plans 

 and policies of private firms. For instance, if Government steps in 

 when private employment begins to decline and contracts with private 

 firms for public improvements, it does not participate in the man- 

 agement or direction of the lumberyards, cement factories, steel mills, 

 or brickmaking firms which supply the materials for such improve- 

 ments ; nor does it participate in the management of firms that supply 

 materials when it hires labor directly for public construction jobs, 

 jobs commonly recognized as lying outside the field of private 

 enterprise. 



In the past, State and local governments have usually made their 

 heaviest expenditures for roads, schools, health facilities, public 

 buildings, and similar improvements during periods when private 

 investment was high and unemployment was low ; they have usually 

 made their smallest expenditures for these purposes when private 

 investment was low and unemployment was high. Thus, the timing- 

 was just the reverse of what it should have been to have served most 

 effectively as a stabilizer of employment. Some branch of the Fed- 

 eral Government could well be given responsibility in the future for 

 working with States and local units of Government to develop a pat- 

 tern of public spending better integrated with the ups and downs of 

 private employment and private spending. 



In part, the task could be accomplished through cooperative con- 

 sultation and planning of public expenditures by the different units 



